Kuna school district to charge $100 per sport in "pay-to-play" plan

It will be more expensive to be a letterman at Kuna starting next school year.
In order to offset budget cuts from the state, the Kuna school district has instituted a $100 “pay-to-play” fee per sport at the high school and a $30 fee at the middle school.
That means that a student participating in three sports, such as football, basketball and baseball, or volleyball, basketball and softball, will have to pay $300 for the school year.
The move is expected to generate about $125,000 per year, which ostensibly would go toward transportation costs. The revenue still would cover only about a quarter of the costs of providing athletic programs.

Steven Ricks withdraws from state Senate race

Steven Ricks has withdrawn from the race for the District 21 state Senate seat.
Ricks was slated to face incumbent Sen. Russ Fulcher in the Republican primary on May 25.
In a press release, Ricks cited an ongoing lawsuit stemming from his campaign in 2008. During that campaign, also against Fulcher, Ricks prepared and mailed out letters from Republican Party committee members. At the top of the letters was the Idaho Republican Party logo. The letter attacks special interest politics, good old boy politics and party politics.
Ricks lost to Fulcher in the primary. In September following the primary, Idaho Republican Party chairman Norm Semanko sent Ricks a letter chastising Ricks for using the state party logo in his campaign, stating that it might cause confusion that the state Republican Party was endorsing candidates. The letter also took Ricks to task for criticizing the party and making blanket statements about Republican legislators.
A similar letter was sent in September to all committee members.
Then in December 2008, Semanko sent another letter to every person in District 21 who had voted in the May primary election. That letter reiterated many of the same points in the previous letters.
In response, in March 2009, Ricks filed a libel lawsuit in the Fourth Judicial District against Semanko and the Idaho Republican State Central Committee, claiming the defendants made false statements about Ricks, published the false statements and “impugned the honesty, integrity, or reputation of Ricks or exposed Ricks to public contempt or ridicule.”
Ricks’ suit seeks judgment against the defendants of no less than $10,000.
The suit is scheduled to be tried in April 2011.
“Now that the case will not be resolved for almost another year, it will continue to consume a major portion of my time and focus,” according to a press release from Ricks. “The outcome of the case will be important to the operations of the Idaho Republican Party. Many questions, some with Constitutional implications, are at issue in the case.”

Melba voters approve $600,000 supplemental levy

Voters in the Melba school district Tuesday approved a $600,000 supplemental levy for the 2010-11 budget.
The vote was 299 yes votes, or 67 percent, and 147 no votes, or 33 percent. In all, 446 voters voted. A simple majority is required for supplemental levies.
“The Board of Trustees thanks the patrons for their tremendous support,” according to a press release sent out by Melba superintendent Bob Larson.
The $600,000 supplemental levy is a $190,000 increase over last year’s $410,000 supplemental levy, which voters approved by a vote of 274-126, or a 69 percent approval.

Streak of attending consecutive Kuna City Council meetings comes to an end

All good things must come to an end. On Tuesday night, I missed the Kuna City Council meeting. This was the first Kuna City Council meeting I've missed since Oct. 3, 2006. The longer my streak lasted, the harder it was to miss a meeting. But this Tuesday, I was just overwhelmed. In addition to just trying to get a newspaper out, I had an interview with Mel and Brenda Coulter, the Kuna parents of Charisa Coulter, who's in a Haiti jail on child trafficking charges. Before heading over there, though, I got word there was a double-fatal house fire in Melba, which I drove down to and covered for this week's issue. So by 5 p.m., I still had to finish the paper, edit photos from the Melba fire and write two stories. Needless to say, I was not going to City Council that night. I felt a twinge of something around 7:30 p.m., knowing council members were meeting without me. I guess I'll just start over again and see if I can break my first record.

Another new feature in the Kuna Melba News: Kuna business of the month

This week, we’re launching yet another new feature in the Kuna Melba News. It’s called “Business of the Month,” written by Kuna resident Corinna Stiles.
A couple of months ago, the Kuna Melba News ran an online poll asking readers how much of their holiday shopping they were planning on doing in Kuna. The number one response was, “None. There’s nothing good to buy in Kuna.”
Of course, the result was disheartening, as I’m sure it was for many of our local business owners who are doing their best to run a good business with excellent products and excellent service. It was also disheartening as the owner of the local newspaper, as we’re the ones trying our best to get the word out to our local residents. Some days it feels like beating your head against a brick wall.
It got me to thinking, though, that we simply need to do a better job of informing our residents of what we have to offer right here in Kuna. Why drive 20 minutes to a chain steakhouse when we have Peregrine Steakhouse right here in Kuna? Why drive up the road to Home Depot or Lowe’s when you can get everything you need at either True Value or Kuna Lumber right here in Kuna — and get way better service? Why go to Wal-Mart to get a birthday present when The Wild Ivy has some great kids gifts right here in Kuna? The list of amenities in Kuna goes on and on, it’s just that so many people are unaware that they really can get just about everything here in Kuna. And not just retail, but services, as well. Financial advisors, dentists, orthodontist, insurance, copying and printing, computer repair, etc.
In February, we are asking every single person reading this column, reading the story or seeing the house ad to go to the Peregrine Steakhouse just once. Go for lunch. Go for dinner. Go for the Sunday brunch. If you were planning on going to Outback Steakhouse or Red Robin or some other chain restaurant up in Meridian this month, change your plans and go to Peregrine instead.
You’ll be doing yourself a favor and you’ll also be boosting the local economy at the same time.

Network TV offers lessons for newspapers

Have you heard about the demise of network television? No, it’s nothing insidious like a government mandate or special interest wrangling. It has everything to do with economics.
Many of us still get all of our television — for free — over the airwaves. We get the networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and CW along with public television through the use of an antenna. What the current economic recession has caused network television executives to realize is that their business model has some problems. Over the past couple of years, their advertising revenue has suffered because of the recession. And that’s a big problem because 100 percent of their revenue comes from advertising.
Right now, network television is looking longingly at their cable television cousins and seeing that cable receives not one but two sources of revenue — advertising revenue AND “subscription” revenue.
Cable channels (AMC, The Discovery Channel, TNT, etc.) not only receive revenue from advertisers, they also receive “subscription” payments from cable customers who pay a monthly fee for the privilege of having these cable channels piped into their houses.
So while advertising revenue declines in a down economy, cable channels are much more stabilized by their other revenue stream from subscribers. Network TV is much more vulnerable to the vagaries and ups and downs of the advertising climate.
“What in the heck does this have to do with newspapers?” you may ask.
Newspapers have been acting too much like network television when it comes to their web sites. Newspapers have been posting everything for free for anyone with an “antenna,” i.e., an Internet connection, to come along and consume their product. To subsidize that effort, newspapers sell ads on their web sites. The biggest problem with that is that online advertising revenue does not even come close to paying for all the expenses of reporter and editor salaries, phone bills, utilities, travel expenses, etc., that go into actually creating those stories that everyone is reading for free.

So what's the solution? Find out in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.