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Posts published in “Day: December 29, 2005”

Willamina’s cat flap

The old Tammany politico George Washington Plunkitt, one of the great cynics of public affairs, liked to say that "reformers are only mornin' glories" - they never last. Plunkitt wasn't all right - some reformers have gone on to do good for an extended stretch. But he wasn't all wrong either: It's a tough job to keep that reforming ethic intact; so many things, sometimes little things, whittle away at it.

Agie the cat Consider the cat - an easy-going, eight-year-old calico named Agie, as of now the most famous cat in Oregon - that has the city of Willamina in the biggest uproar of its recent history.

Agie was a stray kitten when she fell into the hands of Melissa Hansen, the librarian at the Oregon timber town; she named the feline for Agatha Christie. Feeling that cats and things literary go together (cat blogging, anyone?), she moved the cat into the library, with official city permission. It has been there since, developing fans around town and especially among the children at the library. The chldren also have become enamored of two other library residents, hamsters named Hamlet and Othello.

The cat (as we observed this evening) is friendly but not overbearing, and clearly in good health. She has been declawed, and has no history of biting or other violence. The hamsters were asleep, but they were shielded consistently from children and others by placement of their terrarium inside a book case - visible but not touchable.

That was the situation the Willamina City Council voted, at its meeting of December 8, to upend by banning animals from city buildings. (more…)

Rererereapportionment

Some people are never satisfied. That's actually one of the realities of legislative reapportionment: No matter how you reshape and rearrange, you can't please everyone. That doesn't give the displeased grounds for a lawsuit.

Idaho legislative districtsOur view on the current districting map for Idaho has been that it's not ideal but not bad either - allowing for some problematic areas. One of those is a district connecting a small group of people near Idaho Falls with a population base located around 80 miles away near the Utah border, with no useful direct road contact between (unless you want to rev up your four wheel drive, you have to veer outside the state or district to get from one to the other). It's an unfortunate district, no doubt. There's another running from Homedale to Twin Falls almost as bad. Such things happen to someone in every reapportionment.

But a number of eastern Idahoans, some of them legislators or former legislators, are aggrieved, and they have taken the reapportionment back to the Idaho Supreme Court. It has been there before, during the original reapportionment process in 2002. Further challenges led to more intense inquiry but, in the Idaho Supreme Court decision released Wednesday, the result was much the same. (more…)

Acquisition

The formal description reads: "F&M Holding Company, the parent company of Farmers & Merchants State Bank, is the largest independent bank holding company headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Farmers and Merchants State Bank, is a community banking organization established in 1967. FMSB's business mix is both retail and commercial, with a strategic focus on business banking. Farmers & Merchants State Bank also offers trust, investments and private banking services. The Company, with $582 million in assets, has 11 full-service branches located throughout the Boise and Treasure valley area."

Make that, "was the largest independent bank holding company headquartered in Boise, Idaho."

Cascade Bancorp, which is based in Bend an runs the rapidly-growing Bank of the Cascades, just bought it - greatly extending its reach to the east, and making it a much larger regional player in banking. To date, Cascade has 21 branches, all in Oregon, most in central Oregon.

It now seems positioned for a larger regional growth. Speculation: Watch for entry into Washington state before long.

Hot reading

Time has come for all the year-end lists (we here too are making some lists, checking them twice), but some are more striking than others.

Consider for example the Seattle Times list of 20 stories on its web site which were most-read (or at least most-viewed) during 2005.

Number 1 on the list: "Enumclaw-area animal-sex case investigated." Number 3: "Trespassing charged in horse-sex case." Number 6: "Videotapes show bestiality, Enumclaw police say." Number 14: "Details we can't quite comprehend" (a Nicole Brodeur column about the Enumclaw case). Number 19: "Charge filed in connection with man who died having horse sex."

That's five out of 20: Far outweighing any other topic.