Letters to the editor: ICCU proposal, losers and suckers, fractured nation and California wildfires
ICCU proposal
The Ball Ventures Ahlquist proposal for zoning change to allow for a 16-story, 232-foot office tower at Fourth and Bannock downtown would forever change the city’s historic East End. BVA has requested a rezone to C-5, which would allow unlimited building height. The project proposed at 4th and Bannock would cover the entire Idaho Central Credit Union property and approach the height reached by the US Bank building. Review of Blueprint Boise, the city’s comprehensive plan, indicates that this project would violate multiple policies.
Simply put, a zoning change to unlimited height is not the right change for east downtown. East downtown cannot support traffic associated with a high-rise area without destroying the current design and ambience of the neighborhood. East downtown represents one of many neighborhoods that make Boise the attractive city that it is. Is losing the beauty and ambience of Boise’s east downtown really necessary?
The Boise Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to review the BVA request for zoning change at 6 p.m. on Oct. 12. If you are concerned, make your voice heard by attending in person or by Zoom. Letters can be sent to cacord@cityofboise.org or delivered to City Hall by October 2, 2020.
Nancy Kois, Boise
Losers and suckers
As a Vietnam era veteran of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, I am appalled and astonished at the remarks by Trump that he wouldn’t go to an American cemetery in France for US WWII service members who were killed in that war because “it’s filled with losers” now verified by three sources, and that he said that the 1,800 Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed.
Saying that former President George H. W. Bush was a “loser” for being shot down by the Japanese in WWII and that combined with his remark about the late Senator John McCain who served over five years in a POW camp, that “He’s (McCain is) not a war hero” make Trump unacceptable and unfit to serve as the Commander in Chief of our armed forces. As someone who managed to dodge the draft of my era because of “bone spurs” he has no place to make any kind of disparaging remark about any who have served in any era, particularly that of Vietnam.
He needs to be removed from office on Nov. 3.
Steve Scanlin, HMC, USNR/USMC (Former), Boise
Fractured nation
We are no longer the United States. Instead we are the United Democrats and the United Republicans.
We are also a bunch of spoiled brats because we want what we want right now.
Left unfettered by the children in Congress, the Supreme Court is self-balancing as deaths create vacancies that are filled by the then majority party. That balance changes from time to time by the whim of the voters.
We are not a dictatorship. Each party should have the occasional chance to get their way and have their programs passed. This see-saw motion makes certain that the nation never drifts to either extreme.
David F. Rogers, Meridian
California fires
Will someone please tell the doofus in the Oval Office that 57% of the forest land in California is owned by the U.S. government, 3% is owned by the state of California, and the rest is in private hands. He should stop threatening to withhold federal assistance to deal with the fires. Maybe he should trade in his golf clubs for a rake and go to California to clean up the majority of the forest that is his administration’s responsibility.
Monroe Bradley, Boise
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 11:10 AM.