Comments on: COMPASS Action Politically Linked To Otter

By: Same Commute as Butch

Same Commute as Butch — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:10:23 +0000

I like the idea of TOLL ROADS. Make the ones who actually use the roads pay for them. And truckers pay more; they are the ones who tear them up.

By: James Bond

James Bond — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:13:34 +0000

So, an organization funded entirely by tax dollars is using those tax dollars via the salaries and expenses it incurs, to lobby our state government to increase taxes! Wow. Genius!

By: brat1

brat1 — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:21:18 +0000

As the stomach churns!!!!

By: scotty

scotty — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:25:33 +0000

If you call 332-8814 and ask the Idaho State Controller Office for a 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report you will see that there is NO SHORTAGE of funds. In fact, Donna Jones even tells us on page 4 that there is over $9 BILLION in surplus reserves of YOUR tax dollars and that $1.3 BILLION is available for citizen obligations.

Also, if you go to the Idaho State Controller website and look up CAFR reports, you can follow the steadily increasing reserves in the Transportation Dept. over the last 5 years of the most LIQUID assets and investments. My analysis shows a reserve of over $200 Million while a comparison of appropritions and expenditures over the last 5 years has decreased by the same amount!!!!
Anyone want to take a guess as to where all those extra funds are going? And why the Guv is asking us to foot the short while there is BILLIONS in reserves waiting for a “rainy day”?

By: James Bond

James Bond — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:18:24 +0000

Where does COMPASS get its funding?

EDITOR NOTE– Each city, county, highway district, etc. in Ada and Canyon Counties pays “dues”–with tax money. There are also some federal grants. ACHD recently told COMPASS the dues would be reduced due to budget crunch. We simply can’t see how this planning group can justify paying a lobbyist out of taxes. Governments should never have to lobby each other!

By: Mr. Logic

Mr. Logic — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:44:40 +0000

Wonk, it would seem LOGICAL that if legislators are being coerced by Otter, they sure as heck aren’t gonna suddenly offer up the public purse strings to a planning agency whose members are not even elected to that agency (members are a mix of elected and appointed officials, but the board itself is not elected). It is Legislators, not the Guv who appropriates funds.

Why is tax money being given to a Larry Craig guy to cheerlead for Butch?

By: dog

dog — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:18:17 +0000

Give Otter some credit. So he compromised on this one. Big deal throw a bone to the North End. At least in his veto frenzy he didn’t cut the important stuff like the Chinese flag manufacturing bill and the bill that says the government can’t take your guns under martial law. Does anybody know if we have constitutional rights under martial law?

By: Wonk Vader

Wonk Vader — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:44:56 +0000

I see nothing here untoward or unusual. COMPASS is involved in transportation and planning in the state’s largest metro area. The governor has some important transportation initiative he needs help passing. He is asking for individual letters of support from board members. Otter would be remiss in his leadership if he DIDN’T ask these people for their help!

I suspect your main beef is that we are spending money on roads (or sewers, police, fire or anything else that makes up civilization). That is a different issue from Otter legitimately and through public documents asking people for the help he needs.

By: Mike Murphy for Mayor

Mike Murphy for Mayor — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:48:40 +0000

I am shocked, simply shocked, that anyone is shocked by this!

All B.S. aside…

Keep subscribing to the same broken paradigm, you get the same predictable results.

Apparently City Hall isn’t the only place in need of an Office of the Citizens Advocate (found in good government everywhere).

Increasingly, all the talk I hear here in the West about “Smaller Government” appears to be nothing more than slight-of-hand to grant Carte Blanche to those in power to engage in shenanigans they’d prefer never see the light of day.

The City?!? The State?!? No, no, no… That wasn’t US, that was done by an “independent” (yet wholly owned and controlled by said government) agency.

Of course, in a state that remains so conservative they’d elect Dracula so long as he was on the Republican Ticket (or was anointed by Rush Limbaugh), all a local Vampire has to do is invoke “States Rights”, “Less Government”, or any number of “Sovereignty” and / or “Conservative” issues, and the electorate will be blinded to the blood running down his chin.

By: SPQR

SPQR — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:34:33 +0000

Sing a Song of Sixpence…

Ahhh the irony, grothaphobes want the road less traveled, grothiphiles want the road more traveled… Otter gets stuck cleaning up the mess with a stubborn CONG.

Why not try a paltry garage tax or other user fee or just keep transportation funding as it is, and keep the transportation funding WHERE it is! This solution effectively bridges the urban/rural divide in Idaho in the spirit of fiscal equity.

~”Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?”