The upcoming May 21 school board elections are very important, so there’s a fundraising Wine Tasting event TODAY for the three conservative candidates: Ann Seddon, Brent Regan and Bjorn Handeen.  It will be from 5-7 at the CdA Cellars, which is on Schreiber Way  (the loop on the south side of Kathleen just west of the Fred Meyer road.)  Please come and support these candidates!

Anything else on your mind?

Freedom Tree

As we contemplate death, redemption and new life, what are your hopes for our community?

If you missed the Council meeting last night, you missed a long one.  But the fireworks really blew up after the cameras were turned off.  Here’s the press release from Councilman Steve Adams about what happened after the meeting.  Hold onto your hats, you are not going to believe what the Mayor did and said:

“While still in the community room after last night’s city council meeting, City Attorney Mike Gridley approached me and asked if I was going to provide him with a copy of the ethics complaint I filed against him. I told him the Idaho State Bar would likely send him a copy with a request to respond. He then proceeded to get in my face and told me I was a “moron”. I asked him If he was threatening me, he said no, but that in 30 years of practicing law he had never had anyone make a complaint against him, and again he told me I was “moron”. He was still in my face at this point, just inches away, leaning in on me. I again asked if he was threatening me and he said no, but that I could “fu** off you stupid moron.” At this point I grabbed my cell phone and called 911 to ask for officer assistance as I perceived this as an assault. Mr. Gridley walked away saying he was going to his office and then home. I walked through the library and into the ante room where the Mayor, Mike Kennedy, Deanna Goodlander, Wendy Gabriel and Jon Ingalls were standing. Mike Kennedy told me I should calm down. I told him about the exchange I had with Mr. Gridley and he responded with surprise and expressed dissatisfaction. I turned to the Mayor and pointed at her exclaiming that she should take disciplinary action against Mr. Gridley. She told me not to point at her, so I apologized for pointing. She then said not only would she not be disciplining Mr. Gridley but,  raising her fist at me, she said she had half a mind to “punch my nose off of my face.” For the City Attorney to verbally assault me, twice now, with inflammatory and derogatory comments, is a violation of his attorney code of ethics and, according to the city’s personnel rules, is insubordination. I call for his immediate termination.

Mayor Bloem’s actions are unprofessional, disrespectful and definitely unbecoming for the Mayor.  I demand an apology.”  –Steve Adams

Do you remember the winter of 2008?  We had much more snow than we do now.  This is a photo of now Councilman Dan Gookin, on his newly cleared sidewalk back in ’08.

Any thoughts about the snow, the city council or anything else on your mind?

WOODY “BITCHIN” MCEVERS

The lovely lull between Christmas and New Years has been shattered today by reports of lunacy from Team McEuen.  Parks Director Doug Eastwood seems to have suddenly discovered the McEuen project was “too scaled back”, in his almighty opinion.  According to this morning’s Press, “Eastwood said he noticed the park was getting too scaled back. Planning was focusing too much on the estimated $14.2 million budget at the time, he said, and items like the playground and splash pad, which should have been the park’s focus, started to get chopped away. I think we have to get back to what this project was all about at the beginning,” he said. “This puts it back and recaptures the vision.”

How silly!–gosh, they were focusing on the budget, but Doug thinks they should focus on the “vision”.  Now they need an extra $6.5 million.

Councilman Mike Kennedy, who promised a few months ago that the project “would not go over budget”, has been silent.  The Mayor, who promised that no taxpayer money would be used on the park, even though we all know that LCDC money is taxpayer money, now advocates using the city’s Rainy Day Fund, which is unarguably tax money.  But Councilman Woody McEvers takes the prize for absurdity.  The Press reports that Woody said “Five million bucks to make it bitchin’,…Bite the bullet and go big.”        (Miss the Recall yet?)

   I’ve changed this Open Session intro from Friday’s photo of the sudden snowfall to a Sunday tribute to Veteran’s Day.  I decided to change it rather than start a new Open Session because I think we’ve got some good comments going here about responsible government and how important that is for our veterans as well.

My thanks to each and every one of our veterans,  starting with our own Bill McCrory, retired military and Secret Service, who is my partner on this web site.  Your thoughts?

The historic McEuen Field, as we have known it, is now a thing of the past.  I’m told City crews were busy yesterday and today, taking down the baseball fields and preparing for the “big scrape” coming soon, where heavy equipment will come in and scrape the asphalt off the parking lot and the grass off the park.  (photo of Rita Sims-Snyder, Friends of McEuen, 2011)  How do you feel about this?