Dreams of a downtown shattered

A couple of weeks ago I was waxing nostalgic about my first newspaper job at The Current-Argus in Carlsbad, N.M., some 16 years ago. Maybe that jogged my memory or maybe it’s the hot weather we’ve been having, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that time in my life.
The address for The Current-Argus was on South Main Street. Main Street. Just the words conjured all sorts of romantic notions of what my life would be like. I’d be working in a building right on Carlsbad’s Main Street. I had visions of a bustling little downtown of wide sidewalks and brick buildings, the courthouse and police station and City Hall all within walking distance of each other. Main Street. I would rush out the doors of my newspaper office building over to the courthouse for a verdict or over to City Hall for the next council meeting, rushing past people I knew, waving along the way, pointing to my watch to indicate in a hurried fashion that I couldn’t stop to chat this time. Main Street.
It took me four days’ driving from New Jersey before I pulled into Carlsbad on a sweltering summer afternoon. Highway 285 comes up on Carlsbad from the southeast on the south side of town. After checking into a motel for the night, I set out to explore my new town.
Mind you, this was all before the time of Google maps and street view. Heck, it was even before the time of the Internet, if you can believe such a time existed.
I drove into Carlsbad proper on Canal Street. I passed motel after motel, fast-food place after fast-food place, car lots, gas stations and convenience stores along with all of their accompanying plastic signs, parking lots and withering landscaping. I drove on, my hopeful eyes set on the horizon waiting for my idyllic downtown. I kept driving a couple of miles until I came to a sharp turn west. A-ha, I thought. Around the corner must be the oasis. Another two miles of strip malls and convenience stores and chain restaurants and I found myself on the edge of the desert again, leaving the city.
Wait, where was my downtown? Where was Main Street? Where were my brick buildings and bustling sidewalk traffic? Eventually, I found it. Abandoned, falling apart, vacant. Save for the beautiful historic courthouse, the downtown was dilapidated, neglected, empty. Main Street had become an industrial backage road populated by low-slung steel buildings and work yards. I was crestfallen.
Carlsbad had grown, to be sure. But it had grown into an ugly city of chain stores and restaurants, aesthetically displeasing with little to no character at all. Walking in Carlsbad was an aberration, a source of confused looks, as if the pedestrian were in some sort of distress or mental incapacity.
Is this what’s in store for Kuna? Is this what we will become? A few years ago, an urban renewal effort was nearly consummated but was quashed. Two years ago, when City Council members approved plans for a big-box store at Deer Flat and Meridian roads, there was talk about revitalizing downtown. Now again, next week, a group of community developers will offer their ideas about downtown.
Let’s get this done this time. Quit talking about it and just do it. I fear that City Council members, faced again with a tight budget, won’t budget any money for a grant writer or money for downtown renewal.
Meanwhile, locally owned businesses with character and identity close and chain stores open.
I predict that 20 years from now, with our 120,000 residents, our Wal-Mart and Fred Meyer and Walgreens and Subway, people will look around and say, “Why did they let their downtown fall to pieces like that?”

Looks like ACHD will be pushing roundabouts

The Ada County Highway District appears ready to move ahead with plans for more traffic roundabouts in the county.
ACHD representatives made a presentation to Kuna City Council members last week detailing a draft policy and guidelines for roundabouts that they hope to have approved by ACHD commission members as early as this summer.
Roundabouts are intersection traffic devices in which drivers enter a traffic circle by way of yielding to traffic, if any, already in the circle. Drivers can then exit the circle in any number of directions without stopping. A roundabout is used as an alternative to stop signs or traffic signals.
Terry Little, ACHD traffic services manager, told council members that safety, relieving congestion, reducing delays and air pollution and improving aesthetics are benefits of roundabouts over four-way stops and signalized intersections.
While public attitude is generally very negative toward roundabouts before a roundabout is installed, the public’s attitude generally turns just the opposite once a roundabout is put in, Little said.

You can read more of this in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Kuna High grad earns national championship in speech and debate event

Kuna High graduate Josh Watkins, a member of the Boise State University speech and debate team, won a national championship at the 2010 National Comprehensive Tournament held recently in Minneapolis.
Watkins earned the national championship in the experimental event “To Honor the Environment.”
He was part of the BSU speech and debate team that finished in fourth place in overall sweepstakes standings at the national tournament, with two team members winning individual national championships in their event.

Kuna, quit the crazy talk about the Census form and fill out your form

I have a bad feeling about this year’s Census. We have become such a fear-mongering society, and the Internet has only served to spread disinformation, gossip and fear about, among other things, the Census. It seems nothing in our society is safe from unfounded accusations and fervent conspiracy theories.
A group of local citizens, including myself along with Joe Luppens, Kuna City Council member Jeff Lang, Jon Lang, JoLyn Glascock, Kuna Lions Club President Skip Hoseley, local dentist JD Grant, Karlynn Laraway from the school district, Calvary Chapel of Kuna Pastor Chris Bent, Bob Kegler from the Kuna Senior Citizens Center, worked for over a year on the Kuna Census Committee, hoping to ensure that everyone in Kuna gets counted. We’ve been meeting on Saturday mornings and volunteering countless hours to do this work.
I find it personally insulting to have our efforts subsumed by ignorant crazy talk. I even know of one local business that refused to allow us to put up posters or hand out flyers. That’s not very good public relations, if you ask me.
Undercounting means less representation in government, less funding for roads, an overpass, etc., and more money spent on paying people to go knock on doors of people who didn’t fill out their Census form and mail it in.
Also, the Census records history. It will tell future generations — your grandchildren and great-grandchildren — where you lived and who was living with you.
The Census asks you 10 simple questions.
As of Tuesday, the nation was at 46 percent return rate for Census forms, Idaho was at 53 percent, Ada County at 55 percent and the city of Kuna 57 percent.
We’re doing better than average, but we still have a long ways to go.
The bottom line for me, despite the Census crazy talk out there this year, the Census information is benign, it’s highly useful for planning and it’s completely safe.
Here’s one more reason: If you fill it out and mail it in, no government agent will come knocking on your door asking you these questions. Just do it.

A few Kuna police blotter items that came too late for this week's issue

Tuesday, March 23
5:59 P.M.: Battery Just Occurred, 300 Block W Main St - a 16-year-old male got into a fight at the skate park. They did not want or need paramedics. Deputies responded and completed report

Wednesday, March 24
1:16 A.M.: Overdose Code 2, 1300 Block W Topanga Ct - deputies responded after paramedics called, adult female who overdosed on unknown chemical – transported to hospital and placed on mental hold

Thursday, March 25
5:32 P.M.: Animal Abuse, 1100 Block W Kesler Dr – calling party reported neighbor was beating his dog. Deputies responded and spoke with owner of the animal who said he smacked his dog for digging holes in the yard. Dog appeared healthy and well cared for. No further action taken.

Friday, March 26
10:48 A.M.: Fraud Report, 700 Block W Avalon St – deputies responded to take report about prior incident. No further action taken.

Saturday, March 27
10:17 A.M.: Burglary Report, 1000 Block E Kuna Rd – caller reports business was broken into the previous night and a small amount of cash taken. Deputies responded to investigate.
3:21 P.M.: Narcotics Violation, 1300 Block W Castro Dr – caller reports seeing two adult males and an adult female meet and conduct what the caller referred to as a “drug deal”. Deputies responded to get further information

Sunday, March 28
1:05 A.M.: Assist Paramedics Code 2, 300 Block N Avenue E – adult male fell inside a business and was bleeding from the head. Deputies responded to assist paramedics for security reasons
2:39 P.M.: Road Rage Situation, 1400 Block N El Camino Av – caller reports an adult male followed her daughter and son-in-law to her home over a road rage situation. The other driver then left. Deputies responded to gather further information.

Kuna Easter Egg Hunt is happening this Saturday

Every year around this time, I get inundated with phone calls from people wanting to know when the Kuna Easter Egg Hunt is. Clearly, these people aren't reading the Kuna Melba News, yet they call the Kuna Melba News to find out when the event is. Perhaps I should make callers listen to an ad for El Gallo Giro or Freedom Fitness.
This year, I'm crying uncle. I'm posting the information on our web site and on this blog in the hopes that readers will realize how much information there is in the Kuna Melba News every week. I am also using it as a plea to those folks who don't currently subscribe: You know the information is in the paper, just subscribe. I guarantee that you're going to find something of interest to you more than just once a year when you want to find out when the Easter Egg Hunt is. How about the open house for BMX season in Kuna? When does baseball season start? Is your son or daughter student of the week?
And it's just 28 bucks a YEAR. The whole year. 28 dollars. People spend more than that on one month of cable.
All right, so now that I've made you listen to my ad, here's the info:
The annual Kuna Easter Egg Hunt is happening this Saturday.
Hundreds if not thousands of local residents are expected to gather at 10 a.m., this Saturday, April 3, at the Kuna High School football field to gather thousands of eggs containing hundreds of treats and prizes.

State puts hold on several water-rights applications after story appears in the Kuna Melba News

The Idaho Department of Water Resources has put on hold a number of water-rights applications in an area of the southeast Kuna region until a study can be completed of the area, according to an exclusive story in this week's Kuna Melba News.
Specifically, the department is concerned about a 13-square-mile area in which pending water-rights applications represent 47.74 cubic feet per second of water diversion, or roughly twice the current capacity of the city of Kuna.
“We want to get a little better handle on the groundwater situation down there,” said John Westra, Western Regional Manager of IDWR. “This is more of a regional thing.”
Westra said the move by his department was “routine.”
The department has directed its hydrology section manager to report on a number of concerns, including:
• the sufficiency of cold groundwater supply
• potential injury to existing users and cumulative impact on current water-rights users
• appropriation of groundwater for proposed uses in the public interest.
The Kuna Melba News reported earlier this month on what the city of Kuna was characterizing as an “Arizona water grab” in the region. Of particular concern were a pair of water-rights applications on an Ada County-approved planned community called Vista, which was being proposed by a group of Arizona companies.

A bit of good news this week: The circus is coming back to Kuna

The circus is coming back to town.
The Kuna Lions Club is bringing back the Culpepper and Merriweather Circus for two shows, 2 and 4:30 p.m., on Saturday, July 17, in the parking lot behind the Kuna city park.
The Culpepper and Merriweather Circus is a good, old-fashioned, one-ring, big-top circus. The Kuna Lions Club brought them to Kuna two years ago, in July 2008, with much success. Nearly 1,000 locals attended the circus, which turned out to be a highly successful fundraiser for the Kuna Lions Club.
The circus includes performing animals, a high-wire act, a dog and pony revue, a trapeze performer, a unicycle act, a hula hoop act, an Old West horse comedy routine, and, of course, a clown. Each show in 2008 lasted nearly two hours and received rave reviews from those in attendance.
On the morning of the circus, residents can come down to the city park to watch the raising of the Big Top, then stay for a free tour.

Kuna city taxpayers on the hook for ballfields project

The city of Kuna already has spent several thousand dollars on making sure the city park ballfields will be ready in time for opening day of the youth baseball season April 10.
Several thousand more dollars likely will be necessary in the coming weeks to get the job done.
Kuna city engineer Gordon Law said that the parks budget has about $8,000 in unspent money from a capital expense that he can use toward finishing the ballpark, including buying backstop netting and sod.
But City Council member Rich Cardoza is even more concerned about future expenses related to advertising and promotional expenses that have been promised to business owners.
Cardoza’s concern seems to be a harbinger of potential problems. The question remains as to whether the Kuna Baseball Park Redevelopment Committee accepted money in exchange for promises of advertising signs and pavers and naming rights and whatever else. At least one business owner has informed the city that he paid $5,000 in exchange for advertising. Is the city now on the hook for these promises?
I hope a financial accounting is done soon so we can sort this out.

Company wants to put a shed up in city park parking lot as part of vehicle emissions testing

A company is proposing to put a shed in a parking lot at Deer Flat and Linder roads as part of the new DEQ-mandated vehicle emissions testing.
The proposal runs contrary to what the contractor company stated two weeks ago about the nature of these operations.
Bill Dell of SysTech told the Kuna Melba News in February that the company was looking for existing businesses that can do the tests themselves, have a covered area for the tests and have adequate facilities for customers, including a waiting area and clean bathroom. The Kuna Lube N Go would be a good example of a business that might conduct the tests, Dell confirmed.
However, Kuna City Council members have an item on their agenda for Tuesday night from a company called L-N-T, which claims to be doing work with SysTech to provide vehicle emissions in Kuna.
They are proposing to place a 12-foot-by-8-foot-by-11.5-foot shed in the parking lot of the city park at the southwest corner of Deer Flat and Linder roads. The company is also proposing to place a 4-by-4-foot sign on a couple of wooden posts at the site.

Is the Treasure Valley facing an 'Arizona water grab'?

The city of Kuna is preparing to defend itself from what it characterizes as “an Arizona water grab” in its back yard.
A group of Arizona companies and a Boise water engineering firm are applying for water rights on over 1,000 acres of land previously approved as the Vista Planned Community, according to an exclusive story in this week's Kuna Melba News.
“I would characterize this as an Arizona water grab,” Kuna city engineer Gordon Law said last week.
Under two separate applications, Vista’s original development companies and SPF Water Engineering of Boise are applying for a total of 20.44 cubic feet per second of water on approximately 1,022 acres of land known as the Vista Planned Community.
The pending water-rights applications are located just west of Cole Road and south of Kuna Mora Road within the boundaries of the Vista Planned Community, a massive mixed-use development approved by Ada County Commissioners in 2008.
By comparison, the city of Kuna currently has eight wells in operation, representing 20 to 25 CFS, so the applications would be the equivalent of the city of Kuna’s entire water production. Further, Law said that 20 to 25 CFS is enough capacity to handle roughly 11,000 dwelling units. The city of Kuna currently has around 5,000 dwelling units.
The city of Kuna has an active water right permit for the diversion of 18 CFS, of which the city has diverted and placed into service about 2.7 CFS.
The city has about eight years left in its permit to divert and place in beneficial use the remaining 15.3 CFS or it will be lost, Law said.

Much more of this story is in this week's Kuna Melba News.

'Support' has its place when it comes to Kuna businesses

When Nicola and I purchased the Kuna Melba News in 2006, I bristled at the notion of “support.” Too many times, we came across the notion that someone was advertising in the newspaper because they “want to support the local paper,” not that they believed our product would help their business.
The message that we tried to spread, and continue to spread, is that we offer a service to businesses to help them grow their business by putting their name, their specials, their message into the homes of our readers, which we consider to be the best customers in Kuna. Not because they support us.
But in the ensuing three years, I’ve become more comfortable with the notion of support and feel that it does have a place not just in our business, but in all of our local businesses.
I’m not suggesting you have to eat out every week or go broke shopping at every store in Kuna. But just think of Kuna first, before you head out of town with your dollars.

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.

Kuna schedules an open meeting on LID

Kuna City Council members will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 26, at City Hall to meet with landowners participating in the local improvement district.
The purpose of the meeting is “to go over numbers,” according to council member Jeff Lang. The council scheduled the meeting after an hour-and-a-half executive session Tuesday night to discuss “potential litigation.”
Ostensibly, next Tuesday’s meeting is supposed to make up for the deliberations and decision-making that went on during two previous executive sessions last month, after which council members announced that they were going to reduce the LID’s assessment by a couple million bucks and have city ratepayers pick up the difference.
Although council said the meeting is for LID members, the repercussions are huge for every city taxpayer. The general public is invited and encouraged to attend. Let’s hope the council doesn’t go into executive session.

Kuna City Council has a new council president. Find out who it is in this week's Kuna Melba News.

City of Kuna continues to practice secrecy in government

Kuna City Council members have now spent nearly $4 million of taxpayer money behind closed doors.
You might recall that in April, council members went into an executive session for two hours and came out of the session to announce that they had decided to purchase 107 acres of land for $1 million.
Most recently, council members met in executive session twice, once for two hours on Tuesday, Dec. 8, then again for another hour on Tuesday, Dec. 29, to discuss possible solutions to the $27.4 million bill for the new wastewater treatment plant that was supposed to be funded by the local improvement district. Council members came out of the Dec. 29 executive session to announce that they had decided to have the city (i.e., you and me, the taxpayers) pick up $2.8 million of the cost of the final bill.
The very first state law pertaining to open meetings states, “The people of the state of Idaho in creating the instruments of government that serve them, do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies so created. Therefore, the legislature finds and declares that it is the policy of this state that the formation of public policy is public business and shall not be conducted in secret.” (Idaho Code 67-2340.)
City Council members clearly formed public policy in secret.

You can read much more of this opinion in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Kuna City Council members offer some relief to LID landowners

Kuna City Council members voted Tuesday night to ease the financial burden to the landowners participating in the local improvement district that’s funding the wastewater treatment plant.
Acknowledging that the new facility is oversized beyond service to the 2,700 acres of land in the LID, council members agreed to drop the price attributed to the LID and agreed to have the city pick up the remaining cost.
“We’ve discussed a balanced approach that helps the LID owners but also, unfortunately, puts a little bit of the burden on the city and a burden on the community,” council member Lisa Bachman said. “But given the way things have turned out, we didn’t have much choice.”
Based on preliminary assessment notices sent out in October, LID landowners are on the hook for about $27.4 million in construction costs for the sewer plant, which is in operation now near the southeast corner of Lake Hazel and Ten Mile roads.
Based on that assessment, a sewer connection costs $3,205.18. A landowner with 35 acres in the LID, for example, has a benefit of 105 sewer connections and an assessment of $336,543.90.
Under the new scenario approved Tuesday night, though, LID landowners are on the hook for only $25.3 million in construction costs. With that price tag, the 8,353 sewer connections promised in the LID would cost $3,028 each. So, for example, the landowner with 35 acres in the LID, would now be on the hook for $317,940.
The city also agreed to remove two pieces of property from the assessment roll totaling 253 sewer connections, dropping the total number of sewer connections to 8,100.
In the end, the city would need to make up the difference owed to the banks, which totals $2.8 million.
A revenue bond or judicial confirmation are two of the options for the city to come up with the money, Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy said after the meeting Tuesday night.

You can read more of this story in this week's Kuna Melba News.

What do the people have to say about the Edward Jones building in Kuna?

It’s been almost exactly 75 years since the small white-brick building on the corner of Kuna’s Main Street and Avenue D has housed the Kuna State Bank, which closed up shop on Nov. 30, 1934.
But a requirement to repaint the “KUNA STATE BANK” letters on the outside of the building has sparked an interesting debate about whether the city of Kuna is taking historic preservation too far.
It’s one thing to require the building’s owner, Harry Knox, to restore the look of the outside of the building as much as possible to those days when people were driving Model T cars and Herbert Hoover was doing a good job as president. It is another thing to require the building’s signage to advertise a business that fell victim to The Great Depression.
So we put it to the people, with a Kuna Melba News online-only poll last week.

Find out the results in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Congratulations to Rich Cardoza and Doug Hoiland on Kuna City Council

We can now officially congratulate Doug Hoiland and Rich Cardoza, who were both confirmed as the top two vote-getters for two seats on the Kuna City Council after a recount last week.
A local businessman who runs an insurance agency on Main Street, Rich won re-election to a second four-year term. He has shown himself to be a contrarian voice on the council, voting against the streetlight fee, voting against annexations and seeking a closer review of the police budget. I think that’s what helped him get re-elected. Many residents, rightly, want to make sure there are some checks and balances on the council and that not everyone is simply rubber-stamping proposals placed before them.
I will offer that up as a suggestion and recommendation to newcomer Doug Hoiland. I put it to you, Doug, to make sure that you question decisions and proposals that are placed before you and hold them in skeptical regard. I ask you to remember that the city attorneys, the city engineer, the planning director, treasurer, etc., all work for the city residents and that you are our representation to them.

What's the next step for the Kuna Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee?

Work on the Kuna Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee continues full throttle.
A couple of weeks ago, the Kuna Melba News asked its online readers in our weekly poll what you felt the committee’s top priority should be.
We offered the choices of improving downtown Main Street, attracting new commercial development, attracting industrial manufacturers, marketing existing businesses and planning and organizing special community events.
With 56 percent of the vote, attracting new commercial development was the top vote-getter, followed by improving Main Street (14.6 percent), marketing existing businesses (12.2 percent) and attracting industrial manufacturers (9.8 percent). That message is pretty clear. But that doesn’t mean we’re only going to do one thing at the exclusion of all else.
When I think of the types of commercial ventures to attract to Kuna, I have some ideas of businesses that I think would do well here and that local residents want, such as a dry cleaner, a bowling alley, a movie theater and a skateboard/bike shop.
As always, I’d love to hear what you think. What businesses would you like to see in Kuna? What have I left out? What do you think would be successful? What business would you patronize? What kind of a manufacturer would you like to see in Kuna? Send me a letter: PO Box 373, Kuna ID 83634, or send me an email: kunamelbanews@aol.com. Or simply post an opinion to this blog.

There is more of this column in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Kuna LID protest hearings turn up some (scary) revelations

Kuna City Council members are expected to make a ruling or rulings in the next couple of weeks regarding the protest hearings held last week about the local improvement district that is funding the $27 million wastewater treatment plant.
City staff members are putting together their evaluations of the individual protests as well as the larger, overarching legal issues surrounding the LID itself. Primarily, that analysis is of a legal nature but also involves technical considerations of certain specific properties and their encumbrances from the LID. It appears that City Council might make a ruling at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 15, but nothing has been scheduled yet.
One of the biggest shocks of last week's protest hearings, for me, came when one landowner said he needed more information from the city in order to make a business decision about what to pay or even whether to pay. He cited a clause in the city’s assessment notice that reads, “the city may increase any assessment or assessments up to twenty percent (20%) of the original amount thereof without giving further notice and without holding a new hearing.”
He drew blank stares from council members Lisa Bachman and Jeff Lang, who apparently had no idea what he was talking about.
Yikes. Either they didn’t get a copy of the six-paragraph assessment notice or they didn’t read it closely, or they didn’t read it the two times it ran in the Kuna Melba News, even though the notice is signed, “By order of the City Council.”
It’s scary that the decision makers aren’t paying very close attention to the biggest issue facing the city in probably decades.
They’d better start paying attention, because I can guarantee you everyone else is paying close attention — especially the banks’ lawyers who attended last week’s hearings.

You can read more of this editorial in this week's Kuna Melba News.