Environment
Rotary Club of East Boise Adopts Table Rock
October 7, 2014 
Visitors to Table Rock take in a sunset overlooking Boise and Treasure Valley.
After eight years of the GUARDIAN promoting improvements at Table Rock, it looks like a group of Rotarians is about to succeed where we failed.
The Rotary Club of East Boise has “adopted” the icon of Boise as a clean up project beginning with an anti-grafitti effort on the huge concrete bench which provides spectacular views over Boise clear into Oregon.
GUARDIAN editor Dave Frazier has sought to showcase the most spectacular viewpoint in all of Treasure Valley. He spoke to the Rotary East club Tuesday, offering insight and some advice on what is needed.
Here are some of the needs he highlighted:
–Pave an asphalt strip 10 foot wide from the parking lot to the viewpoint for walking.
–Address the issue of trash collection. A few garbage cans would cut down on litter.
–Toilet facilities. Composting, pit privy, or porta potty for starters. After hiking up the trail from the old pen, nature often calls.
–A railing or rock wall around the rim for safety.
–Video monitoring for security.
–Directional signs guiding visitors to the area.
–Interpretive signs on the site identifying landmarks, both manmade and natural such as the airport, capitol, Bogus Basin, peaks in Oregon and the Owyhee Mountains, etc.
Our past efforts have indicated there is interest from many groups to donate both time and money to the project.
The site is owned by the Idaho Historical Society as part of the Old Pen Museum. They rent space for radio and telephone transmitters and maintain the parking lot which is open during daylight hours.
The cross is on a tiny speck of ground owned by the Jaycees. That deal came about when the Idaho Land Board made a low profile deal to thwart the Christian vs anti-Christian issue. If memory serves, the purchase price was $1.
Our hope is the community will simply leave the religious issue alone. The cross has been there for many, many years and no group has been harmed by its presence. It has now become a historical artifact for better or worse.
The real goal should be to develop a day-use park where visitors and residents alike can look down on the city and up at nature in a single glimpse. For more information and to donate, see KICKSTARTER.
Here’s a FACEBOOK link to the Rotary Club.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Oct 7, 2014, 9:24 pm
Dave did more then just give advice!! We had no idea that when after he gave advice he donated $500.00 toward the project!! Thank you so much for taking the lead for some many years.
Oct 8, 2014, 10:54 am
Kudos to Rotary for picking up this much needed project!
As much as many resent having that ancient Roman instrument of torture lofted above our city, I agree that it’s a dead issue: The Jaycees — in apparent contravention of their non-sectarian charter — pulled a fast one years ago, which has withstood legal challenge.
Instead of leaving a clean slate for more inartful grafitti, it’d be cool to turn that bench into an art/history project, with a mural on the back, employing the talents of some of our true grafitti artists — maybe a juried competition for the project, funded by donations.
Oct 8, 2014, 12:18 pm
Dave – you inspired me! I pledged a few bucks, and that’s saying something because I’m cheap!!
I’ve been driving / hiking / motorcycling / bicycling to Table Rock for my entire life… starting back before spray paint! haha It’s disappointing that they gate it up at night, but I s’pose that’s a price you pay when you live in a city that is also occupied by vandals and Neanderthals. (I’d recommend a video camera or two right off the bat, along with prominent signage about video surveillance.)
One thing amused me on the Kickstarter page… an “exercise area at the top” as a potential future project. Ha! Is this for the people who who just ran, walked, or biked up the hill? I’ve always thought Mount Everest would be better, if they flattened it a little up at the top, so people could do jumping jacks up there.
Oct 8, 2014, 1:37 pm
Enforcement would be nice.
IF BPD laid low in the darkness it would not take long to bust a few culprits of grafitti and it would not take long for word to get around.
As to your garbage can point, Guardian, there are already several cans up there. They get well used. More frequent empty action is what is needed.
No railing.
Sounds good that Rotary is adopting the location.
Oct 9, 2014, 5:59 am
Maryann Jordan wants bike lanes!
Oct 10, 2014, 10:47 am
Great ideas editor and others: The private community will have to make any improvements without the Mayor’s help however. It’s not politically correct for Team Dave to involve itself in any Table Rock project unless the cross is removed. And for this reason alone the Mayor has stayed well away from anything Table Rock related.
Wishful thinking: I hardly expect the anti-Christian/anti-religious forces lurking in Boise to “leave it alone”. They will tear it down just as soon as their population in Boise is high enough to give them the power to do so. There used to be crosses all across America until the anti-Christian lawyers and spineless politicians knocked them down. From the appearance of our cross, I suspect the Jaycees might need donations to fix it up a bit and perhaps start a legal defense fund too.