Huckleberries: Stewart says task force satisfied with Regan apology

Trustee Brent Regan of the Coeur d’Alene School District has performed proper contrition for his insensitive anti-Obama joke at a recent legislative forum.

Tony Stewart told Huckleberries that his Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations is satisfied with Regan’s apology to district students, parents, administrators and teachers. The task force, which was instrumental in bankrupting the Aryan Nations, is also satisfied that other trustees took the inappropriateness of Regan’s comment seriously.

At a press conference, the task force had called on Regan to apologize for his remark – and for other trustees to provide their views on it. The task force, admitted Stewart, was criticized for staging the press conference, with some saying that the presser was overreacting to a bad joke and others saying that it hadn’t gone far enough.

The task force took a stand, Stewart said, to let students know they are important and deserve to be treated with dignity – and to let officeholders know they must watch their words. “We didn’t please everyone,” Stewart said. “But we’ve always spoken out.”

No likey

In the “How Soon They Forget” Department, Michael Tate circulated a news release to Huckleberries from congressman Raul Labrador’s office last week announcing that Neil Siefring and he are new staffers. The news release said Siefring was replacing Jason Bohrer as Labrador’s legislative director. But it didn’t mention the man that Tate replaced as communications director: Phil Hardy. Yeah, the staffer who lost his job when he inadvertently tweeted on the boss’s account a reaction to that raunchy “Two Broke Girls” commercial during the Super Bowl – you know, “Me likey Broke Girls.”

Huckleberries

Spokeswoman Christie Wood of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department tells Huckleberries that she didn’t tweet the following for the department on Valentine’s Day: “Happy Valentine’s Day from your Police Department!!” But, she said, “I share the sentiment.” What did you expect from a police department protecting the “City with A Heart”? … Poet’s Corner: “Golden necklace,/no fancy French wine – /we’ll share this six pack/if you will be mine” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“North Idaho Valentine”) … Poll: 59 percent of my Huckleberries blog readers agree with President Barack Obama that the minimum wage should be at least $9 per hour. This, in a state that begrudges paying the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour … Kudos to North Idaho College President Joe Dunlap in refusing to disclose his party affiliation to North Idaho Pachyderms during a Q-and-A after his speech Friday morning. The small-tent Kootenai County GOP will have to visit the courthouse to find out for themselves. And they will.

Parting shot

Yeah, a union from Kent, Wash., picketed Kootenai Medical Center last week. Hospital spokeswoman Kim Anderson told Huckleberries: “They have targeted us because Kootenai has retained a construction contractor with whom they are in a dispute. As a public hospital, Kootenai follows Idaho Public Works statutes, and by law, we are required to award construction contracts to the low-bid, qualified contractor.”

The unhappy union might be from Washington, but the members on the picket line were from Kootenai County: Brian Phillips, of Coeur d’Alene; Daniel Kofstad, of Coeur d’Alene; and John Vanderpool, of Rathdrum. Union workers are about as rare in right-to-work Idaho as Democrats.