Don’t ya love all the new plans they trot out, all include: ground level retail space. Tell me, who is going to rent it and what kind of business can afford the kinds of rent they ask?

The only criteria that the CCDC will use is who (and what design) will get them the highest density and the most money – those two things alone are all that they care about.

I think we are being royally messed with by the powers of government.

Keep up the good work.

The Ada County Commissioners do not allow questions to be asked at their budget hearings these days, and it’s hard to get answers out of them about anything, but it appears that the County now intends to throw millions of dollars into buying out the vacant commercial space on the Courthouse site.

Let’s put this all in perspective. The County moved out of the old 54,000 square foot Courthouse, the old 75,000 s.f. County Administrative building, 30,500 s.f. in the Eagles building, and 20,000 s.f. of Traffic Court facilities at Barrister. The 20,000 s.f. at Barrister were then taken over by Ada County Juvenile Court Services and the Sheriff’s Office, so the space wasn’t actually vacated. The bottom line is the County and Courts vacated 179,500 square feet and moved into almost 360,000, nearly twice as many square feet as they’d had for the same services, at the new Courthouse.

Since then, the Commissioners have also entangled the County in yet another lease-with-option-to-purchase agreement for the Justice Center, at which time they added yet ANOTHER 40,000 square feet. The so-called “Republican” Ada County Commissioners have added over 200,000 square feet of space within less than five years (by going around the voters) and now it appears they plan to add even more, in order to bail out Courthouse developer Steve Semingson of Civic Partners. I thought Republicans were supposed to believe in limited government and lower taxes!

That CCDC, GBAD, Boise City and Ada County CONTINUE to consider using long-term lease-purchase agreements to get around the constitutional requirement of a vote of the people is utterly amazing. There IS a reason we should be able to vote before our government incurs long-term debt… because we pay the price! The Constitution might be old, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong.

Seems like besides destroying a basically solid — though not up-to-date — building, looks like we’d lose the green space and much of the parking. But what else? Skeptical minds want to know.

Not quite related, but still on the subject of what our many layers of government get involved with, see the story in The Idaho Spaceman about J.R. Simplot Co. wanting to use the law to destroy some folks’ property and a couple of trout streams so it can build a road to a mine.

Get ’em, Guardian!

We were promised that all the rentals and shops at the Ada County Courthouse complex would be filled by now too and there would be “lots of income” – – didn’t happen.

Thank heaven for the High Court telling local governments that they need a 2/3 majority vote to raise our taxes. Can you imagine how many tax increases (on top of our insane property tax increases) we would have seen already?!

Even today we have governments that want almost BILLION more TAX dollars for a train system to nowhere. We have still another group that wants a $1.7 BILIION TAX increase for schools and then hundreds of millions of TAX dollars for a convention center.

Thank heaven that our founding fathers created our constitution knowing that we would have out-of-control tax and spend elected officials!

I don’t think many families would be able to afford condos downtown, at the prices that they’d have. I have not been to BODO as yet, because I have a thing about paying to park to frequent the place. I can go to many restaurants and shows where the parking is free and not a hassle.

I will say that my bicycle commute takes me through the development formerly known as the 8th St. Marketplace on a daily basis, and to my mind, it is an architectural, commercial and cultural success. I think Rivers has credibility that CCDC sorely lacks. Their greatest achievements so far have been the urban blight known as the Civic Plaza Apartments, and the tumor-like Grove Hotel/Qwest Arena. Rivers has earned the right to a respectful hearing.

EDITOR NOTE–Also without comment on any proposal–Why haven’t we citizens ever been told of what you describe and why haven’t we been asked to fund it? The failed bond was for three BRANCH libraries…no mention of main library at all. We ultimately pay for everything the city does. We should have a voice in how and where the public money is spent.