Property Owners Have Duty To Keep It Clean
Alden Arveson learned Friday that his private property rights aren’t a license to offend. Arveson? He’s a Garwood Road packrat who has angered neighbors for a decade by creating a personal junk yard. His property is covered with scrap metal, car bodies, tires and broken-down trailers. An enormous fence made of mobile home siding adds to the eyesore. County officials have wasted hundreds of hours trying to get Arveson to clean up his act. Last week, Judge James Judd ordered him jailed. Now, Arveson believes he’s being persecuted a la Randy Weaver and calls neighbors and county officials “busybodies.” Says Arveson: “It’s just a crying shame that an honest hard-working person is being dictated by planning and zoning.” No, it’s a crying shame that this situation lasted so long.
‘Snake in the garden’ bites D’s
Hmmm. How badly did Linda Payne misstep in her comments about a possible successor to Democrat Tom Moore, the Kootenai County assessor who died Tuesday? Consider a letter to the Coeur d’Alene Press from County Administrator Tom Taggart. Taggart wrote that Payne, the county Democratic leader, owed Moore’s family an apology and urged local Democrats to replace her. On Oct. 31, Moore switched parties so his chief deputy, Republican Mike McDowell, would have the inside track as his replacement. Payne accused McDowell of coercing the deathbed conversion and called him “a wicked snake in the garden.” The significance of Taggart’s broadside? Before he became county administrator, Taggart was a die-hard Democrat and respected county clerk. The D’s troubles continue.
The Smiths prove networks fallible
The national media did a good job predicting election winners this year. All but blind GOP partisans, for example, knew weeks ago Bill Clinton was going to win (though not by the predicted bazillion percentage points). Then, North Idahoans knew before their polls had closed that U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, easily had beaten Democratic challenger Walt Minnick. So, it was refreshing that the Republican Smiths tripped up the exit pollers: senator-elect Bob in New Hampshire and Gordon in Oregon and now U.S. Rep. Linda in Washington. Each was declared a loser election night. Bob and Gordon won. Now, Linda has pulled ahead of Democrat Brian Baird by some 700 votes in Washington’s 3rd District with some 10,000 to 12,000 absentee ballots left to be counted. It’s nice to see the networks, which officially called the presidential race at 6 o’clock election night, forced to eat a morsel of crow.
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