Resolutions we’d like to see
Local gyms will be packed this week with legions of
folks pumped up with New Year’s Resolutions. They will try to pump iron, kickbox,
spin and dance their way to fitness.
Even though the pessimists among us insist that annual resolutions are
the triumph of hope over experience, changes must start somewhere and the new year is as
good a time as any to begin.
Even the players in the great arena of public policy would do well to
try a few resolutions. Here are a few we hope were made:
Highway 75 Corridor Study Consultants CH2M Hill: To hire only
artists who can paint scale drawings of what a five-lane highway would do to the Wood
River Valley instead of leaving everyone guessing.
City of Hailey: To quit bullying Bellevue, to make friends and
influence people.
Blaine County Recreation District and the Save Our Open Spaces
Commitee: Never to underestimate the ability of residents to get cranky when
there’s even a whiff of a tax increase in the air. Never to believe that the
long-standing rivalry between the north county and the south county has disappeared,
especially when faced with bond issues to build facilities or to buy land.
Sawtooth National Forest officials: To get someone to help them
answer the question of whether their glass is half full or half empty as forest fees
accumulate, but payers remain cranky.
St. Luke’s Hospital: To respect local sensibilities and
leave its signature sign unlighted when it opens for business.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne: To try, try again to make some year,
any year, in Idaho "The Year of the Child."
Idaho Legislature: To keep Idaho from meeting the same fate as
other states who saw their water fouled because they failed to adequately regulate huge
animal factories.
President Bill Clinton: To make sure his Roadless Areas
Initiative is more than an idle gesture from a lame-duck president.
Presidential hopeful George W. Bush: To burn a little midnight
oil and crack the books on world affairs so he won’t be caught flatfooted when next
quizzed about the names of world leaders.
Idaho Legislature: To quit using the Idaho Department of Fish
and Game as a whipping boy for federal wildlife policies it doesn’t like.
Cell phone companies: Never again to propose undisguised ugly
towers in a beautiful valley or an attractive city.
Blaine County Commissioners: To learn from defeat in a lawsuit
in which the county had halted construction of a berm: It’s better to regulate before
a problem starts than after.
Idaho’s senators and congressmen: To quit claiming in
speeches that they are in favor of saving the state’s salmon runs, when they clearly
are not.
