Freezing temps mean backyard ice rink

You couldn’t catch me complaining about our recent cold snap. Growing up in Upstate New York, I saw no shortage of below freezing temperatures during the winter. For those of you who do not know this, Upstate New York — the real Upstate New York, as in 5 hours away from New York City — is actually a province of Canada. As such, it was against the law to not play ice hockey.
The combination of freezing temps and the requirement of playing ice hockey led my dad one year to build an ice rink in our back yard.
The thought of a backyard ice rink has never left my imagination. And so it has come to pass this year that I have devised my own backyard ice rink. My son Luke, 7, and I had a blast all last week skating on the rink and slapping the puck around.

You can read the rest of this 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.

City of Kuna hires two new city attorneys

The city of Kuna has a new city attorney — two city attorneys, actually.
Kuna City Council members last week approved a contract to hire lawyers Richard A. Johnson and Richard T. Roats to serve as city attorneys. They will be paid $100,000 per year.
They replace city attorney Randy Grove, who resigned last month, citing conflicts with his role in the formation and execution of the local improvement district. That issue appears headed for a lawsuit, and Grove said he would find it difficult to serve as counsel to the city and as a witness in the matter. His last day was Nov. 6.
Grove’s salary was $93,540, but health benefits pushed the cost to the city well over $100,000. A $100,000 contract without health benefits actually saves the city money, according to Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy.
Dowdy said he received inquiries from a number of candidates interested in the position. Dowdy said that he, city engineer Gordon Law and city planning director Steve Hasson interviewed three of the candidates, and all three agreed independently that Johnson and Roats were the top candidates.

You can read the rest of this, including the backgrounds on Roats and Johnson, in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Glad that the goofy season is over

Now that the goofy (election) season is over, let me share with you a few more words of wisdom I plan to share with my boys:
“After a while, everyone will stop listening to the guard dog that is constantly barking.”
“The man who sees everything in black and white apparently lacks gray matter.”
“People who have all the answers are usually making up the questions.”
“If you seem to be getting into a fight with everyone you come across, ask yourself, ‘What’s the common denominator?’”

Also in this week's Editor's Notebook in the Kuna Melba News, you'll learn the back story behind the big American flag in Sandstone Plaza. But you have to buy the newspaper to get it. No free lunches.

City of Kuna backs off powerline ban

It looks like the city of Kuna is backing down from Idaho Power in its dispute over the placement of power lines along Meridian Road and Kuna-Mora Road.
City planning director Steve Hasson tells me that he sent an email to City Council members on Monday letting them know that he’s removing the language in a text amendment to an overlay district ordinance that would ban any new utility structures within 660 feet of the highways.
I applaud the city for making an effort to try to make the city look nice, but I think this is a wise retreat. Idaho Power was holding up a franchise fee agreement that could bring in $100,000 in new revenue to the cash-strapped city budget. Plus, it seemed to me that the city was going a little overboard on keeping power lines out of the Meridian Road corridor.

You can read more of this in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News. I'm also writing about an Urban Land Institute study in Kuna, the Kuna Chamber of Commerce's economic development committee and an update on the city park ballfields.

On fighting and conflicts of interest in the city of Kuna

As we enter the final couple of weeks of this Kuna City Council campaign, I want to implore our readers to make an informed decision, and I ask all Kuna residents to quit our seemingly obsessive compulsion for silly rumor-mongering and inaccurate perpetuations of tired myths.
We’ve had a couple of council candidates of late start leveling accusations of conflicts of interest on the current council and we had one candidate who, as far as I know hasn’t been to a single council meeting, tell the Boise paper that he’s tired of seeing all this fighting on the council.
I write this not as a defense or an endorsement of the sitting incumbents. To the contrary, there are plenty of issues that an informed, intelligent candidate can raise as a legitimate campaign platform: the handling of the local improvement district and the $27 million bill for the wastewater treatment plant, the $324,000 gaffe in last year’s budget, the elimination of funding in this year’s budget for the Zone, the Boys & Girls Club, the Chamber of Commerce.
But this insistent issue of conflicts of interest simply doesn’t hold much water.

If you want to read the rest of this editorial, you'll have to buy a copy of this week's Kuna Melba News.

We're in the midst of the goofy season

The Kuna City Council race is starting to get weird and heated. With 10 candidates running for two seats, it shouldn’t come as much surprise. In 15 years in the newspaper business covering dozens of cities in five states, I can assure you that Kuna is not unique in its penchant for small-town politics and bickering over petty slights.
But I can assure you that it’s never really much fun and it usually adds little to civil debate about issues.
You know that saying that the only two things certain in life are death and taxes? I would like to add another: Fights over campaign signs during an election. From Carlsbad, N.M., to Chardon, Ohio, to San Mateo, Calif., to Greece, N.Y., it’s always the same. Usually it’s about someone stealing someone’s campaign signs. In Kuna at the moment, we have some confusion over where campaign signs are allowed. Apparently, the signs are allowed on public property, but they can’t be in the public right-of-way, which apparently is where some candidates are placing their signs.
Terribly pressing issue that will decide the fate of the universe, right?
One of the candidates, Dave Szplett, wrote an email to all of the candidates saying, “I am amazed that nine people believe that they are qualified to run for city council but can’t even figure out what is public property. Worse, is how can someone break the sign law and still ask for the public’s trust. Maybe the news people will write up something on this obvious issue. Maybe if they cared.”
That spurred another candidate, Corinna Stiles, to respond, “And I’m amazed that a council candidate would be so disrespectful to his peers and make allegations towards people he knows nothing about. Perhaps that’s the issue for the news people.”
For those of you who plan on basing your election decision on road signs, I have noticed another candidate who should be getting your attention: Mr. Blowouts, Sprinkler Blowouts. He even puts his phone number right on his sign.
Speaking of Szplett, I had the hardest time getting a hold of him for our candidate essays. He wouldn’t answer his phone when I called and he wouldn’t return my emails.
Cheryl McCord and Bill Clark, Kuna Farmers Market organizers, had similar problems when they organized Meet the Candidates sessions at the Market. They received responses back from the other nine candidates, all of whom attended, but no response from Dave.
At the insistence of one of our readers, Szplett did finally submit an essay. But here we are again. I’ve asked the candidates to answer a few questions about police services, the LID, etc. Eight responded without any problems. On Oct. 8, I received an email from Szplett’s email account: “The Professor is still elk hunting. Elk season runs through Oct 12th but deer continues until October 20th. Maybe he’ll be here sooner.”
But then I saw him at El Gallo Giro the very next day. Odd. No elk in sight.
The next day, another email: “I am the Professor’s clerk. It appears that he was in Kuna for a short time yesterday. I have a bunch of notes from him. He reports sending out “some” emails. There were lots of them before he started though. Did he get to yours? I hope that he responded to your needs. If you need anything more, he should be back in town late on the 21st. He has jury duty on the 26th though. He never sits idle.”
Although voting is the most basic and pure expression of democracy, I’ll be glad when the goofy season is over.