Letters to the editor: Dam breaching, marijuana, initiatives, Interfaith Sanctuary, ageism, early learning grant

Dam breaching

The recent proposal by your Rep. Mike Simpson addressing the unfortunate decline of the remaining Snake River steelhead and salmon is without question a bold move. Breaching? If that’s what it takes, then I say absolutely. It seems that over time these dams have caused more trouble than they are worth. Though I’m not from this region, I’m an avid fisherman, and anytime an opportunity like this arises, I feel compelled to offer my support. I’m not a scientist, but I listen to them.

The problems associated with fish barriers both large and small are being acted upon from Maine to Washington. This is by no means a secret. The lower Snake is approximately 1,500 feet wide and blocked by four 150-foot-tall by 2,000-foot walls of concrete that contain very awkward and inadequate fish passage. Once constructed they created 140 miles of warmer slack water now full of invasive species. Not long ago, that water was flowing freely over a bedrock and cobble bottom where chinook could spawn. No wonder these fish barely have a chance. Thankfully Simpson’s river restoration package offers hope for these amazing fish as well as the towns and communities that have lost their river.

Andy Radford, Atlanta, Georgia

Idaho initiatives

I don’t understand all the fuss about the Idaho Legislature’s latest attempt to change the Constitution to impede our citizens’ right to make law through initiative. Our original Constitution did not allow for initiatives until amended in 1912 and it took 21 years before the process was implemented into law. The last ninety years have proven the existing constitutional initiative process to be incredibly inefficient. Only two initiatives have passed in the last 18 years. Our lawmakers’ attempt to silence voters’ voices by tweaking the initiative process is laughable. The simplest, most direct, and effective way to be heard is to elect people whose decisions we don’t have to work so hard to overturn.

Bonnie Alexander, Boise

Ageism isn’t funny

Michael Deeds has done it again. In an effort to be funny, he once equates senior citizens with prune juice and canes. This is very inaccurate and demeaning to anyone over 60. My friends and I, mostly in our 70s and 80s, hike, play tennis and bridge, attend Osher lectures and are active in the community. Ageism is not humorous.

Sharon Moses, Boise

Early learning grant

As a longtime Idaho resident, mother of two and grandmother of three, I am very disappointed in JFAC’s vote against accepting federal funds for early childhood education. This vote does not support Idaho values. Early childhood education is crucial in acquiring early literacy skills which underlie formal instruction children receive when they enter school. Young children begin to develop these early literacy skills before their first birthday. Why would we not want to offer Idaho families resources to support parents in their job as their child’s first teacher? This has nothing to do with which parent or parents are in the workforce. Modern family life is much more complicated than that. I hope our legislators will reconsider this important bill and vote to accept federal funds needed to support young children and their parents in providing the very best start to lifelong learning.

Peggy McClendon, Boise

War on drugs

The rest of the country now recognizes the colossal failure of the War on Drugs and is seeking to correct this error—and Americans are finally embracing the plant-technology revolution happening around the world.

Meanwhile, Senator Grow and others would like to permanently exclude Idaho from the future of medicine and business (via the legal cannabis industry). Why? So that they may perform hollow “moral-theater” for their willfully-ignorant constituents. How? By amending our state constitution to be more severe, and nonsensical, than the rest of the United States (see SJR 101 and SB 1110).

Preventing or hindering ballot initiatives because of their likelihood to succeed is not acting in service to the will of the people or our collective future. These legislators would rather condemn Idahoans to the dead-end that is opioids and alcohol, with their myriad side-effects and risks, rather than update their own moral framework to reflect the data-driven consensus on legal cannabis. We are leaving millions of dollars in tax-revenue on the table so we can pretend that Idahoans aren’t in favor of legal cannabis — though we continue to bolster the economies of border-states where it is legal.

Enough is enough.

Dani Parmenter, Boise

Marijuana

Pot is a gateway drug when bought from illicit dealers who introduce more profitable drugs that addict and kill. SJR 101 maintains the cartels’ monopoly on pot sales and protects that monopoly from even a ballot initiative. Once again Sen. C. Scott Grow sponsors legislation that defies the electorate and seems to come from a dark place.

Gordon Counsil, Caldwell

Interfaith move

The Statesman Editorial Board has endorsed the Interfaith Sanctuary move to State Street. Planning and Zoning has yet to receive a completed proposal. It seems unlikely that this board has either.

This proposal seeks to create Idaho’s largest homeless shelter experiment. This purpose-built facility costing nearly $5 million will immediately become an effectively permanent homeless shelter experiment, with neighboring homes, businesses, and parks involuntarily absorbing all of the potentially serious downside risk.

“...neighbors just have to deal with it.”, is a sentiment Willow Lane has heard before, from the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center, another large nearby shelter, and now from Interfaith.

Kindly reserve judgment until you have seen the actual proposal as analyzed by P&Z. In the meantime, please educate yourselves on the damage to neighborhoods these facilities have wrought across the country and why this model is being largely abandoned.

Do not be one of those decision makers that will retreat to the safety of their neighborhood when the damage to our neighborhood becomes obvious, unmanageable, and the opportunity for better solutions has passed.

Be intellectually honest; do not fall prey to the thinking that “we need to do something, even if it’s wrong.”

Paul Geile, Boise

This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 11:00 AM.