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Posts published in “Day: January 14, 2018”

Idaho Briefing – January 15

January 14, 2018

This is a summary of a few items in the Idaho Weekly Briefing for January 15. Interested in subscribing? Send us a note at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com.

The 2018 Idaho legislative session was gaveled to order on January 8, with the normal financial, education and health issues on the table. The first week of the session was, as usual, dominated for many lawmakers by review of the rules adopted by state agencies over the last year. The first major event of the session was the annual, and for Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, final state of the state address.

The Idaho Water Resource Board is poised to surpass recharging 200,000 acre-feet of water into the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, and on course to exceed the board’s annual recharge goal of 250,000 acre-feet per year, officials said January 8.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), House Judiciary Committee Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Labrador, and House Homeland Security Committee Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee Chairwoman Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) introduced the Securing America's Future Act.

If they can help it, nobody wants to think about “brown grease,” the nasty, gunky stuff that builds up in the drain trap under the sink. But while the stuff in your home may continue to be a nuisance, at restaurants, food processing plants and waste treatment facilities, it’s becoming increasingly feasible to turn grease into biodiesel fuels for trucks, buses and generators.

Three Idaho Department of Correction prisons south of Boise as of January 12 remained on secure status with some of their housing units on lockdown. There is no timeline in place currently to ease restrictions. Visiting at the facilities is also suspended through the weekend.

Boise State University once again has exceeded its benchmark number for yearly bachelor’s degree graduates set when the state adopted the goal to ensure that 60 percent of Idahoans between 25 and 34 had a degree or certificate by 2020.

Idaho Panhandle Forest Supervisor Mary Farnsworth on January 12 signed the decision, selecting alternative B, for the Halfway Malin Project located on the St. Joe Ranger District.

PHOTO Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter delivers his valedictory state of the state address on the first day of the 2018 Idaho legislative session. (photo/IdahoEdNews)

The art of ambiguity

January 14, 2018

carlson

For someone who claims not to be a politician, doctor and developer Tommy Ahlquist is displaying an amazing aptitude to master the art form quickly. He is speaking out of both sides of his mouth on two issues, gaming and a proposal to breach the four lower Snake dams to ensure Idaho’s salmon and steelhead runs survive.

On both he should have done more research than he did for his comments manifest a misunderstanding of the issue that is simply unacceptable.

Asked this fall if, like Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter, he would have vetoed a bill in 2015, only in a timely manner (Otter failed to act in time), which repealed state acquiescence to video historic horse races passed in 2013. Ahlquist said yes.

He saw the issue primarily as one of state “good faith,” and felt it was wrong for Idaho to encourage “small” businessmen to invest the millions in equipment and employee training and then jerk the rug out from under them. Whether two of his large contributors, Larry Williams and Harry Bettis, who were large investors in the conversion of Les Bois, influenced his stance is for the reader and the voters to decide.

Asked about the underlying but obvious issue that wasn’t this an endorsement of gambling forbidden in Idaho, Ahlquist opined that it was up to the courts and lawyers to decide if it fell under the prohibition in the Idaho Constitution. For Idaho’s gaming tribes (the Coeur d’Alenes, the Nez Perce, the Sho-Bans and the Kutenai’s) there is no doubt that these historic horse racing videos are gaming. They view it as unfair competition and are adamantly opposed which Ahlquist was told first hand when he met with the Coeur d’Alene’s chairman, Chief Allan, this past August.

As one legislator put it upon looking at the “one armed bandits” of historic videos with all the bells and whistles: “If it walks like duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck.” Ahlquist apparently doesn’t think so and will leave it to the legal beagles. In a move to have it both ways, though, he says he philosophically is opposed to any form of gaming (other than Idaho’s Lottery, presumably).

Coming from a self-styled “leader” one wonders just what his definition of leadership really is.

Similar sentiment regarding speaking from both sides of his mouth is being expressed by those who attended a Idaho Wildlife Federation forum at Boise State on December 2nd.. Asked where he stood on the issue of breaching the four lower Snake dams if a federal judge ordered such as the only way to save diminishing salmon and steelhead runs that come back to Idaho, Ahlquist indicated he was open to listening to all sides on the issue.

Even a willingness to listen was too much for the dam lovers who push backed hard prompting a clarification op-ed from Ahlquist published in The Idaho Statesman stating that a desire to listen was not an invitation to the dam breachers, that breaching was off the table. He stated in his clarification that he had always been opposed to breaching, something he did not state at the “Hook and Bullet” forum.

Ahlquist then displayed his ignorance on the issue by indicating that breaching was a threat to Idaho water rights.

Come again? Nice try at muddying the water but simply not true. Right now Idaho water contributes to augmented flows that assist smolt in getting to the ocean more quickly. Breach the dams and there is no longer a need for augmentation, something one would expect a candidate for the Idaho governorship to know.

Whoever on his staff “ghosted” the misleading op-ed ought to be reprimanded. If one didn’t know Alquist is not much of a fan of President Trump (He supported Florida Senator Marco Rubio for the presidential nomination) one might think he was taking a cue and dropping from his vocabulary phrases such as “fact-based, science-based, vulnerable populations,” etc.

He is mastering the art of a typical ambiguous politician, though. Now drop the posture and quit throwing stones at your opponents for being what you are aspiring to be.