Boise Guardian | Business

Former Fair Mgr./Commish Weighs In On RV Park

August 3, 2010 ⋅ 11 comments

Roger Simmons is a former manager of the Western Idaho Fair as well as a former Ada Commish. He offers a historical perspective on the recent post about the RV park and issues surrounding the proposed evictions and expansion. By ROGER SIMMONS In 1987 when I was hired as the Manager of the Western Idaho [...]

CCDC Seeks Expansion Despite Statewide Opposition

July 11, 2010 ⋅ 11 comments

Boise’s Urban Renewal Agency–CCDC– seeks to double the acres where property taxes are diverted away from City, County, ACHD, and Schools with a new District in the 30th Street area. They will have to hustle to get ahead of growing opposition. The Daily Paper has a DETAILED REPORT. Urban Renewal agencies throughout the state have [...]

Ada Dump Seeks Green Power Trash Talk

June 18, 2010 ⋅ 5 comments

The Ada Commishes are trying to generate some trash talk–or talk generating with trash– with the idea of making prime real estate out of the county dump. They issued a “REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST” for anyone willing to talk about using trash to generate energy and potentially building a “Renewal Energy Industrial Park” at [...]

Bieter Continues To Perform At Chamber “Live Aid”

May 21, 2010 ⋅ 5 comments

The GUARDIAN first posted a version of this story 5 years ago and thanks to our complaints about no free tickets, the Chamber of Commerce makes access available for free to those wishing to get up erly and hear Dave Bieter talk on June 2. We probably won’t hear about the public outcry AGAINST a [...]

Boise City Continues Quest For Train

May 18, 2010 ⋅ 13 comments

In yet ANOTHER attempt at playing trains, Mayor Dave Bieter has entered into a secret negotiation with the Boise Valley Railroad–the shortline that runs through town–to explore building a freight facility on land owned by Boise citizens. Seems that Team Dave can’t get support for a trolley. They also can’t get a downtown “transit center” [...]

BSU Finance and Land Use Planning 101

May 17, 2010 ⋅ 15 comments

This post was originally sent to the GUARDIAN as a comment from a reader. We felt it worthy of a full blown post. By DEAN GUNDERSON BSU has held an A1 Bond rating by Moody’s for its last few issuances. This puts it on a relative investment risk on par with the countries of South [...]

Boise Not A “Tourist Friendly Town”

May 9, 2010 ⋅ 7 comments

Our good friend Tim Woodward over at the DAILY PAPER posted a story Sunday with suggestions of “what to do in Boise” for a visitor with a 6 hour layover. What my nice guy friend didn’t mention is the Boise Depot–which he suggested as worthy of a visit–is CLOSED TO VISITORS most of the time! [...]

GUARDIAN Predicts “Rain Out” On Boise Ball Park

April 15, 2010 ⋅ 22 comments

The GUARDIAN and reader Dean Gunderson have teamed up to call the Hawks game between Boise and Meridian. Our preseason conclusion is while there may be just barely enough square feet for a park at the 2900 Fairview location on land owned by the city, it will take a ton of money to make it [...]

Economy Is Elephant In The Room

April 4, 2010 ⋅ 16 comments

Spring is here, the legislature has mercifully left town, there is extra snow at the ski resorts, the Pope has the lowest approval rating in the history of the Catholic Church, Obama has signed a health care law, but the BIG ELEPHANT in the room remains the economy. A one-tenth percent decline in unemployment rates [...]

Two Quarters Does Not A Success Make

April 1, 2010 ⋅ 12 comments

The Daily Paper devoted the Thursday cover and much of the inside local space to an optimistic piece about Micron making a profit two quarters in a row, quoting sources who thought it spelled a better economic outlook for the area. In our mind, that shouldn’t be news–businesses are SUPPOSED to show a profit. The [...]

Idaho Sheriffs Use Deceptive Marketing Scheme, Plan To Dump Telemarket Firm

March 19, 2010 ⋅ 9 comments

We all get the dinner time phone calls from someone representing the coppers asking us to donate to their “fight against drugs.” The GUARDIAN editor hung up on them a few weeks ago and subsequently got a very official looking bill for a $25 pledge to the Idaho Sheriff’s Association with an address on State [...]

Bruneau Dunes Could Be Abuzz with ATVs

March 9, 2010 ⋅ 12 comments

During the Vietnam War an Army officer explained a village had to be burned “in order to save it.” Idaho Parks Director Nancy Merrill finds herself in that same situation today as she considers allowing dune buggies to chew up the tallest free standing sand dune on the continent to possibly make a few bucks [...]

Fraud Alert To Educators–Xpress Flex

March 1, 2010 ⋅ 11 comments

We are posting this memo sent to Nampa School District employees as a public service to alert others who may do business with Xpress Flex. No word on the scope of the damage, but certainly not good news to folks who thought they were making a wise financial decision. There will no doubt be more [...]

We Are In Midst Of Economic Civil War

February 26, 2010 ⋅ 12 comments

The Daily Paper’s print edition has competing headlines on the front page today that offer a prophetic sign of the times. “SOME EDUCATORS GET RAISES IN IDAHO” screams the bold type on the left. The message to the right is “FURLOUGHS COMING TO U of I” . Bottom line in good stories by Statesman reporters [...]

Update On Desire Named Street Car

February 15, 2010 ⋅ 19 comments

The DAILY PAPER has joined the long list of opponents to Team Dave’s “Desire Named Street Car” with a HUGE EDITORIAL in Sunday’s edition. They didn’t go soa as advocating a massive increase in the bus system, but it is clear (to us) the Statesman has come over to the GUARDIAN side. Reporter Cynthia Sewell [...]

Governments Fight Each Other With PR Efforts

February 7, 2010 ⋅ 23 comments

The last minute “panic attack” to to get the Air Force to locate not one, but two bases of F-35 fighter jets in Idaho brings to mind some the other ill fated government-funded Public Relations efforts we have seen over the years. If the F-35 follows in the footsteps of most of the other projects [...]

State Retirement Funds For Energy?

February 1, 2010 ⋅ 9 comments

We have a new GUARDIAN consultant who is a real doc and works on “gut issues” like internal medicine and renewable energy. Prior to working on humans, he worked for Idaho Fish and Game as a biologist. ( please excuse the format problem–using a foreign computer at the moment) BY BOB McKIE, MD Green energy [...]

Macy’s Departure Is Due To Inept Government

January 6, 2010 ⋅ 27 comments

Macy’s leaving downtown Boise comes as no surprise. For more than 40 years we have watched officials tout their “vision for the future” in downtown Boise. It changes with each new planner and consultant. The Bon Marche (Macy’s today), J.C. Penney’s, The Mode, Falk’s I.D. and many smaller merchants vanished, thanks to the far and [...]

GUARDIAN Top 2009 Stories By Month

December 26, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

As the legacy media does its annual TOP TEN stories to fill space between the holidays, the GUARDIAN has done the same thing based on what we have posted in the past year. In rereading some of the posts and comments, it appears we have an inordinate number of comments on police and fire stories. [...]

Entire Community Turns Out To Help Needy

December 22, 2009 ⋅ 2 comments

At this cold and happy time of year it seems like every school, business, and news organization battles to “out nice” each other. The GUARDIAN is rarely “nice,” but we do believe in helping our fellow man and can’t help but feel “warm and fuzzy” about the community donations this year. Karen Vauk President chief [...]

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