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Posts published in “Day: May 11, 2007”

On a hair trigger

May 11, 2007
Grant County courthouse

A picture of the Grant County courthouse

We're in the process of gathering election results information from the Northwest's 119 counties, and as a result stopping by the courthouses, one by one. As part of the effort, we snap a picture or two of the outside of the courthouse building, to be used in eventual illustration (and evidence we were there).

Most of all this has been uneventful. A run-in with law enforcement in central Oregon last week did make up a disquieting incident, and a headline today out of Albany suggests a need to consider and discuss both.

A light rain was falling as I parked in the Grant County courthouse parking lot, and stepped out to take a couple of shots of the building, a little more difficult in this case than usual because much of the building was obscured by trees. Headed back to the car, I was called to by a uniformed law enforcement officer - the undersheriff, it turned out, who was accompanied by another officer who stayed a few feet behind him. He asked what I was doing.

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A cautionary growth note

May 11, 2007
McCall

McCall waterfront

Growth equals more money equals improved prosperity, right? Such would be the intuitive thought, but reality is that more growth and even more money can be trouble. There's a long line of businesses that have collapsed over the years because they didn't carefully enough navigate the narrows of managing that change. And cities, too, as McCall is finding out.

Drive around McCall, Idaho, and it's the last place you'd figure for money trouble. Lots of new houses, lots of new businesses - its official population of around 3,500 has been a joke of long standing, since the part-timers and those located just beyond city limits would easily push the numbers to three times that. Situated in one of Idaho's most scenic areas (much more scenic than Sun Valley), it's the very picture of prosperity.

And the city of McCall is on the edge of bankruptcy, which it may declare next week.

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