City Government
Valley Mayors Seek To Spend $738,000,000 With No Public Vote
October 4, 2010 
Treasure Valley Mayors from Boise To Wilder signed a letter published in the IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW Monday supporting passage of HJR5–the constitutional amendment seeking to abolish the constitutional rights of citizens to vote on public debt at airports.
In their letter, the seven mayors said, “Our airports need the tools to finance the estimated $738 million of infrastructure improvements they will require over the next 20 years – financed not by taxpayers, but by airport customers themselves. We need this tool just to catch up with our neighboring states, all of which already use bonds to build their airports and their economies.”
The GUARDIAN is opposed to allowing politicians the luxury of spending nearly three quarters of a BILLION dollars in public money with not a single vote from the citizens who own these airports. They can sell bonds, but need to ask permission.
A major risk factor in their attempt to abolish the vote of citizens lies in another area of the law. A current elected body does NOT have the authority to obligate a future elected body. Only the people have that right. Even though our property taxes may not be used to repay a debt, incurring that debt must be approved by 2/3 of the voters. Otherwise a city council or county commission could change their mind 10 years into a project.
Same holds true for laws of the state. While a legislature can pass a law, the next session can repeal it. HOWEVER, when it comes to the constitution, a 2/3 vote of the legislature AND approval of at least half (+1)of the voters in the entire state is required to change it.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Oct 4, 2010, 5:08 pm
Tactical error #1- Don’t announce that you intend to spend almost a BILLION dollars 30 days before the election. Is there NO ONE that has a brain in city/county government?? This is either a question of complete arrogance or catastrophic stupidity. Either way, we lose!!
Oct 4, 2010, 7:16 pm
The Mayor’s letter states that: “We need this tool just to catch up with our neighboring states, all of which already use bonds to build their airports and their economies.” NOT TRUE!! Idaho entities CAN use bonds, they just need a vote of the people to approve it.
Oct 4, 2010, 9:47 pm
Gosh Dave, That’s only $2 per resident. Why will this result in a $2000 increase in my taxes? Is it that economic multiplier thingy the jaw flappers are always waving at us when they spend our money on crap we don’t need?
Catching up with neighboring states = going bust. What a bunch of selfish dumb$&!#s. They just gotta find a way to fund their paycheck before mayors are back to working for free as they did years ago when the nation was solvent.
Oct 4, 2010, 10:05 pm
Oh wait Dave, I was using that special math the jaw flappers use right before an election. It really is an extra $2000 per resident. Considering that 2/3 of residents ain’t got no way to pay, or work for cash and live with “family”, that leave the rest of us with a $6000 extra tax bill. It really is time for a reorganizing of priorities for this bunch of leeches.
Oct 5, 2010, 8:44 am
A somewhat misleading headline. The $738,000,000 is the 20 year total development cost the Idaho Transportation Department estimated it will take to meet the infrastructure needs of the majority of the airpart system.
Rod: Other regional states that do not requre a vote can act more quickly to attract business. As a business owner, if I need additional storage space or another hangar, can I afford to wait on an airport that has to postpone construction pending an election cylce, or do I choose a facility that can act immediately? The choice is simple.
EDITOR NOTE–Chris, what type of business are you in that would require the government to build you a storage facility at an airport? Also, you can build a hangar at your own expense or lease one from a private owner who pays taxes on a private hangar at an airport.
Oct 5, 2010, 9:46 am
The people who are paying attention seem to be on to ’em. However, my grave concern is that a large majority of voters only know about the issue based on the hospital ads that air during Dancing with the Stars or America’s Biggest Loser.
Dave, have you ever considered renaming your website to BoiseRotundGadfly.com? (I love you man!!)
(-;
Oct 5, 2010, 12:07 pm
No surprises except I didn’t know Greenleaf had a mayor.
Oct 5, 2010, 1:52 pm
bikeboy, I share your concern. I doubt that 10%of the valley’s residents are even aware the issue is on the ballot.
Greenleaf has a mayor?? Oh yea! Isn’t he the guy that wanted to require guns in every household?
Oct 6, 2010, 6:52 pm
Tonight Channel 24/7 gave a lot of attention to Dave testifying before some collection of people (sorry not sure what group it was)and too lazy to look it up–but there was a panel of 3 people, 2 in favor of the non-permission bond articles (one of them was the airport guy, and 1–Dave-eloquently against. He made it clear he has no problem with floating improvement bonds–but the constitution says the people must permit by vote.
Go Guardian!
Oct 8, 2010, 1:18 pm
Assuming Idaho has 1,000,000 tax payers, and that the money is spent (and raised) equally throughout the 20 years, each of those 1,000,000 people represent $36.90 a year. Whether fees or taxes, there ought to be a vote.