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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
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Copyright © 2003 Express Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 


For the week of Dec 31, 2003 - Jan 6, 2004

Editorials

Resolutions
we’d like to see


Americans are busy people, preoccupied as we are with the Middle East, wild winter weather and mad cow disease.

Making New Year’s resolutions takes time, and this annual tradition may be in danger of fading away. So, we’ve created an easy list for those in the public eye who may forget or simply don’t have time to ponder self improvement measures.

Here are a few resolutions we’d like to see.

 

U.S. Congress: To support retention of the Endangered Species Act, which celebrated its 30th birthday Dec. 28 and which saved species including America’s symbol, the Bald Eagle, the American Alligator, the California condor, and gray and red wolves.

Dick Grasso, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange: To give back the outrageous $140 million in benefits and savings he amassed during his tenure.

Howard Dean, Democratic presidential hopeful and former governor of Vermont: To check the secret meeting skeletons in his own closet before lashing out at the Bush Administration for secret energy task force deliberations.

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

Food and Drug Administration: To quit blaming Canada for mad cow disease and get its food and animal tracking and testing houses in order.

American Beef Industry: To quit protesting the expense of new regulations that would protect the nation’s meat supply now that it has learned the meaning of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

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

Wannabe Sun Valley Developers: Repeat once before submitting new projects to the city’s governing boards, "Those folks in Idaho aren’t as dumb as we think."

Local drivers: To fasten seatbelts and drive defensively so as not to surpass Highway 75’s record 14 fatalities to date.

Idaho Republican Party Vice-Chairman Latham Williams: To leave any Internet antics to the teenagers.

Idaho Congressman Butch Otter: To keep up his criticism of the Bush Administration’s Patriot Act.

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson: To stop the news leaks, garage the trial balloons, and let everyone look at the much talked about but still invisible bill to designate a Boulder-White Cloud Wilderness Area in central Idaho.

President George W. Bush: 1) To stop the red ink that will drown future generations in grinding debt. 2) To look up the meaning of the word "environment." 3) To start reading a newspaper. 4) To rebuild Iraq and bring the troops home.

U.S. Military and Intelligence Services: To find Osama Bin Laden.

City of Ketchum: To buy new batteries for its obviously defunct calculator—the one that keeps reading out red ink, black ink, red ink, black ink.

U.S. judges: To send all corporate wrongdoers to Idaho for sentencing. A city of Boise employee who misspent a few hundred dollars of taxpayer funds and tried to cover up was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Just think what an Idaho judge might do with someone who stole millions.

U.S. Forest Service: To quit trying to convince the public that controversial fees charged at trailheads are good things, face the fact that they are an unfair tax collected only on the willing, and the recalcitrant caught by federal officers.

AARP members: To cancel their memberships in an organization that lobbied for the new Medicare bill drug benefit for seniors when the real benefit is really for drug companies.

Idaho Land Board Members: To quit beefing about federal control of public lands in the West while refusing to abide by local planning and zoning ordinances on state lands and telling the Wood River Valley they will put gravel pits or lighted cell towers wherever they feel like it.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden: To quit wasting the state’s money on lawsuits to squeeze blood from Idaho’s poor school districts and instead demand that the Idaho Legislature adequately fund education for Idaho kids.

Ketchum Mayor Ed Simon: To give up speeches about the need for affordable housing in the wake of appointing more anti-housing members to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation: To back down on a plan that will decimate areas around Challis, Mackay and Copper Basin by making them a mecca for ATVs.

City of Sun Valley: To figure out a way to keep the Elkhorn Golf Course open to the public and the summer economy humming.

Hailey: To look askance at developments that will promote sprawl without producing money to pay for city services.

Music lovers: To quit killing the music industry with pirated downloads.

 

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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.