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Posts published in “Day: June 8, 2007”

Two-buck tolls

June 8, 2007
Highway 520 bridge

Highway 520 bridge/Wikipedia

Nobody is going to like new tolls on a bridge they've driven for years without cost (except in time from the so-common traffic slowdowns). On the other hand, the toll system on the Narrows Bridge at Tacoma-Gig Harbor seems, from early indications, to be working.

So the key to a Highway 520 (that is, the floating bridge) toll may simply be keeping the rate low enough to be acceptable. At $2 a trip, an option now under discussion, the toll may be low enough that regular riders may not bother to circumvent it, especially if it leads to a better ride. And 520 can be a nasty parking lot (we've been there).

Two bucks just sounds inexpensive. (For some reason, "two buck Chuck" wine pops to mind . . . )

You can’t say there’s no interest

June 8, 2007

True, the numbers of appointive applicants for elective-type jobs are almost always higher than the number of candidates for election. But this still sounds like a good indicator of useful interest:

There are 102 applicants for the give positions on the new College of Western Idaho governing board (to be appointed first, later elected). Of those, 82 come from Ada County, 20 from Canyon (which is about right, since Ada passed the ballot issue and Canyon didn't.)

Some of the names that jumped out at us (not necessarily as the most likely appointees or the best ones, but just from past high visibility) include Milt Erhart, who has run for Senate and governor; Guy Hurlbutt prominent attorney; Charles McDevitt, former Idaho Supreme Court justice; Dean Sorensen, former legislator and candidate for lieutenant governor; Karl Tueller, deputy director at the state Department of Commerce and Labor; James Barnes, Nampa, former Idaho Press-Tribune publisher; Scott McDonald, Nampa, Nampa-Middleton Family Literacy Event Start project president.

The state Board of Education will have plenty of options, a number of them useful.