Comments on: Politicos Dislike Public Scrutiny

By: Bob Blurton

Bob Blurton — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:47:21 +0000

The first mayoral debate, in the race between Chuck Winder and Dave Bieter took place at a high school gymnasium. There were perhaps 6 different debates and Dave definitely improved quickly.

I was running for Boise City Council against Sheeley so attended all events.

By: CYCLOPS

CYCLOPS — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:12:00 +0000

Boisean, I believe the debate you are referring to was actually the 2nd. debate so far. The first debate was before the realtors conference about three weeks ago.
From reading the quotes attributed to mayor Merrill, it would appear that the most productive thing to come from the “summit” was that everyone exchanged personal cell phone numbers. I can’t speak to the other mayors in the valley,( I am sure they all pack personal political baggage) but from Boise’s standpoint, to borrow a line from our president right after Katrina,” Gee, your doing a heck of a job Davey” !

By: Boisean

Boisean — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:18:46 +0000

Everyone can see the debate at 670kboi.com. I’m not sure what debate Bob Blurton was watching? Everyone can see it and judge for themselves.

By: Grumpy ole guy

Grumpy ole guy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:25:42 +0000

Citizen governments have to suffer the fate of having amateurs calling all shots and being in charge. Both good and bad result. That said, it really does seem as though the elected officials here in Ada County could grab a clue somewhere and conduct themselves in a manner well above even a hint of suspicion. I’m sure these people are well-meaning, just as I am sure they are mis-guided in how to conduct such meetings. I don’t think that it is reasonable to speculate what other people (candidates or not) might have done in the same situation. We should focus on those involved in this careless and thoughtless act – and we should call them into accountability; it doesn’t matter how someone else would have done it; it APPEARS to many of us that what the attendees of this meeting were subverting the public’s right to be informed and for THAT, they should be held accountable and promise(s) extracted to avoid such meetings in the future.

It is OUR interests they are supposed to be conducting; apparently they each and all need to be reminded that their bosses are unhappy with their performance.

By: John Mitchell

John Mitchell — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 23:04:07 +0000

PTL that Nancy isn’t running again—-she screwed up a nice community by blessing development after development and transforming Eagle into Eaglefornia. Nice job Nance. We should rename Eagle Road Merrill Road as a legacy for what NOT to do in this valley. What a disaster—-started when she ramrodded a stoplight into her subdivision Island Woods—-a State Highway which is supposed to “move traqffice expeditiously”. Can we ask her to leave early so she doesn’t do any more damage????

By: JJ

JJ — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:04:10 +0000

The problem is each elected official has visions of their future greatness. Each mayor is more concerned about their future governorship, senator, etc for all levels of elected leadership. This concern pushes them to do business behind shades because if how they truly felt about sensitive and politically correct issues was public knowledge, they could not be elected in our coarse unforgiving world of feel good corporate funded politics. It is partly their fault for not having the courage to speak and act as their core beliefs dictate, and it is partly society’s fault for being unforgiving of elected officials, we expect them to be perfect and jump on every error. Learning is a life long pursuit and we should not expect our elected leaders to have already learned all of life’s lessons.

By: IdahoSkeptic

IdahoSkeptic — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:20:47 +0000

It’s interesting that the Guardian keeps mentioning ACHD in the context of this meeting. In reality, no ACHD elected officials were there.

It’s clear the cities and county are girding their loins to fight for the proposed alliance and wrest some of the power from the district.

By: CYCLOPS

CYCLOPS — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:44:49 +0000

All of these points are completely valid. Although I can understand Merrill’s resistance to making it public. After all, when I was a boy and I got called to the woodshed, I didn’t want anyone to watch either. And that is exactly what happened to Dave Bieter yesterday, He got a call to the woodshed!

By: sara

sara — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:17:09 +0000

While I don’t really care for deer in headlights Dave, I think that the Mayor of Star (can’t even remember his name) was way out of line going after Bieter as he did in the Sunday paper.

All Bieter did was propose Chuck Winder’s name for the so called transportation alliance to keep the process moving and all hell broke loose. And the question is why?

I suspect that ACHD really doesn’t want an alliance or anything like it to happen for in doing so they cede power, power which I might add was never intended that they have – the power to plan land use.

I also suspect that since so much of our tax dollars are spent on outlying “cities” like Star and Kuna, they and ACHD have kind of a devil’s pact. (You all know of course that Boise taxpayers subsidize the small cities in transportation dollars – 25% of taxes raised in Boise are spent elsewhere.) Ruin close-in neighborhoods so that those who build and live in these outliers have an easier time to get to their jobs while saving $40/month on house payments.

If Winder was not a good choice, both the Star guy and ACHD’s Franden could have proposed an alternate. In fact, according to the premise of this Guardian article, Bieter proposing Winder’s name in public is what we want. The alternative is to keep everything secret and then present it to the voter’s as a fait accompli.

By: Mari Holly

Mari Holly — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:48:40 +0000

I find this meeting to be absolutely ridiculous. The residents of Ada County and the 6 cities within the county do not require our public officials to hold retreats behind closed doors to iron out their differences.

What the people need are public servants that are working to improve and maintain our quality of life. We need to have them stop bickering like junior high kids and behave in a manner that exudes dignity, compromise and respect. If our current representatives behaved in this manner there would be no need to hold meetings that prohibit the public from attending.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have local officials who recognize their constituents want safety, clean air, affordable housing and a multitude of other things regardless of where their home is located. They are not interested in minor turf wars or who did what to whom and it is time for the residents of Ada County to take a stand and demand local leaders work for our community as a whole.