-978 gazillion skinny houses, with no parking, put on 15′ wide lots ALL AROUND Dave Bieters house.

-A Three Mile Island Memorial nuclear plant built on the Boise River across from Butch Otters house.

-Extensive oil and natural gas exploration in all of the wealthy foothills neighborhoods.

-Massive street widening projects in front of all the Ada County Highway District Commissioners homes.

-Rezoning of Brandi Swindell and Brian Fischers neighborhoods to include brothels and bars.

But, their shyness about redeveloping the old Oil Yard next to the river probably stems from knowledge they have about the site’s soil contamination and the cost they would incur to clean up the polluted soil. The way the federal regs are written, even if they sold the site, they would still be held liable for cleaning up the contamination. And, knowingly developing (or selling) polluted land without divulging the contamination carries a $250K fine (and they still have to pay for the clean-up) — even a professional consultant (planner, architect, engineer) who knows of the contamination and does not reveal it can be charged a $50K fine.

Some land owners in Ada County have walked away from contaminated property (mums the word), and let the land’s ownership revert to the county for back taxes. The county (that is, you & me) are left cleaning up the property — hoping that the land will be worth enough upon eventual sale to recoup the clean-up costs. There was such a parcel just west of the old ITT Tech building (now BSU’s Health Science Riverside bldg) next to the Boise River. Ada County took the land for back taxes and had to spend $50K to clean-up all the contaminated soil. The land was sold to a private developer, and tax payers were made whole, but at one point the county was trying to sell the cleaned-up property to either the City (for a Morrison Park parking lot — which may have helped out a certain councilmember’s daughter if it had happened) or to BSU for an expanded academic facility. If the land had sold to either of the public entities — tell me how taxpayers would have ever been reimbursed for their expenses.

But as for River’s Moyle comment, he’s right on target. Moyle’s libertarian attitudes have won him fans in the hinterlands, but his efforts to undermine the ability of local citizens to plan for and fund their own public future have reserved him a special place in Hell. Moyle would like you to believe he’s anti-tax (any tax) & anti-big government, but in reality he’s anti-citizen who believes that the public is incapable of managing its own affairs and must be led by a wise enlightened leadership (his). He’s the worst kind of big-government, pocket-lining politician, and the sooner he can be led to greener pastures the better. If you’ve ever had the displeasure of spending any time with him in a closed room, it takes a good 24-hours to get the stench of smoke from his back room dealings out of your clothes.

That said, I completely agree that the site is an eyesore, the Greenbelt should be elevated near that area because it is the first area that floods, and it sure seems like that location is a good location that should, at some point, command a lot of money from someone!

Can’t we please have a building moratorium? Affordable or otherwise.

Did Marcia also ask how it’s fair churches don’t pay any property taxes, not even one dime? How about site’s like Goodman Oil? That site pays less per square foot than I do, or Marcia, or the Guardian on a lesser zoned property, that’s not even on the river.

It’s virtually the same thing. Vacant and severely underutilized lots do not contribute their fair share. The problem downtown faces, or any downtown for that matter, is aging and decaying properties whose owners refuse to unload for speculative or just plain ornery purposes. To wit, Goodman! I’ve and others have written about his shenanigans.

Suburban locales and raw land locales do not face this problem. Thus URIs are appropriate for downtown. I’ll even go one step further and opine that the City should take control of the Goodman site via eminent domain. Kelo decision anybody?

Sure, property tax revenue is recycled wholly within the URI, but you’re ignoring the following; other new taxes are generated. Sales tax, income tax (from workers), alcohol tax, gasoline tax (via travel into the URI) and probably a slew of others.

EDITOR NOTE–All true Cynic, but the CITY budget comes mostly from PROPERTY
taxes. The rest of us make up what is lost to help the poor developers scratch out a meager existence. Gas tax goes to highways, and income tax goes to the state.

Wow, I never heard of someone with power and money trying to influence an election. This sounds like a nightmare. /end sarcasm

I mean, heck – They’re Developers!

Whaddaya expect them to do?

Sleep with snakes, yer gonna get bit!

What I do get quite angry about, is our supposed “Public Servants” who grease the skids for them.

Remember…

“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.” -Unknown