TETON VALLEY HEADLINES

An Idaho House Ethics Committee chaired by District 31 Representative Tom Loertscher has dismissed conflict of interest charges against Republican Representative Phil Hart. On a party line vote, the committee also refused to reprimand Hart or remove him from the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.  

Claiming they’re unconstitutional, Hart hasn’t paid state or federal income taxes since 2002. According to reports, he owes the state $53 thousand in back taxes and the IRS $644 thousand. 

Democrats alleged Hart used his position on the House Committee to prevent the state from collecting.

 

House Minority Leader John Rusche says the vote portrays, QUOTE, “the implicit conclusion that Representative Hart’s behavior and actions are acceptable.” Committee Vice-Chair Wendy Jaquet said the vote would neither sustain public confidence nor protect the integrity of the legislature.

 

Victor City Councilmen have adopted an approximate two million dollar budget resolution.   That includes about $600 thousand worth of projects that may or may not happen…including the 2nd phase of transit system upgrades and a Tiger Two grant application…both of which depend on the availability of federal funding.   The budget will go to formal public hearing August 25th.

Western state Senators, including Idaho’s Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Wyoming’s Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, are calling on the leaders of the House and Senate Committees on Energy and Natural Resources to convene oversight hearings on wild fire suppression preparedness.   A combination of above normal late season precipitation and above normal temperatures has lawmakers jittery about the fire season. They’d also like to address restoration-based hazardous fuel reduction and thinning projects.

 

Teton County, Idaho Search and Rescue was called out about 8 p.m. Wednesday when a 27 year old Victor man was reported missing on a 4-wheeler. He was ultimately located west of Packsaddle near Relay Ridge in the Big Hole range and transported to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. His injuries were said to be non life-threatening. According to one report, the man fell about 20 feet into an off-trail creek. Search and Rescue volunteers cleared the scene about 4 this morning.

 

A Tetonia man reported being struck by lightning during a thunderstorm that passed through the region Wednesday evening.   He was not hospitalized.

 

A 57 year old Jackson man was hospitalized Wednesday after his motorcycle went out of control and crashed.   Idaho State Police identified the rider as Arthur Davis. It happened on northbound State Highway 33 near Tetonia. They say Davis lost control at an excessive rate of speed after braking too hard on the wet highway.   He was transported to Teton Valley Hospital for treatment of non life-threatening injuries. 

 

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo is teaming with Colorado Senator Mark Udall to encourage conservation easements in exchange for estate tax relief. Crapo says it would help families avoid pressure to sell, break-up, or develop their property when it’s handed down from one generation to the next. “The tax code currently allows landowners to exclude up to 40 percent of the value of their property from their taxable estate when that land is preserved by a permanent conservation easement that protects important natural and historic values.  However, that exclusion is capped at $500,000 and is further reduced if the easement lowers a property’s fair market value by less than 30 percent.” The Crapo-Udall bill would, basically, raise that exemption to 50% and raise the cap to five million dollars.

Some counties in Idaho’s 7th Judicial District will have to ante up a little more funding in the next fiscal year to handle a growing civil case load. District Administrative Judge Jon Shindurling says that case load has grown significantly since 2007…especially in Fremont and Teton Counties. ”There was a trend to over develop and as those developments then became un-viable, then you get into a lot of lawsuits involving sub-contractors and others who are involved and haven’t been paid and that increases the court work. Those cases tend to be fairly complex in terms of the number of people involved, the number of attorneys involved in the cases and the types of motions that are brought.”

 

At the same time, criminal case loads are actually down a bit. 

Judge Shindurling reports the legislature’s decision to enact a temporary surcharge on criminal convictions appears to be working to help support some innovative “problem solving” courts in Idaho. And, Shindurling believes those drug, domestic, and mental health courts are playing an important role in reducing criminal case loads. ”It’s been an effort which our judges have spent extra time doing and are willing to continue to do it because they see the benefit…in that we have not only seen things slow down, but actually decrease to some extent.”

 

About 500 people held hands around the Idaho Statehouse Monday to mark the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.   Idaho Task Force on ADA executive director Bobby Ball says the civil rights law has worked pretty well to end discrimination by requiring access to buildings and transportation. ”Idaho incorporates all of the accessibility into their building code. The build environment has definitely increased."

And, she says compliance generally isn’t that expensive. "Your average cost of an accommodation is anywhere from $300 to $500. There’s a huge percent that are just free."

The Idaho Task Force is now launching a five year project to educate people with disabilities about work possibilities and to coach employers who have concerns.

 

The House and Senate Agriculture Committees are asking for input on what should or should not be included in the 2012 Farm Bill.   Center for Rural Affairs Director Charles Hassebrook says that’s an important invitation for small and medium size farmers and ranchers, “those aren’t constituencies with well-funded lobby operations, so it’s really, really critical that just ordinary rural folks weigh in on this debate. We need to set up some sort of a system, where we boost the coverage and boost support for farms in the mid-range sizes, that are the ones trying to make a living from farming, but aren’t the big farms." Hassebrook predicts there will be tremendous pressure to trim spending as the new farm bill is built.

 Idaho’s Senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo are cosponsoring legislation aimed at ending a shortage of rural veterinarians. It would eliminate taxes on programs that encourage practice in underserved areas. Nearly half of Idaho’s 44 counties are in designated shortage areas.

 

Educators, mental health professionals, corrections officials and childcare providers met in Boise last week to learn latest strategies to combat child abuse. Coordinator Maureen Durning says it’s called “Strengthening Families.”"One of the protective factors is social connections. If people have friends, they’re less likely to abuse and neglect their children. Well, the strategy then is to facilitate friendships and mutual support."

Durning says potty training, learning to read, and other milestones are often expected at an earlier age than is either physically or mentally possible for a child. "So much abuse happens because parents don’t understand developmentally what their children are able to do, and so, you know, they end up getting frustrated." One of the child abuse battle lines centers on educating parents and helping them find ways to relieve domestic stress.

 

A USDA funded study of the relationship between surface and groundwater is in its second summer of research. The Henry’s Fork Watershed Council took a tour of Teton Valley last week to get a first-hand look at some of those impacts. Friends of the Teton River spokesperson Amy Verbaten points out, “For every action on the watershed there’s going to be some reaction. For example, when water was being used in flood irrigation we saw big response in springs down lower in the watershed. As we changed to sprinkler irrigation some of the reaction to that is a more efficient use of water, but we see less of those springs.”

The three year research project will become an integral part of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Henry’s Fork Special Water Supply Study.

 

“The kind of energy we need.” That’s how Idaho Senator Mike Crapo describes the potential of hydro-electric generation.   He’s co-sponsoring a bill that would encourage more hydro development. ”About 7% of our nation’s current energy needs are met through hydro power and that avoids 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions every year, but only 3% of our country’s dams are electrified. If we just went to our existing facilities and upgraded them to generate electricity we could add all this new production and dramatically increase the available power without the construction of any new dams.”

Crapo says the effort has bi-partisan support…at least in the Pacific Northwest.