Pencil pushers such as the Former IDL Dude are just doing their job. At what point did they go from leasing public land in rural areas to playing tax free monopoly with various commercial properties and businesses?

The answer has to do with Kingdom building. If all the state did was lease vacation properties on ten year leases based on a fair assessed value formula there would not be much work to do. If all the state did was lease ranch land and work mineral and timber deals eventually the IDL would stop growing. How does a bureaucrat move up in a department that is not growing?

The answer is to figure out a way to grow the department! Because the law was so poorly written the IDL can rationalize buying anything that makes money including storage businesses or commercial properties. The more properties the department buys the more money the endowment makes, the more money the endowment makes, the more you grow the kingdom. It’s time to put some limits on how big this kingdom can grow.

EDITOR NOTE- They are indeed refusing to provide the records…I have seen the request and the replyclaiming trade secrets.

EDITOR NOTE–From our standpoint, we have a philosophical opposition to the IDL going into traditional private business. That issue aside, their own numbers show they are losing money on many of these ventures. They have refused a reader’s request for rental details and contracts based on “proprietary trade secrets,” a weak argument which can easily be overturned in court, but it takes time and money for citizens to go to court for public information which the IDL refuses to divulge. Secret government competing with business is common in communist states, it simply is wrong for Idaho.

The Land Board should not be in competetion with private enterprise nor should they be funding tennant improvements at taxpayer expense.

The project is even nuttier than the AFFORDABLE STORAGE blunder. I am wondering when or if the legislature can get the backbone to fix this mess as well as the monster called URBAN RENEWAL or as I like to call it TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

There were plenty of people at the legislature testifying to the issues and opportunites with both the Land Board and URA laws and leadership made sure the fixes were held in committe and did not get a proper airing out on the floor of either house.

EDITOR NOTE–We don’t care who sells beer, distributes it, or brews it. The real issue is how short sighted, ill advised, and downright stupid it is for the state of Idaho Land Board to enter into a 15 year lease for a brew pub the State Police Alcohol Beverage Control agency says is not allowed by current law. Now, we can look to attempts to change the law “for the children.” Meanwhile, the land board has “invested” in tenant improvements that will be state owned and tax exempt.

This seems confusing at best with the three tier system. Sounds like if 10 Barrel brewed all the beer they sold on premise, they would be okay. Or come to some agreement with a local distributor to “import” the bottled beer for them.

That’s stage one of the career. After the drugs, booze, and prostitutes gets public, they have to take a higher paying job as TV commentators or lobyists. Again, free lunches and dinners.