New Kuna Planning & Zoning Commission members named

Kuna City Council members have appointed four members to the depleted Kuna Planning & Zoning Commission.
The five-member commission has lost four members, leaving just Stephanie Wierschem on the commission. Stan Sanders (who pleaded guilty to a felony count of destruction of evidence) resigned earlier this year. Corinna Stiles, who is moving to the Washington, D.C., area for a new job, has resigned. Carl Trautman and Curt James also announced their resignations from the commission.
After announcing open commission seats in the Kuna Melba News, two residents responded: Michael Cole and Jim Russell.
“Unfortunately, there were only two respondents willing to commit the voluntary time necessary to make this board function properly,” according to a memo from Mayor Scott Dowdy to City Council members. “It was suggested by staff to dissolve the Design Review Committee and their responsibilities. As you are aware, there hasn’t been a need for their review due to the lack of new commercial development in the area; therefore it makes more sense for the Commission to regain responsibility of directing an applicant with the development process.”
Consequently, Design Review Committee members Kellie Goicoechea, Lee Young and Dana Hennis submitted letters applying for the Planning & Zoning Commission.
Dowdy nominated Cole, Goicoechea, Young and Hennis.
After a Dec. 1 deadline to apply, the city received two more applications from Catherine Gealy and Paul Deason.
Outgoing City Council president Lisa Bachman objected to appointing new Planning & Zoning Commission members before two new City Council members and new mayor take office on Jan. 3. She said she felt the right thing to do would be to allow the new city officials make their appointments.
But council member Doug Hoiland, who was not up for re-election and has two years left in his term, pointed out that three of the four nominees serving on Design Review are known quantities to the city, have already made a commitment to volunteering for the city and have served the city well.
Council member Rich Cardoza, who also has two years left on his term, said he preferred Gealy over Cole, citing Gealy’s experience on the Ada County Planning and Zoning Commission for two years and her MBA from Boston University. Cardoza suggested using Cole as an alternate if one of the other candidates decides not to take the opportunity. Dowdy said he had no objections to Gealy.
Hoiland, Cardoza and outgoing council member Jeff Lang voted to appoint Young, Hennis, Goicoechea and Gealy. Bachman voted no.
Planning & Zoning Commission members are volunteers and serve for three-year terms.

Need to do a little Christmas shopping without the kiddies this weekend? Here's your solution

Get Ready for the Holidays!
Bring your children (potty-trained) to Initial Point High School for fun activities while you Christmas shop!
This fundraiser for the Kuna Alcohol/Drug Free Youth coalition takes place in two shifts, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10. Cost is $10 per child for up to 4 hours. All tax-deductible donations go to support Kuna Alcohol/Drug Free Youth.
There will be activities, arts & crafts, video games, a basketball clinic and more.
Let us wrap your Christmas presents! Donations accepted.
For more information, contact Jessica, 371-1283, Jessica@kadfy.org. Visit www.kadfy.org.

Follow-up on Kuna school district spending

Anyone happen to catch the news story on “Rock Center” the other week about the two Nampa families struggling to make ends meet? The segment followed the couples as they went to the grocery store at midnight to buy food for the month, right at the minute that their government assistance hit their bank accounts. At one point, one of the mothers broke down crying as she considered the prospect that she wouldn’t be able to afford to have her son play soccer if he asked to. Another time, she had to tell her son she couldn’t buy a $10 book because they couldn’t afford it.
These people are in dire financial straits, and they’re acting like they’re in dire financial straits.
They are not uncommon in our current economy in our community. The Kuna school district estimates that our poverty rate in Kuna is at about 45 percent — nearly half of our population.
The Kuna school district, as well, continues to tell us that they are in dire financial straits.
But are they acting like it?
We have all heard the numbers about per-student funding and being in the bottom 1 percent in the country in funding.
But does spending $265 on a lunch for the soccer team or more than $7,000 for a utility vehicle or nearly $30,000 on 51 cell phones sound like the actions of someone in dire financial straits?
I understand from the piece on “Rock Center” that viewers commented on their website that these people in dire financial straits still have flat-screen TVs and cell phones and aren’t really acting like they’re in dire financial straits.
It sounds like that holds true for the school district, as well.
Now, I fully understand that saving $265 on that one lunch and saving $7,000 by not buying that utility vehicle and saving $30,000 by not having any cell phones is not going to get us anywhere near the amount of money we would need to buy new textbooks, hire more teachers and adequately maintain all of the school district’s facilities.
I agree that we are in dire financial straits when it comes to education funding. Believe me, I’m on the school district’s side.
But why are we spending so frivolously?
It troubles me that district officials see the soccer lunch in the wrong light: “Hey, we’re not having to spend $1,500 on hotel rooms, lunches, dinners, transportation, etc., to some place like Twin Falls, so we might as well spend a little on lunch. By spending $265, it’s actually like actually saving $1,200.”
No, the school district really should be looking at this as an opportunity to spend $0.
I can only imagine the advice column from Dave Ramsey on this one.
Dear Dave: We’re in a lot of debt without any prospect of increasing our revenue. My boss recently shot down my request for a $1.5 million raise. Since we’re not going on a family vacation to DisneyLand this year, is it OK to just go ahead and spend a couple of hundred dollars on a lunch?
Dave: What are you crazy? You should be looking to spend zero dollars and socking away every single penny to pay off your debt and pay your bills.
Similarly, the school district would rather spend $7,000 to buy a new utility vehicle than spend perhaps $800 or $1,000 each year to fix the old utility vehicle, saving the district $5,000 or $6,000.
Same thing with the cell phones. Well, we spend $30,000, but the feds take care of 37 percent, so we’d lose that 37 percent if we didn’t have all those cell phones.
In my book, that’s a kind of logic that I can’t repeat in the paper. It’s like one of those silly advertisements on TV: “The more you spend, the more you save!”
The school district wrongly presumes that since the federal government pays for $11,000 of the bill, it’s OK to spend $19,000 on cell phones. Instead, the district should be thinking to itself, “We could save $19,000 and put that money toward something that directly educates students.”
What all this makes me wonder, though, is what other “little things” are being purchased by the district. How much does it add up to? Is it $40,000? Is it more like $100,000? Do you think we’d be able to find $500,000?
I guess my point in all of this is that before the school district goes on camera and starts crying about not having enough money to buy food for your family or a $10 book for your son, make sure there are no expensive flat-screen TVs and new cell phones in the shot.

Wanted: Kuna houses decorated for the holidays

The Kuna Melba News once again this year will be featuring photos of some of Kuna’s finest decorated houses in its Christmas issue, Dec. 21.
If you would like your house featured or if you know of a house in Kuna that is particularly well-decorated, let us know. Send us the address of the house to: Kuna Melba News, PO Box 373, Kuna ID 83634, by email: kunamelbanews@aol.com, or just give us a call at 922-3008.
You can even post a comment here to this blog, and I'll get the address.

Here's your chance to grill the Kuna police chief

Did you see the column in last week's Kuna Melba News about a new column from Kuna police chief Lt. Kody Aldrich?
He's going to provide an update on a periodic basis on what's going on in Kuna on the police beat. It's in response to questions that he receives out in the community from people who see police activity somewhere or who hear about something happening in the community.
We welcome the column from Lt. Aldrich, as it's yet another way to inform our readers about what's happening in the community and to accurately reflect our community.
From his column last week:
"These articles will include 'Question and Answer' and 'Did you know?' sections. So that I am providing you with the information most helpful to you, I welcome you to send questions my way at kaldrich@adaweb.net or feel free to stop in to the Kuna Police substation and talk. I will do my best to reply to your e-mails and will select questions that may be interesting to others to write on. The “Did you know?” section will include useful facts about policing in Kuna."

Here's a sample:
Did you know?
As of October 31, 2011, the Kuna City Police have…
-…received 2,613 calls for service. Calls for service are citizens requesting police help. These include 911 and non-emergency calls.
-…conducted 6,526 pro-active policing events. Pro-active policing includes traffic stops, field interviews, citizen “flag downs”, citizen contacts and property/security checks.

We hope you enjoy this new feature and that you'll avail yourself of an opportunity to ask Kuna's police chief about what's going on in Kuna.

Kuna Living Hope Christmas Cantata is this evening

Many of us look forward to a musical presentation of the Christmas story each year to get us into the expectations of Advent. The Living Hope-Kuna UMC Choir will present “Celebrate His Name! Proclaim His Birth!” a Cantata, which remembers the many names of Christ as foretold in the Old Testament to proclaim the familiar story of Christmas!
Our performance will be Sunday, Dec. 4, at 6 p.m. The music presentation will be about 30 minutes, and there will be a pie social afterward. All are invited to attend and to enjoy this time of preparation for Christmas.

Lots of Christmas choices in Kuna today

Looking for something Christmas-y to do today? Here are some choices:

• Come join us for the first annual Silver Trail Elementary Breakfast with Santa! Breakfast will be served from 8 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3, at Silver Trail Elementary, 2950 W. Mason Creek Road, off Ten Mile, just south of Columbia. Breakfast will be $3 per person or $15 for the whole family, no limit (immediate family members only, please), and a visit with Santa is free when you bring in a food item to donate to the Kuna Food Bank. Come have breakfast with the family and tell Santa your wish. Don’t forget to bring your camera!
• Come have a pancake-and-sausage breakfast, take your own photos with Santa, and browse the gym-full of craft bazaar tables from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3, at Crimson Point Elementary School, 1940 Shayla Ave. Breakfast is $2, and Crimson Point PTA will help you feel right at home in a comfortable enjoyable atmosphere.
• This Saturday, Dec. 3, Santa Claus will be in Kuna for a very special visit. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Santa will be at the Kuna High School Library, 637 E. Deer Flat Road. Everyone in the community is welcome to come sit on Santa’s knee. Santa will be hosted by the Kuna Gold Marching Band. Pictures will be offered at a reasonable price as a fundraiser for the band. Best of all, the pictures will not be copyrighted, so you can have any reprints done at a retailer. Avoid the rush and long lines at the mall and come see Santa at the Kuna High Library.

Meridian Symphony Orchestra put on a great Christmas concert in Kuna tonight

Thank you to the Meridian Symphony Orchestra for a terrific Christmas concert in Kuna tonight. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire performance. We guiltily acknowledge that we loved the "trite trash," but the Nutcracker pieces all sounded incredible. What a great group of talented musicians. Thank you for coming to Kuna. We'll hope you come back again next year.

Kuna school district comes up with a tentative technology plan

The Kuna school district has come up with a technology plan that aims to fulfill the state’s requirement under the Students Come First education reform legislation.
A district technology committee has come up with a standardized “technology package” for every classroom in the school district that includes a mounted projector, a control panel on the wall and audio and video cards.
The projector is the main device that allows teachers to use all other devices and technology, according to Ashleigh Jensen, a fourth-grade teacher and committee member who presented the plan to school board members in November.
Idaho school districts are required to submit their technology plans to the state by Jan. 6. The state is expected to spend $80 million statewide on technology upgrades in 2012 through 2015, according to Bret Atkins, the district’s technical support manager, who also presented to the school board in November.
The Kuna school district can expect to receive an estimated $445,000 of that total, Atkins said.
That should be enough to cover the expense of equipping every classroom with the classroom technology package.

Kuna school board may discuss what to do with bond money

The Kuna school district is estimating that there will be an approximate $2.2 million balance left over from a $25.5 million bond passed by voters in 2007.
With the bond money, the district has built Initial Point High School, Silver Trail Elementary School, added on to the high school, including an 800-seat auditorium, and has made major repairs and upgrades to facilities and technology.
Because of the slowing economy, the district benefited from competitive bids and cheaper prices for materials. As a result, the district has about $2.2 million left in the bond fund.
What to do with that money remains a question.
Already, at the Nov. 8 regular meeting, school board members were presented with a list of $674,000 in requests, including purchasing 600 new computers for Hubbard and Teed Elementary schools and eight new copiers districtwide.