[Vision2020] Don't Risk Loss of Tourism Dollars

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (September 9, 2010) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with
specail thanks to Janice Inghram of Grangeville.

--------------------------------------------------------

Don't risk loss of tourism dollars

Supporters of converting U.S. Highway 12 into a mega-load industrial truck
route claim this conversion would bring needed jobs to the area. The Idaho
Transportation Department says just the opposite on their own website.
Their Northwest Passage Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan states the
scenic byway plays a major role in what ITD cites as a $149 million annual
tourist industry in north central Idaho. Yet ITD appears willing to risk
the jobs and revenue associated with that industry along with the gas and
sales taxes it adds to the state's revenue base, while Idaho subsidizes
some of the largest international corporations in the world.

If north central Idaho's tourist industry suffers just a 10 percent
decline because of the conversion of Highway 12 to a high and wide
mega-load trucking corridor, Idahoans will lose $15 million annually. At a
$5/bushel wheat price, a 20 percent decline in tourism would be the
financial equivalent of a 56 percent crop failure of all winter and spring
wheat harvested in Idaho, Lewis and Clearwater counties in 2009. The next
year's crops might recover, but the damage to the tourism industry would
be long lasting. Many Idahoans would likely call such a crop loss a
disaster. The supporters of the big rigs call a loss in tourism dollars
"progress."

Janice Inghram, Grangeville

--------------------------------------------------------

While Moscow's city council (a city council once eager to sell Moscow's
water across the sate line) turns its collective back on the very people
they were elected to represent, a voice of concern (with a "not on my
watch" attitude) echoes from the small town of Grangeville.

The sentiment reflected in Ms. Inghram's letter has been evident in, and
preceeded by, countless other letters.

Yet, Moscow's city council chooses to ignore those letters and voices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs2EHXOxFSg

Perhaps someof you fine people here om Vision 2020 (and elsewhere) would
like to express your "appreciation" to the Moscow City Council for their
"efforts" in response to their constituency's concerns.


Wayne Krauss
wkrauss at ci.moscow.id.us

Walter Steed
wmsteed at ci.moscow.id.us

Sue Scott
sscott at ci.moscow.id.us

Tim Brown
tbrown at ci.moscow.id.us

Dan Carscallen
dcarscallen at ci.moscow.id.us

Tom Lamar
tlamar at ci.moscow.id.us

Thanks again, Ms. Inghram, and . . .

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown