Idaho Voices

I guess it’s time I finally made a confession. Four years ago, I totally stiffed the Donut House out of 18 cents. A friend and I were driving up Government Way in Hayden one bleary day when fate suddenly dropped a pale yellow home in front of us and it had a simple and irresistible sign: “Donut House.” We staggered, zombielike, inside and loaded our tray with 5,000 calories worth of baked goods and lattes. When I handed the cashier my debit card, she said “cash only, baby,” so we rifled through wallets, pockets and car seats until we had almost, but not quite enough coins to cover it.

The North Idaho Health Network is sponsoring a series of four, hands-on classes geared to helping people adopt a healthy lifestyle. Jump Start to Health will be held on consecutive Tuesdays, starting Feb. 16, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Kootenai Medical Center. The cost is $25 for the series, open to anyone over 18 years of age. Space is limited and preregistration is required.

BOISE – Idaho law currently makes it a misdemeanor for law enforcement officers or prosecutors who know about unlawful gambling to fail to prosecute it, and “the way gambling is defined in the code, it covers your mother-in-law’s football pool,” according to Rep. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise. Law enforcement and prosecutors generally have more discretion than that, says Burgoyne, a lawyer, so he proposed legislation to eliminate the clause. His bill, House Bill 422, zipped through the House last week with just one “no” vote, from Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, and no debate.

SPOKANE COUNTY/COEUR D’ALENE – Camp Fire USA of the Inland Northwest’s annual candy fundraiser is under way. Camp Fire girls will be selling chocolate mint patties, chocolate swirled with caramel and almonds, Almond Roca, toffee-coated peanuts, and trail mix in area grocery stores through March 7. The candies may be purchased for $6 per package.

Technology for education is the focus of Ednetics, a little-known business with its national headquarters in Post Falls. It’s mission is somewhat complicated, especially for technologically handicapped people; the company builds infrastructures and finds data networking and security solutions for schools. Hence the name Ednetics. And they’re obviously successful. They’ve poured the footings for a 32,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 971 S. Clearwater Loop near the University of Idaho Research Park in Post Falls. They also have a facility in Bellevue, Wash., and they’re planning one for Portland.

You may have heard that Steve Adams claims that Finance Director Troy Tymeson told him about plans to build a two-story parking garage on McEuen Field. Adams, an unsuccessful council wannabe, challenged Mayor Sandi Bloem during the last council meeting because she’d said such claims raised by council basher Mary Souza were a “lie.” Seems Adams was the irrefutable source that Mary used to launch a “sky-is-falling” rumor about the clandestine scheme by City Hall to dump a sight-obstructing garage on the site of the old McEuen tennis courts. Only Tymeson told Huckleberries later that Adams had crossed his wires re: what he’d heard. Tymeson said he was trying to give Adams a CliffsNotes version of city parking after the Jan. 19 council meeting because Bloem had just appointed him to the Parking Commission. Tymeson said he jumped from discussing a garage structure near the old federal building to McEuen Field. A plan to build an underground structure at McEuen has been on the drawing board for some time. A two-story structure above ground would violate the Walker-Macy plan for McEuen Field to protect views, Tymeson said. Ultimately, Tymeson called claims by Souza and Adams “amazing.” Thinner

Today A Touch of Jazz (Jazz) – 1 p.m., Di Luna’s, 207 Cedar St., Sandpoint, (208) 263-0846

Lake City High School students will perform Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical “Oklahoma!” March 4 through March 6 and March 11 through March 13 at 7 p.m. in the LCHS Auditorium. A matinee will also be performed on March 13 at 2 p.m. The performance will include favorite tunes such as, “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” and, of course, “Oklahoma!”

Benewah County Sheriff Robert Kirts isn’t going to win his battle to continue to treat Coeur d’Alene tribal police with contempt. He’s already losing that war.

In a year when snow in the valleys has definitely been absent, how is it that some local ski resorts are dealing with less-than-stellar snowfall amounts, while others are getting more of the fresh powder? I’ve written numerous articles explaining how snow amounts can very widely across short distances. A location’s proximity to mountains, its elevation, and its tendency to get caught under the occasional small-scale snow bursts, all affect how much snow is seen. As a general rule, higher elevations will see more snow due to the colder temperatures. A city will also see more snow (relatively speaking) the closer it is to the windward side of a mountain. The sharp rise of the terrain, which forces air upward, aids the formation of precipitation (assuming there is enough moisture). Looking at several of the local ski resorts, Silver Mountain, Lookout Pass, Schweitzer Mountain, 49 Degrees North, and Mount Spokane, there is another factor to consider, when we see one location enjoying a lot more snow than another. The orientation of a mountain range and the prevailing winds in that area, have a lot to do with why some ski resorts are getting the benefit of more snow this year. Last winter, it was the “westerlies” which prevailed, meaning winds that generally blew from west to east. This particular wind pattern gave the edge, when it came to snowfall, to the Northern Rockies, a north/south oriented mountain range. Westerly winds hitting the mountain range in a perpendicular fashion, would be quickly forced upward, squeezing out all the available moisture.

Filings from Jan. 20-22 Chapter 7 (liquidation petitions)

BOISE – It’s not just layoffs, furloughs and holding positions vacant – budget cuts have forced the state Department of Environmental Quality to halt two key water quality monitoring programs for two years. “It is just not possible to absorb these cuts without some level of reduction in services,” DEQ Director Toni Hardesty told state lawmakers.

Coeur d’Alene Viking Construction Inc., 3722 W. Pescador Ave., residence and garage, valued at $113,000.

Weekly Events Senior Social Potluck – Last Tuesday of each month at noon at Community United Methodist Church, 1470 W. Hanley Ave. (208) 765-8800.

Sand boarding, all-terrain vehicles, sand buggies, horses, vacant beaches, the Pacific Ocean and family fun can be placed at one location in the Northwest. Sand dunes stretching 41 miles along the Oregon coastline provide year-round recreational opportunities. Sand dunes are hard to find in the Inland Northwest, so most of us don’t have a clue what to do with one let alone square miles of them. Sand dunes may conjure up an image of a thirsty man crawling on his belly desperately looking for water. That may be possible in the Southwest or the Sahara Desert but not in Oregon. In fact, interestingly, there are pockets of year-round freshwater lakes scattered throughout the Oregon dunes. To the uninitiated it seems that there isn’t much to do there. That would be a wrong belief.