For the week of Dec 31, 2002 - Jan 7, 2003

Top New Year’s Resolutions

---

What a year, 2002.

Historians, economists and sociologists will have their hands full dissecting the formative years of the century.

The year has been the stuff of novels. The plot, if written by an author of fiction, would have been criticized as overdone and over-the-top.

The stock market dive, corporate corruption, the War on Terror, the evil Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and world-wide uncertainty were enough to make the least anxious among us reach for the Prozac.

To look forward with hope to brighter days, we look back for the lessons of the year just ended. Herewith, some New Year’s resolutions we’d like to see: 

Small investors: To repeat daily, "If it’s too good to be true, it’s not."

Enron and WorldCom execs: To repeat daily, "Greed is bad; so is jail."

U.S. Congress: To rescue state governments drowning in red ink as the result of federal policies and the recession.

President George W. Bush: To act with as much concern about the health and welfare of the American people as for the health of corporate profits.

Interior Secretary Gail Norton: To read a Teddy Roosevelt biography and to police the public trough.

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne: To hold his nose and take the lead in rolling back the tax cut that left Idaho facing a sea of red ink and schools facing drastic cuts.

Americans: To quit looking like deer in the headlights and to question the Bush Administration about degradation of civil liberties, dismantling of federal agencies, elimination of provisions that protect the health of the nation’s land, water and air, and the rationale for any war.

Ketchum City Council: To seek counseling for its schizoid policies on community housing and to stop the hypocrisy of concern about housing for city employees, while leaving other valley workers and businesses to the not-so-tender mercies of the resort marketplace.

Blaine County Commissioners: (Same as last two years) To hire some help to allow them to manage the big picture and to leave the micromanaging to others.

The Community School: To persist, persist, persist in efforts to build and operate a new elementary school on its new campus in Sun Valley.

Sun Valley, Bellevue, and Blaine County: (Same as last year) To follow Ketchum and Hailey in adopting a Dark Skies Ordinance to protect the incredible view of the Milky Way.

Sun Valley City Council: To quit pretending the city is a gated subdivision.

Drivers with cell phones: To hang up and drive, and to figure out that backing onto a busy highway or turning corners with just one hand on the wheel are life-threatening moves when yakking.

City of Ketchum: To abide by its own ordinance and clear snow from sidewalks in front of City Hall, the Ore Wagon Museum, the street department and over the bridge on Warm Springs Road.

Ketchum Mayor Ed Simon: To return to the policies of openness with which his administration began and to soothe misgivings about law enforcement by watching reruns of the Andy Griffith Show.

Commuters: To take the Peak Bus and save gobs of money by leaving the driving and the hassle to someone else.

Valley newbies: To think and act on the adage, "History didn’t begin the day you got here."

Boise Mayor Brent Coles: To figure out why the word "junket" is not flattering when used in reference to official travel.

Hailey recreation center advocates: As politics unwind, to remember that the last recreation bond issue failed in Hailey and passed in Ketchum.

Idaho Supreme Court: To uphold a district court ruling that the Idaho Land Board cannot override local zoning laws in developing gravel pits or anything else on state lands.

Golden Eagle Ranch Subdivision: To quit harassing the area’s first residents—elk, deer, ducks and geese.

Cross-country skiers with dogs: To learn how to use the plastic bags at trailheads: Pick and throw, or pick and pack—and don’t leave the packages on the side of the trail because there is no garbage service in the backcountry.

Sun Valley City Councilman Latham Williams: To take up solitaire instead of politics on the Internet and to give up control of a web site named for state Sen. Clint Stennett.

Ron Tutor: To drop the lawsuit that would force his super-sized Boeing Business Jet into Hailey’s little airport and to get along with valley residents who just want a little peace, quiet and safety.

National Democrats: To quit waffling and come up with more than "me too" political positions in the next election.

Valley volunteers: To take heart, keep hope healthy by raising money and doing good deeds that reinforce faith in the basic goodness of mankind.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.