Funds restored for U.S. 95
Legislative budget writers restored $35 million for the initial stages of a new freeway between Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint. The revised statewide bonding plan for highway improvements, approved by the Joint Finance- Appropriations Committee on a 19-1 vote Wednesday, still totals $200 million – the same as in an earlier version. While that’s less than the $218 million Gov. Dirk Kempthorne had sought, it puts back the $35 million for land acquisition and engineering on a project to turn U.S. 95 from Garwood to Sagle into a four-lane freeway.
In the previous version of the “Connecting Idaho” plan, funds for the Garwood-Sagle stretch had been cut to just $3.4 million.
Lawmakers must approve each round of bonding in the $1.2 billion plan, and the first round proved controversial.
Who owns the water? The state would begin trying to sort out who owns the rights to how much water all through North Idaho under legislation that won final passage in the Legislature on Wednesday and was headed to the governor’s desk.
“There is nothing more sacred in the state of Idaho than water,” Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, told the Senate.
HB 545 starts the process to adjudicate all the water rights in North Idaho, a legal process that could take nine years. It passed the Senate 30-5 Wednesday, after earlier clearing the House on a 64-1 vote.
Adjudication is a complicated and costly court process that sorts out who has rights to how much water, based on dates of claims and other factors. The state is just completing the largest adjudication in the nation, sorting out rights in the Snake River Basin in southern Idaho.
Minimum wage won’t change: Democrats brought the state House to a standstill Tuesday by refusing to go along with suspending reading of bills – in a successful bid to force a hearing on a long-pending minimum wage bill.
Two days later, the House State Affairs Committee voted 12-5 to kill HB 843, to raise the wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $6.15, and to index it to inflation in the future.
Opponents said the move would just push up prices and lead to unemployment, while supporters called it a dignity issue and said it would enable low-wage workers to be less dependent on government-funded welfare programs.