Dolores Crow has erased any doubts about whether she is capable of giving a good hearing to a package of bills that would bring Idaho property taxes into line.

She isn’t.

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review, the Republican chairwoman of the notorious Idaho House Revenue and Taxation Committee signaled that the recent good work of a property tax interim committee would be for naught in the 2006 Legislature. She had a been-there-done-that attitude toward suggestions that the state increase the homeowner and “circuit breaker” exemptions and disregarded a third reform that would shift funding for public schools from the property tax to the general fund. Then she had the audacity to suggest that cash-strapped schools that depend on property taxes tighten their belts.

“And perhaps schools are going to have to dig in and do some things they don’t want to do, such as year-round schools and split shifts, so we don’t need to be building so many school buildings, which goes on the property tax,” she said.

You’d expect such antiquated ideas to be coming from a freshman lawmaker from Dogpatch, Idaho, not a veteran in charge of one of the most important committees in the Legislature.

Crow is unsuited to serve as chairwoman of the tax committee. With Idaho flirting with a tax rebellion that could revive the One Percent Initiative, Crow is the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Given her attitude toward unanimous recommendations for property tax relief from the bipartisan interim committee, Republican leadership should ensure that the proposals be given a fair hearing during the 2006 legislative session by removing Crow as chairwoman.

Not only did her committee kill more than a half dozen bills calling for property tax reform last spring, but the veteran Nampa lawmaker also proved she’s out of touch when she told S-R Boise bureau chief Betsy Russell that the property tax problem is a local one, not a state one. Property taxes can be brought into line, Crow believes, if property owners demand that local government officials hold the budget line. Never mind that property values in growing areas such as Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Sandpoint, Boise and even Crow’s hometown of Nampa are jumping by tens of thousands of dollars every few months, pushing up taxes.

Amusingly, Crow is calling for a local fix to problems caused in part by the state granting exemption after exemption to the property tax and refusing to consider the possibility of taxing services. Also, she talks about a local remedy when she tried her best to kill Kootenai County’s push for a local-option sales tax to fund expansion of the county jail. A move to expand the option tax to fund other local projects died in Crow’s committee last year.

If GOP leaders don’t do something about Crow and property taxes, the public will take the matter out of their hands in the form of an initiative.