Kathy Sims wrote a terrific My Turn Column for this morning’s CdA Press, where she hit the target on an important but elusive subject. She addresses the NIC board of trustees’ attempt to bypass the constitutional right of the voters to decide whether NIC, as a public entity, can go into long term debt. I’m thrilled to read her clear, no-nonsense view of this fiasco, and am very glad she’s going to Boise to represent us.
Great job, Kathy!
Here’s what Susie posted earlier this morning on another thread:
“Kathy Sims has an informative My Turn essay regarding the NIC purchase of the Mill Site in today’s Press. Be sure to read it.”
Comment by Susie Snedaker — November 26, 2010 @ 8:03 am
Comment by mary — November 26, 2010 @ 9:00 am
Hurray for Kathy calling out people who try to circumvent our authority and constitutional rights to vote on long term debt. Every taxpayer in Idaho should become familiar with Article 8 sec.3 of the Idaho Constitution. Short version …no public entity can go out beyond one budget cycle for any debt, liability or obligaton without 2/3 assent of the voters. The only exception is water and sewer issues and they require 50% plus one vote.
With Kathy in the legislature this year we may actually see some pulling back of taxpayer abuses.
Comment by paul — November 26, 2010 @ 9:19 am
Read that this morning. This information needs to be repeated and repeated. It is my observation that the il-literati here needs constant re-enforcement.
Is it just me or does anybody else think it is nuts to go shopping at 3 a.m.?? And in this weather? I wouldn’t do that unless they were giving away Porches. Now where did I put that snow shovel….
Comment by rochereau — November 26, 2010 @ 9:21 am
A very astute perception and a well written article. Kathy was able to see beyond the smoke and mirrors that have been enveloping this county and city for years. The LCDC is also complicit in this fraud of the citizens.
Comment by Ancientemplar — November 26, 2010 @ 10:06 am
Some people in Idaho believe that if an act which is unconstitutional or illegal is successfully completed before anyone catches the perpetrators, the unconstitutional or illegal act has somehow been made constitutional or legal. In easier terms, it’s not unconstitutional or illegal if you don’t get caught.
Idaho sailed along on that philosophy for years. “It must be legal; we’ve been doing it this way for years!” was their defense. There was another slight variation from that. “We’ve been doing it this way for years because our lawyer said it was okay.”
That went on until 2006 when the organic fertilizer hit the spinning impeller in City of Boise v. Frazier. Frazier reminded the Idaho Supreme Court that Article VIII, Section 3, of the Idaho Constitution had not been repealed. The Idaho Supreme Court agreed.
Like David Frazier and the Idaho Supreme Court, Representative-elect Sims has it right: Article VIII, Section 3, of the Idaho Constitution is still in place to protect the taxpayers against the actions of rogue or corrupt public officials who choose to ignore it. We just need to demand it be enforced.
Comment by Bill — November 26, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
Hurray for Kathy Sims! I really like a “straight-shooter”, no beating around the bush!
I opened the Urban Renewal link on the County website and looked at the pie chart showing the impacts of urban renewal dollars. It was outrageous! Our LCDC has to be stopped from future spending of our property tax dollars!
Comment by LTR — November 26, 2010 @ 2:40 pm
Yes, LTR, the pie charts are eye-popping! (I added the link to yours so anyone can click and see it)
Comment by mary — November 26, 2010 @ 2:53 pm
LCDC…sheez, what is the problem. It’s not like it is your money. The City controls your money…right?
Comment by Happy Trails — November 26, 2010 @ 3:16 pm
Wow – that is RIDICULOUS!! I wish someone would file a class action lawsuit against those jerks. Or are there too many people who are afraid? I wonder what Judge Mitchell would do if a bunch of us decided to ask for intervenor status in the NIC lawsuit? Can we do that?
Comment by Stebbijo — November 26, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
Happy Trails,
The LCDC has another name, an unofficial one: The First Unregulated Bank of Idaho. It exists not to improve conditions for everyone in the city but to dole out taxpayer money as political patronage to city elected officials and to enrich some of its own Board members. If along the way there is some incidental benefit to the taxpayers, well, that’s one of those unintended but absolutely exploitable consequences.
Comment by Bill — November 27, 2010 @ 8:42 am
Another head shaking morning with the Press. The My Turn column by some bubble brain…Hearn? And this (ignorant attitude, lack of in depth understanding) is why very little of consequence will ever change here. You will enjoy his comment that the backers of Jim Brannon remain anonymous. The local spinmeisters are winning with their “explanation” of the lawsuit.
Comment by rochereau — November 27, 2010 @ 8:58 am
The rabidistas like Tom Hearn are extremely concerned that Dan English was quite properly thrown out of office by voters who examined his professional conduct and found that it was severely lacking in quality or integrity. They are also concerned that the same fate may befall Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and Hurst even though Ysursa is allegedly a Republican and Hearn and Kennedy are Democrats. Ysursa and Hurst have provided county clerks some “recommendations” that are indefensible when compared to the statutes.
Finally, one of the rabidistas’ greatest concerns is that the close examination of English’s unprofessional conduct may lead newly-empowered voters to start looking much more carefully at the qualifications of our district court judges. One DJ-1, Lansing Haynes, was rebuked last week by the Idaho Supreme Court (see City of Huetter v. Bradley W. Keene) for reading into the law that which the Idaho legislature had not included. Judges who need to be re-elected to hold onto their judge gigs have, in the past, not payed as much attention as they should to what the Supremes say about their decisions. The voters didn’t care, so the DJs didn’t much care. But now the voters across the state are beginning to look more closely at the professional performance of all elected officials, including judges. We can only hope that our own DJs may start paying closer attention to the law and less attention to the extralegal opinions and wishes of those who are in a position to financially and politically influence the outcome of judicial elections here.
Hearn and the rabidistas are trying to distract the voters by making Jim Brannon and Starr Kelso out to be villains for insisting that the law be enforced and adjudicated as written, not as the rabidistas wish it had been written.
Comment by Bill — November 27, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
Finally compared this years and last years property tax statements. Up 10%. My appraisal was down, so the increase comes from increased budgets, specifically KTEC, NIC, and CDA City.
The dream of this location becoming a retirement haven, or even a good place to do business, is vanishing. This area is consistently high tax, with an electorate that seems okay with it. You do not attract businesses, jobs, or retirees under such circumstances. Unless this situation changes soon, and rapidly, things are going to get bad.
Comment by Dan — November 28, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
Bill, you crack me up using your terminology eg:”rabidistas.”
It’s about time we started to examine the roles of our judges and how they have operated under out current system.
Watch for fireworks, they can’t move fast enough under our current example of deaf, dumb, and dumber legislature.
I hope someone, like Kathy Sims, can stir it enough to produce and recognize why we need to do something to get our government on a track. I wish her luck in protecting our Constitution. But first, she needs to change Article I to get any credibiity. She shouldn’t have a problem doing that.
Comment by Stebbijo — November 28, 2010 @ 6:23 pm
I spoke with a business/property owner downtown who is outraged at the increase in his taxes, including a huge chunk to the shadow government, lcdc. He certainly has valid complaints.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — November 28, 2010 @ 9:45 pm
Susie,
Mine went up by 16%
Comment by concerned citizen — November 29, 2010 @ 6:44 am
Lets not put too much pressure on, or expect too much from, Kathy Sims right out of the shoot. I suggest that the most valuable asset she has at the start is the access to information. She will do great on important issues but she will need some time to get “use to the water” again.
Comment by Happy Trails — November 29, 2010 @ 9:55 am
Susie, please inform your downtown business owner that if he (or she) hadn’t paid those taxes to LCDC, they would have gone to the other districts on his tax bill. Remember, please, that LCDC does not levy taxes. They get taxes from the increase in the owner’s property value since LCDC was created in 1997, and those taxes are based on the budgets set by all of those other districts on his tax bill. It is a diversion of taxes to LCDC that he (or she) would have to pay in any event, and only because their property increased in value. Thanks.
Comment by JohnA — November 29, 2010 @ 11:37 am
John, I will tell him. It seems to me that if the taxing districts received those monies then their levy rates might not have been raised to accommodate the sums given to lcdc – a shadow government.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — November 29, 2010 @ 12:04 pm
John, everyone has to pay higher taxes because of the LCDC. Even if, like me, you don’t live in Coeur d’Alene you still have help make up the lost revenue to the County (and SD271 for most Hayden residents) that these entities cannot collect due to the increment going to the LCDC. Functionally, I am paying a portion of my taxes to the LCDC. Forget having a vote on the activities or governance of the LCDC (which no citizen does), I do not even get a vote on the body ostensibly managing the LCDC (the CDA City Council). It’s a highly unfair, ] undemocratic system and I hope we don’t have to wait until 2027 to see it end.
Comment by KootenaiConservative — November 29, 2010 @ 12:14 pm
Such gibberish! The LCDC doesn’t tax, the LCDC doesn’t raise levy rates. They LCDC does, however, impact levy rates. The money has to come from somewhere. The budgets for the taxing entities are not affected by LCDC, but the levy rate calculations are. That’s because the increased valuation in the district is subtracted from the district’s property values. A lower denominator means a higher result, e.g., a higher levy rate. We all pay more in property taxes because of urban renewal. Having URA supporters continue to mislead the public on this topic is not helping the overwhelming desire to end all urban renewal in this state.
Comment by Dan — November 29, 2010 @ 12:33 pm
Dan, with all due respect, you are correct that the Assessor subtracts the URD’s valuation from each district’s total, but the levy rate doesn’t go up. That is because the corresponding DOLLARS that go to LCDC, based on the total of each districts’ levy rates, are ALSO subtracted from that district’s budget. So both denominator and numerator decline, meaning no change in the levy rate.
You can always make the case that a city/county, etc, must make due without the dollars they would otherwise receive, but that’s another discussion unrelated to levy rates. They can’t raise their budgets (except by the 3% allowed by law) so the levy cannot rise otherwise.
The only way for those entities to recapture those lost funds is when the URD ends. That’s when both the new valuation AND new dollars come to each entity, again impacting both their denominator and numerator and therefore, again, having no change in their levy rates.
Comment by JohnA — November 29, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
Susie, You’re absolutely correct, and there is not getting around it. They can couch it anyway they want, it still amounts to a tax increase.
Comment by Ancientemplar — November 29, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
Uh, John: You’re telling me that the LCDC does affect the city’s budget?
Comment by Dan — November 29, 2010 @ 3:11 pm
We’re not talking about budgets, Dan. We’re talking about levy rates. Big difference.
If the city could add budget dollars, knowing the corresponding value was not added, then they would be affecting the levy rate. No value to the city, no dollars and so no change in the levy rate.
Please see my explanation under Mary’s thread. Take the time to analyze it and you’ll see.
Comment by JohnA — November 29, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
John A.
Would we have lower levy rates if LCDC was dissolved today?
Comment by LTR — November 29, 2010 @ 7:18 pm