[Vision2020] Certainly No Thinking Person is Surprised . . .

[Saundra Lund]

. . . that Moscow rejects the theocracy inherent from the "views" of people
like Paula Bauer (a la Gresham Bouma & his pastor Lloyd Knerr).  The genuine
rub, however, is that the outlying areas are no more interested in the
peculiar theocracy Bauer & Bouma crave than the city of Moscow is, something
the blogger unfortunately missed in a big way.

Frankly, I'm disappointed there's not been discussion on the Viz about the
reapportionment . . . 


Saundra Lund
Moscow, ID

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
nothing.
~ Edmund Burke

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http://lmtribune.com/blogs/political_theater/article_2a7f6630-9def-11e0-a494
-001a4bcf6878.html

Moscow not feeling the love

by Bill Spence | 0 comments 

There was a distinct anti-Moscow flavor to the Idaho Commission on
Reapportionment meeting in Moscow this afternoon.

A number of rural residents, including several Republican Party officials,
urged the commission to split the rural portion of Latah County away from
Moscow and pair it with Benewah and Shoshone counties to the north.

"There's a widespread sense of disenfranchisement in the outlying areas ...
a strong sense that it's futile to fight against Moscow," said Paula Bauer,
the Republican precinct chair for Viola and the first person to address the
commission during its public listening session at the University of Idaho
today.

Bauer said rural Latah County has more in common Benewah and Shoshone
counties, whereas Moscow is more similar to Lewiston. When it redraws
legislative district boundaries to reflect the 2010 census populations, she
urged the commission to put two cities together in a single district, while
pairing the rural communities in a second district.

"It's not that we don't like them (Moscow residents)," she said. "It's
recognizing that our values, our interests and our needs are different."

Pam Kaynor, chair of the Benewah County Republican Central Committee, said
her county commissioners have no interest in being put in the same district
as Moscow.

"The only part of Latah County we feel linked to is northern (rural) Latah,"
she said. "If not that, we don't want it."

Latah County is a standalone legislative district right now, but that will
have to change because it's population isn't great enough. Either it gets
split between two or more districts, or it gets paired with other areas.

Latah County Commissioner Tom Stroschein encouraged the commission to keep
it whole. The primary options would be to pair it with Benewah County to the
north or with Clearwater County to the east. He didn't indicate which he
would prefer, but said he'd "hate to see local government have to work with
legislators who didn't live in the county and didn't understand our county
roots."

Commissioner Evan Frasure of Pocatello said the Latah, Nez Perce, Clearwater
County region "is one of the more difficult areas in the state to lump
together in a logical way. I've redrawn this area 15 times and not come up
with anything."