Hold your stink if odor’s origin beyond a mile
Usually, anyone who wants to can testify at a public hearing on a local planning and zoning issue. But if it’s about a confined animal feeding operation – those big, smelly operations called CAFOs – only residents who live within a mile of the project are allowed to testify, by state law.
You live a mile and a half away? Tough luck.
Opponents of that law have fought for several years to reverse it. Monday, their attempt drew a 17-17 tie vote in the Senate – which meant the bill, SB 1112, failed. One senator, Sen. Jack Noble, R-Kuna, who is being investigated for ethics violations, was absent. Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, who breaks ties when he’s presiding over the Senate, was filling in as acting governor because Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is in Washington, D.C., for a National Governors Association meeting.
Opponents of SB 1112 said local county commissioners can waive the one-mile rule if they want to; backers of the bill said they shouldn’t have to, and CAFOs should be treated like any other development.
Though this is mostly an issue in southern Idaho, North Idaho senators split right down the middle.
Voting for the bill to do away with the one-mile limit were Sens. Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene; Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint; and Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow. Voting against were Sens. Joyce Broadsword, R-Sagle; John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene; and Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake.
Broadsword told the Senate that she opposed the bill because she favored local control by county commissioners. But Compton said he favored the bill for the same reason.
“As a county commissioner who’s sat in lots of hearings,” he said, “you have lots of latitude as a county commissioner to run more hearings or limit it however you want. But I don’t think you need to have it limited by us here.”
No spandex this time
It was a much different scene Tuesday when the new version of Sen. Joyce Broadsword’s bicycle bill, SB 1131, came up for a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee.
The new version, a compromise between bicyclists and law enforcement, requires bikes to stop at red lights, but then lets them proceed if they yield right-of-way. Unlike Broadsword’s earlier bill to make the bikes wait at the red light, this one had no opposition, and passed both quickly and unanimously.
Noted Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, “Unlike last time, we do not have our chairs full of folks in spandex complaining about the bill.”
An odd compliment
When the Senate was debating a Medicaid buy-in program for the disabled – which ultimately passed – Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, told Sen. Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene, that he’s got a big heart.
In fact, Cameron, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, made an odd comparison to illustrate Compton’s big-heartedness. Compton is chairman of the Senate Health & Welfare Committee.
Here’s Compton’s response: “The good senator from 26 compared my heart to the size of his backside. That is a marvelous compliment, and I’ll accept it as such – a very strange one, but I’ll accept it.”
A ‘half-baked idea’
On Friday, Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, co-chairman of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, brought the joint panel a proposal to study contracting out some of the main functions of the state’s Division of Human Resources, and proposed writing that into the division’s budget.
Why? Because lobbyists for Convergys, a firm interested in getting such contracts, approached him. The lobbying firm is Sullivan and Reberger – in which partner Phil Reberger is Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s former chief of staff.
Cameron apologized Monday to the joint committee for bringing it “a half-baked idea.” He said he met with representatives of the Division of Human Resources, the state controller’s office, Department of Administration, Division of Financial Management and legislative budget analysts, and they’re all still trying to figure out how a study could be required “without costing an arm and a leg.”
“If they can’t reach any agreement, we’re not going to spend any political capital on it.”