Boundary County schoolchildren are victims of the perfect cultural storm.

An unfortunate combination of factors will deny children in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, a good school experience – high unemployment, a small property tax base, and a rabid group of anti-tax activists who seemingly fight every move by Boundary County School District officials and patrons to improve education.

As a result, voters narrowly turned down a make-or-break $799,700 maintenance and operations levy March 29, leaving high schoolers to face a 2005-06 school year without sports, student government, National Honor Society, prom and pep band – in other words, the heart and soul of high school life. Meanwhile, the faculty and family of the district’s three rural elementary schools have nothing to hold onto but hope as district trustees and administrators consider shutting their doors.

Unfortunately, rather than run a second election, district officials are calculating which schools, staff and activities have to go to offset a $1 million budget shortfall following the heart-breaking loss. In doing so, they are fulfilling their promise to run only one levy, win or lose. Every school in the county will be affected by this voter madness – all to save a few bucks per property owner. The naysayers and their deceived disciples have made Boundary County the poster child for poorly funded schools.

No one can blame young families who plan to transfer their children to Bonner County schools or leave the area.

At the high school level, the loss of extracurricular activities will be felt by bright, energetic students and star athletes who will face stiff competition for scholarships and financial packages when they apply to public and private colleges. Already, families are discussing sending their children to live with relatives to keep their hopes of obtaining quality scholarships alive. With the best and brightest gone, the brand-new auditorium and gym at Bonners Ferry High will be a memorial to a myopic community that approved construction of a new high school, on a sixth try, and then didn’t fund education properly.

The few dozen anti-tax activists who sparked the perfect storm via innuendo and eleventh-hour smear tactics should be ashamed of themselves for destroying a district that had almost turned a corner. Instead, they are proud of themselves.

“If you’d heard me this morning, you would have just heard a loud scream,” said Richard Fairfield of the Boundary County Property Owners Association the day after the levy failed. “It was perfect.”

In urban parts of Idaho, like Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls, Fairfield would be ignored or laughed down. But he and his ilk were able to capitalize on a county jobless level of 9 percent, the unexpected March closure of CEDU Educational Services, leaving about 300 people out of work, and Boundary County’s small property tax base. Most of the county is owned by the federal government, greatly reducing the amount of property tax dollars available for schools.

Indeed, what transpired in Boundary County was perfect – a perfect mess.