Comments on: Public TV Story Misleads On Coles

By: katie fite

katie fite — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 00:58:28 +0000

Blind Trust: I think one of the illuminating insights into how Bieter has come to exercise so much control showed up in a recent article where Lauren Mclean discussed the Homeless lawsuit the City is spending hundreds of thousands more dollars on. She said the Council when it is in Executive Session makes decisions by consensus. In other words, they’ve been trained to think that articulating dissenting views, and sticking to them, is bad. Then this translates into the same thing in the Open Meetings and votes. She also said she was told at that session that all the Homeless shelters were on board. Only later did she find out that was not true. So someone (staff???) must have made that up to serve what was undoubtedly Bieter’s purpose in this instance.

AND regarding the staff: No original thoughts allowed there. Staff goes to pretty great lengths to do and say and twist their stories to whatever favors developers or pet projects. I recall listening to the one city staffer that had to try to justify the scheme (thankfully shot down by P&Z) to re-zone the area including the Greenbelt by the Safdie Library to downtown development standards. The poor woman had to pretend there wasn’t any real reason to the re-zone request at all other than a little tidying up to fit in with the Comp. plan.

By: DJ

DJ — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 12:27:31 +0000

What’s the difference between Coles and Bieter? One was caught.

By: Blind Trust

Blind Trust — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 04:16:39 +0000

I believe the current administration puts far too much (blind) trust in the staff and the responding departments – oftentimes not seeming to understand the very decisions they themselves are making, or at least not understanding the implications and long-term impact.

To me. the form of corruption that is now occuring is more insidious and harmful as a whole, for every one of us pays in higher taxes, traffic congestion, pollution, harm to the wildlife, adverse impact on the water supply, unequal distribution of core city sevices, etc. as the City sells Boise down the river to the next highest bidder.

By: Caeth

Caeth — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 01:34:11 +0000

No matter the reason, or excuse, Coles was the one adjudicated for his corruptions.

By: rabula

rabula — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 23:15:02 +0000

KATE TALERICO did a fair story about Coles on the front page of the Statesman this morning. In it, a longtime friend notes: “His major strength is the same stuff that got him in trouble — his loyalty to the people around him.”

A different longtime friend since childhood, his chief of staff Gary Lyman, became Coles’ Rasputin, in whom Coles placed way too much trust.