A few words on the Black & White Taxi controversy in Kuna

A few short words on the Black & White Taxi controversy. First of all, in many ways, this story is reminiscent of the whole Cowgirls debacle a while back in which the city effectively shut down Cowgirls by allowing their city liquor license to expire. At the time, I wrote a front-page story about it with the headline, “Last call for Cowgirls?”
When I wrote the story, somehow the perception was created that I was in some way in favor of shutting down Cowgirls, as if writing a story about it had something to do with the actions. I received angry phone calls from people telling me how many people Cowgirls employed and how morals should not be injected into government, as if I were some sort of radio talk show host.
I’ve seen the same sort of reaction to my Black & White Taxi story, as if my story was the cause of the city actions or that my story was some sort of show of support for the city’s actions.
To the contrary, would residents prefer that I NOT write about this subject so that the city can revoke a business license in secret? If anything, I would think that supporters of Black & White Taxi would be thanking me for shedding light on the story so that they may attempt to defend themselves to the public, rather than have a decision be made without the public knowing it.
As I wrote in last week’s Editor’s Notebook, the ultimate goal of this newspaper is to simply inform the public. We report, you decide, to steal a line from Fox News.
Further, we have now provided a forum for people to express their views, primarily on our Facebook page and through the submitted opinions posted with this story at www.kunamelba.com. Through this open dialogue, several angles and opinions have been expressed so that, taken as a whole, the reader now more fully understands the entire situation, something that just wouldn’t be otherwise possible by listening to this one person or that one person.
You can read more of this opinion, including my advice to Black & White owner Ernie Terrell, in this week's Kuna Melba News.