Empty Alternative To Levy

Hands down, the biggest dodge I’ve heard for shirking civic responsibility came from the Boundary County Property Owners Association. Tax activists successfully undercut a $9.2 million levy election by proposing to construct a new high school with volunteer labor. Follow me here. First, they said, the U.S. Forest Service could dedicate a timber sale for school construction. Then, volunteers would cut the timber, mill the logs and construct the building. When will this happen? When pigs fly, of course. It took the community three years just to cover the football grandstand. Why didn’t the naysayers simply admit the kids don’t matter enough?

See, newspapers are good for something

I can think of few good reasons for a burglary. But Tonya L. Fournier’s excuse for breaking into the Lakeside Inn at Sandpoint comes close. She wanted a roll of toilet paper, so her children, ages 13 and 15, would no longer have to use newspaper. Case dismissed … Before you get too excited about the $6 million price tag on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, consider. That would only buy six cruise missiles … Stat of the Week: If you spend 11 or more hours per week looking at horndog pictures on the Internet, you have a problem. So does your wife.

North Idaho will see your zero and raise you five more Shhh.

Don’t tell North Idaho teachers that their Washington counterparts are clamoring for a 15 percent raise. The Evergreen Staters are complaining they haven’t had a raise for five years and that their compensation “stinks.” And if they didn’t get a raise for another five years? They’d still be getting paid more than Idaho’s deserving teachers … Say, didn’t you used to be the autonomous Idaho Fish and Game Commission? … Sweet Potatoes … to Joan Kendall, manager of Cavanaugh’s River Inn gift shop, who overwhelmed the Iranian team competing in this weekend’s World Cup of Wrestling at the Spokane Arena - by stitching a member’s torn pants … to Washington State for believing in equal pay for equal work. New cage coaches Paul Graham (men) and Jenny Przekwas (women) each will get an annual base salary of $125,000, which ain’t small potatoes.