Betsy Z. Russell: Otter to ISP: Look inside yourself

The Idaho State Police only has 30-some cops on the road at any time – less than one per county. That’s clearly not enough, the new ISP director told legislative budget writers Wednesday. But at this point, Gov. Butch Otter isn’t recommending any new State Police positions, nor is he recommending many new positions in any of the state’s public safety agencies. Instead, he’s asking all agency directors to look internally or contract out to fill their needs.

Don’t drop it!

Idaho’s state Liquor Dispensary has seen a huge jump in sales since 2002 – 87 percent – but not because Idahoans are necessarily boozing more. Instead, according to dispensary Superintendent Dyke Nally, the increase has two causes: population growth, and customers buying liquor that’s more expensive. Idaho is seeing new residents who are more affluent consumers, Nally said. The Liquor Dispensary’s priciest product normally is a French cognac, Remy Martin’s Louis XIII, which sells for $1,300 a bottle, earning the state a $547 profit. It was a risk when the dispensary decided to order in a bottle of 50-year-old Scotch that sells for a whopping $6,000. “We had two people fighting over it,” Nally said. That was in the Sun Valley area.

Worth more than a moose

Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, persuaded the Senate Judiciary Committee to endorse his bill to revoke hunting privileges for life for anyone who shoots someone while hunting and then is convicted of manslaughter. “It seems to me that a person’s life is worth more than that of a moose,” Jorgenson told his fellow senators on the panel. “If you go out and shoot a moose illegally, you’ll lose your hunting privileges for life.” The bill heads to the full Senate for a vote.

Prisons filling fast

Idaho’s prison inmate growth isn’t expected to stop any time soon. By 2017, the state expects to be 2,700 beds short, even with current planned prison expansions. “That’s the equivalent of two large prisons,” state Corrections Director Brent Reinke told legislators last week. “Even with the funded expansions, we’ve got some challenges.”

Three hots and a cot

In 2006, 88 Idaho prisoners refused parole – said they’d rather just stay in prison and serve out their full terms than get out early and submit to monitoring and strict conditions. “Explain that to me,” Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, told state Pardons and Parole Director Olivia Craven. “Are they just enjoying their life in prison so much?” Craven responded, “It’s hard to understand … someone would rather stay in prison for five years than get involved in programming and try to change, but that is the reality. There are people who would rather commit crime.”

Good cop, bad cop?

Corrections chief Reinke opened his budget presentation last week by presenting the co-chairmen of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee with black cowboy hats bearing the seal of the state’s prison system, saying, “There are certain agencies looked at as black-hat agencies,” while others are seen as “white-hat agencies.” Later, he thanked the co-chairs, who both tried on the hats, for being “good sports on the black hats today.”

Idaho: the green state

According to a new statewide poll, Idahoans see availability of renewable resources as the state’s top energy priority and support using both incentives and regulations to cause change – positions considerably more aggressive than those embodied in state energy plan that lawmakers unveiled recently. The survey of 513 Idahoans by the Energy Policy Institute at Boise State University also found that residents are more comfortable with state intervention in siting of potentially polluting power plants than lawmakers. “I think Idahoans want more action than the Legislature has said they probably want to take in a plan,” said John Freemuth, interim associate director for the Center for Advanced Energy, which helped with the survey.