Highway Department Takes Environmental Low Road

You and I would be drawn and quartered bureaucratically if we acted like the Idaho Transportation Department. In 1990 the ITD tried to rebuild Interstate 90 and wound up burying Lake Coeur d’Alene spawning grounds under tons of fill dirt and two bulldozers. Well, the rogue agency has done it again. Now it has destroyed four acres of wetlands and polluted Sand Creek while building seven miles of U.S. Highway 95 north of Sandpoint. Both times ITD officials failed to take soil samples that would have shown more planning was needed. In the latest environmental snafu, they ignored warnings from the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality and other state and federal agencies. Apparently, the Transportation Department doesn’t think it has to abide by the laws that the rest of us peons do. That kind of attitude kills fish and destroys habitat. But it does make good Hot Potatoes fodder.

No more kissy-huggy for Idaho bureaucrats

The brief description of Senate Bill 1230 in the Associated Press legislative log allows the mind to wander. The bill “makes romantic involvement between a state government supervisor and employee grounds for disciplinary action.” Is this a problem (outside the state Department of Education)? It’s easy to see that the bill needs work. For example, how do you define “romantic involvement”? (Exchanging long looks over the water cooler? Lipstick on your collar? Hot E-mail flashes?) Then, how do you prove “romantic involvement”? (DNA tests?) Oh well, I’m sure they’ll work out the details in committee. The bill appropriately was assigned to the Senate Affairs Committee.

GOP finally going to ground Rankin

Seems Idaho Republicans finally are going to put “Yer Ol’ Buddy” Ron Rankin out of business. On Tuesday, the House passed a bill that would require independent candidates to announce at the same time the R’s and the D’s do. Republicans say, fair’s fair. But their real goal is to prevent guys like Rankin from fielding third-party candidates after the primaries and possibly helping Democrats win. Rankin scared the bejeebers out of Idaho Gov. Phil Batt when he jumped into the gubernatorial race last year as an independent. The contemporary wisdom at the time was that Rankin’s presence would throw the race to Democrat Larry EchoHawk. It didn’t. But elephants have long memories.

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