City Government

Vote Them Out Of Office

Boise’s urban renewal director and the Chamber of Commerce lobbyist were able to convince legislators to hold an urban renewal reform bill in committee Friday, effectively killing the proposal.

From the reports and quotes we have seen–especially the great reporting by Lora Volkert at the Idaho Business News web site–it is another story of government by the uninformed.

The proposal called for an ELECTED three member board with a countywide vote. The reason a county vote is appropriate is because the CCDC takes county taxes (as well as city and ACHD) and subsidizes the developers.

Let’s hope some common sense emerges on this issue. Boise City Councilors can–and SHOULD disband the current CCDC board and act themselves to run the urban renewal agency which is a city entity funded by tax dollars.

Rep. Dell Raybould of Rexburg had a great idea. VOTE OUT the mayors and councilors who appoint urban renewal boards if you don’t like the way they do business. Great idea Dell!

Comments & Discussion

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  1. We elected the mayor and city council to make sure that all projects funded by the tax payer are supervised closely by them. That way we know who is responsible for what.

    We need to push our Mayor and council( e-mails and phone calls) to get rid of the unelected Board of CCDC ( Kushlan and developer buddies) and oversee urban renewal themselves. That’s why we elected them… if they won’t do it we’ll elect city officials that will.

  2. Combining two items: If oh if there were willingness by news organizations to invest in digging into old records, two time periods could throw some interesting light on the present.

    The Boise urban renewal agency: There is a been there, done that component. The Boise City Council did indeed take over the operations of early 1970s and that it was when Joy Buersmeyer was on the council. Before the current organization was established, there was a lot of restructuring. Would be interesting to review what was done and why; looks as if the current organization strayed from its beginnings; or maybe enough time and administrations have passed that it is simply time to do it again.

    The Ada County Commissioners: The new planned community subterfuge was, I believe, simply a way to legitimize urban sprawl without completely redoing the county comprehensive plan. About 10 years ago, the commission at that time began approving subdivisions completely disconnected from an urban area.

    At the time, it seemed to be outside the Comprehensive Plan recently adopted. Then came the planned community bit and the commissioners really went to town (so to speak).

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