Comments on: Is Highlands Cure Worse Than Disease?

By: Easterner

Easterner — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 16:36:50 +0000

Erico49, here is why that comment is “necessary”.
From this site’s “About” page:
“Local politicians with their personal agendas work to circumvent the will of the people.”

Is it okay here on BG to point out Bieter Cronies, political cronies, crony capitalism, and Gov Otter Cronies, but somehow that fault stops when it is church cronyism?

Catholic, Mormon or other right-wing fanaticals, it happens. And that is never good in government, because we end up with crappy work.

“Don’t vote for me because I know the topic matter, but because I belong to ‘YOUR group’ and you can expect we believe the same, about whatever___” (bicycles, business over neighborhoods, anti-city, drug enforcement, bikini bars, police protection, guns, racial issues, govt contracts, etc).

Let’s not ignore the elephant in the church. (that is great pun).

-condensed rebuttal. 🙂

EDITOR NOTE–At the risk for sounding like Trump, I gotta agree with Easterner to a point. Coles weighted his mayor’s office with LDS members. Bieter leans to Catholics, especially Bishop Kelly grads.

By: Not clear to me

Not clear to me — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 18:23:32 +0000

I think Church Cronies still have a lot to do with local and state government and I think it is a somewhat valid topic. Two things make Boise different from Spokane. 1) Low crime and, 2) Heavy church involvement (until recently) in Boise. I’d like to see a chart of the numbers and placement of churchers in office. I bet it’s still alarming if one is not part of the club. However, I generally can’t stand Eastie comments either.

On this topic, I generally side with the commissioner. Most of the inhabitants of these uppity high personal debt suburbs are completely disconnected and only notice a change when they literally run into it, and then only when not in a Valium fog. The same inhabitants disturbed about the flow of traffic probably text and drive, and probably take the kids to and from school when they could walk or ride the bus. When I think traffic in front of a school, I think aggressive drivers screwing up the normal flow of the adjacent streets while they whisk little darling to/from as near as possible the school. Go to any school and watch all the mommy U-turns inside the school zone. If an ordinary citizen screwed up traffic as much as the school system does all day long they’d get life in prison.

Commissioners, In the future, schools and bus routes need to be built far away from the commerce which pays for them. The walk to school idea is apparently dead, so no need to have the buildings in the neighborhood any longer. Perhaps a big industrial park with all the schools on three square miles out in the desert? Extra space can be leased to the prison system as the population flexes up and down.

WAY TO GO ON THE BSU FENCE!!! I’m surprised some senior professor has not labeled it racist yet. Can I put a Trump sign on it?

By: boisecynic

boisecynic — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 13:53:02 +0000

I’m with easterner this time. Blaming the developers is silly.

Boise metro area has become so big, and has been so for a long time, that it’s out of the hands of a developer or neighborhood or city or even the county. It’s now up to the State of Idaho to plan for a huge metropolis that spans multiple counties.

It’s time to finish the Central Valley Expressway. It’s time to start planning for a foothills freeway.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 17:33:43 +0000

I’m curious – how would this neighborhood been built, if it HAD been built to ACHD’s modern design standards? Would Braemere be cut-off, or converted into a second ‘through-street’ of sorts – higher capacity and less housing frontage, similar to how Hill rd? Land-use policies mandating lower or higher density?

As far as public notification, I think I understand. There are people who read and stay informed, and others who have “no idea this was happening!” until the earth-mover is digging up the street in-front of their house – despite weeks/months/years of meetings and mailers.

By: erico49

erico49 — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 13:16:50 +0000

Easterner. I fail to see what religion has to do with anything. “Church cronies” was unnecessary.

EDITOR NOTE–Eric, I missed that ref. Sorry, I agree with you.

By: Kent Goldthorpe

Kent Goldthorpe — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 19:29:43 +0000

Please excuse my omission of one bit of information. ACHD was not in existence when the original land use planning was done in this area, nor were they involved in the design and construction of the roads, this for the same reason. The City of Boise was the road department for those years and projects. They work very hard with ACHD to mitigate these traffic, bike and pedestrian problems in the Highlands.

By: Clancy

Clancy — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 18:01:38 +0000

Boise Schools pride themselves on being neighborhood schools that are within walking distance of many students. Looking at the Highland Elementary boundaries, shows that a large percentage of potential students would use W. Braemere for their walk to school. http://imgur.com/a/K6mn9 (BSD map, red=W.Braemere). This street currently does not have any sidewalks plus limited visibility in a few areas. Cut through traffic on this street could be very dangerous to students.

Curling is much better suited for pedestrian traffic with sidewalks on both sides of the road with visible crosswalks and a “school zone”.

By: Easterner

Easterner — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 17:14:32 +0000

C. Goldthorpe’s response is typical for ACHD fare. – Blame someone else.

“ACHD didn’t cause the problem”

“lack of traffic planning on the part of the developers decades ago who never thought to accommodate population growth”

Accommodating population growth?
Is that really a developers job?
Not the local government’s role… you know in that department called PLANNING & Zoning!!!! (ACHD & Boise).

ACHD was formed in 1972.
44 years of road “planning”, subdivision approvals, maintenance, road construction and it’s still the “the developer’s fault”?
Ha! That is laughable. Does anyone take ACHD seriously? Even their attorneys are laughed at in court (Brookview).

This is what we get since ACHD has been loaded with Realtors and church cronies as commissioners…

So their other common response, ‘we made that bad decision in a meeting already. Sorry you weren’t there.’ So we don’t have to accept responsibility because that was decided in a ‘public meeting’. It wasn’t us.

And then ‘we spent thousands of dollars to study this to death’.

Seems like a traffic engineer with 1 drone, a lawn chair with a day or two observing the intersection, could figure that ___ out –one way or another.

But since ACHD can’t even get the downtown traffic lights in sync, I have low expectations.

By: Kent Goldthorpe

Kent Goldthorpe — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:51:48 +0000

Yes, it’s been a tough few days. ACHD has had to yet again go through the same kind clashing of cymbals, bloviating, and threatening, all to publicly rehash what has been publicly covered in numerous, well attended meetings, the thousands of dollars of in-house engineering expense that has been well explained to and well received by the majority of the Highlands neighbors as well as the unprecedented degree of personal, professional, POSITIVE, patient and active involvement of the Highlands neighborhoods and residents. The diversion was the initial concept developed by the neighborhood hand in hand with ACHD engineering and for which the better part of an entire public hearing was dedicated. And yes, the hearing room was full. The Highlands Mitigation team, made up of residents, went door to door explaining the plan, obtaining opinions as well as support, all of which was conveyed to ACHD. They also sent out tons of mailers. The high level of support received was amazing. I say amazing especially in light of the extreme nature of the limitations we have to deal with due to a lack of traffic planning on the part of the developers decades ago who never thought to accommodate population growth in their neighborhood design. Continued development in the foothills is and well continue to impact traffic throughout this area and many other Boise neighborhoods. I have publicly used the word “obscene” in describing the mess this lack of foresight has caused. The term still fits. The long term “cure” will likely be a bitter pill for many. ACHD didn’t cause the problem but we’re, as an entire District and Commission, attempting to mitigate the growing traffic problems of this neighborhood.

I would personally like to once again thank those who were involved throughout this process. It took well over a year before any changes other than trimming sight obstructions and right of way blocking bushes were made. It is incredible that anyone has the audacity to accuse ACHD of not reaching out in this matter. No, actually it is laughable.

Constructive comment and assistance is appreciated more than you may imagine. I hope it will continue.

By: Not clear to me

Not clear to me — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 21:46:22 +0000

It sounds like there are a lot of Range Rovers sitting around idling with the a/c on to keep the dog and kids safe from global warming in this neighborhood.

I can’t figure out where the little picture is in the big picture or where the big picture is in Boise.

EDITOR NOTE–Sorry about captioning. Hope we have fixed it now.