Mary Souza’s Newsletter 
It’s Spring, so let’s talk baseball. And let’s start with the American Legion’s “equal or better” promise from the City of CdA. But that’s not all, we’ll also mull over the scuttlebutt that Memorial Field is being targeted for redevelopment. (more…)
This past weekend the Washington Post Magazine published a lengthy and fascinating article about Ana Montes, a former (now incarcerated) spy for Cuba’s Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI – General Intelligence Directorate). Montes is a US citizen whose personal ideology led her to become a spy for the DGI.
The WaPo Magazine article and the book mentioned in it, former DIA counterintelligence investigator Scott Carmichael’s book True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy, give some insight into the world of human intelligence collection and counterintelligence.
For example… (more…)
Yesterday’s rush by alleged news media to put the wrong information out first was excoriated by today’s New York Times article titled The F.B.I. Criticizes the News Media After Several Mistaken Reports of an Arrest.
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism lists nine core principles for providing “…citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.”
Yesterday’s travesty by various skewsmedia managed to mangle the first three of those principles with no difficulty at all.
The Sunday, April 14th Idaho Statesman has a column titled Tim Woodward: Enough public art fiascos, thanks. In his article, Woodward suggests that Boise may have the corner on Idaho’s tasteless art market.
Wrong, southern Idaho spud picker!
At least in the genre of “art to puke by after bar break,” Coeur d’Alene has blown by Boise and left it in a steaming crack.
Right in downtown Coeur d’Alene at 6th and Sherman we have artist Jason Sanchez’s work titled “Art & Soul” or as some have called it, “Man Urinating in Paint Bucket.”
The sign next to “Art & Soul” informs Coeur d’Alene’s art community that Mr. Sanchez is willing to let this representative piece of Coeur d’Alene art go for a mere $9,600. From the bottom of my heart, I sincerely hope that someone from Boise will buy it and promptly display it there. Until that happens, Coeur d’Alene will retain its title as “#1 Tasteless Art City in Idaho.”
“Old Dog” posted this analytical comment on Mary’s post titled Here They Go Again. Please take the time to read his comment.
What he’s describing resembles a variation on “blockbusting.” The 1950’s definition of blockbusting involved profiteers starting rumors in a community that ethnic minorities would be moving in. The intent of the rumors was to cause panic among property owners and induce them to sell their properties (to the profiteers) at dramatically reduced prices.
A more modern version of blockbusting might have local government officials, possibly in collusion with would-be profiteers, allowing sections of town to deteriorate to drive property prices down. The properties would be bought up by profiteers, or the profiteers may already own immediately adjacent properties. Then the municipality’s urban renewal agency might be encouraged to pump a lot of urban renewal money (that’s public money for those who may still think it is “free money”) into infrastructure, thus driving property values back up at the expense of the public. Then the profiteers and their cronies who owned adjacent land would reap the profits resulting from increased property values and newer development.
Fortunately, nothing like that could ever happen in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho…
Mary Souza’s Newsletter 
It’s been a long time since we talked about LCDC, and I know you’ll be thrilled to hear what they’re doing with your property tax dollars. Our County Clerk, Cliff Hayes, just released the yearly report of Urban Renewal money, so let’s look at LCDC’s portion:
More than $540,000 dollars in property tax that would normally have gone to NIC, went to LCDC instead. And if you include all the urban renewal districts in Kootenai County, the total diverted away from NIC was almost $1million. My, my, I bet the college would like to have that income right now. Oh, wait, they do get their whole income because you and I and every other taxpayer in the County pay more on our NIC taxes to help make up for the million that goes to urban renewal. (more…)
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?
This morning OpenCdA received an email from an alert reader. The reader linked us to this Coeur d’Alene Press newspaper column headlined The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT April 6, 2013 – NIC gym getting a makeover. The second sentence in the column reads, “Thanks to some funding from the Coeur d’Alene department of public works, the next time anyone steps into the gym at NIC, it will be onto a brand new gym floor.”
Our alert reader asked why the Coeur d’Alene department of public works is funding a new gym floor at North Idaho College.
We emailed the reader’s question to Coeur d’Alene City Councilman Dan Gookin with a couple questions of our own. Within a few minutes, Councilman Gookin responded that he intended to ask that question of City Finance Director Troy Tymesen. Gookin also observed that since the City does not really have a department of public works with that formal title, the Press article may have been in error and meant to say the Idaho Division of Public Works.
We went to the Idaho Division of Public Works, Construction Projects webpage and found this:
We wonder if anyone at the Coeur d’Alene Press bothers to check stories for accuracy.
And our thanks to Councilman Dan Gookin for his quick response to our question!
In a March 30th comment on her Facebook page, former Spokesman-Review reporter Taryn Thompson offers some experienced and interesting insight about local news media including anonymous blog comments in news stories.
Here is a reprint of her comment used with her permission.
Do you believe in principle that anonymous blog comments should or should not be included in news stories? If you do, what do you believe they add?
Would you still comment on OpenCdA if you had to attach your true name to your comment? Why?
Mary Souza’s Newsletter 
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, especially after a lovely Easter weekend, but we have some very serious problems to discuss.
You may not be aware of the terrible performance of our area grads, I certainly was not, so let me give you the facts:
I was shocked to learn that, for the students graduating from Lake City HS who apply to North Idaho College, more than 60% will have to take remedial math before they can start into regular community college classes. More than 60%…oh my! And these are new grads from high school. If they’ve been out longer than a year before starting back to school, the numbers are even worse. (more…)
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