Letters to the editor: Impact fees, Attorney General’s office, social justice
Attorney General’s office
In 1995, the legislature passed the legal services consolidation law. It required state agencies to obtain legal services through the Attorney General’s office, rather than private law firms. In the six preceding years, the cost of agency spending on private lawyers ballooned from $1.3 million to $6 million.
The consolidation law makes it possible for the state to give consistent legal advice to all of the state agencies, whereas the prior system caused legal fights between agencies. I managed this consolidated system for about 10 years as the Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant Chief Deputy for the Attorney General. It works.
Legislators and other politicians may not like the advice they are given, but the guarantee is that they will be given accurate legal advice. The Legislature currently has three bills that would undo consolidated legal services. Legal costs would explode and state agencies would be fighting other state agencies.
I’m a fiscal conservative, and I am totally against this silly legislation that is motivated, in my view, by ridiculous legal positions taken by the Attorney General’s client-agencies and politicians who just want someone to tell them what they want to hear. Spend more money!
Thorpe Orton, Boise
Social justice in education
Rep. Priscilla Giddings’ recent bill demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of social justice in education. I have taught at the college level with a “social justice” curricula for nearly 30 years, and never once have I taught that one race is superior to another, an example from Giddings.
In my courses you’ll hear the voices of those often omitted from “traditional” courses. If you’re taking my African American literature course you’ll read diverse literature written by African Americans. In my American Indian literature course you’ll read texts written by Native American authors and experience life from their perspectives. I call this “social justice” because students can’t help but learn about the history of justice and injustice from the stories these writers tell. Students experience the genius and artistry of authors they may never encounter in any other course in their entire educational experience. I cannot count the number of times students have exclaimed to me, “Why did I have to get to college to learn this?”
It is fair and just for Idaho students to learn from diverse voices and perspectives. After all, we live in a beautiful, diverse and complex world. Let’s equip students to thrive in it.
Janis (Jan) Johnson, Lewiston
Raise impact fees
Our legislators seem to think that raising the property tax exemption for homeowners like myself and those well enough off to have homes, before all these out-of-staters decided to move here, and invest here, will solve our property tax situation. This does not do anything to relieve the high cost of rents for the people who now can’t afford to buy. We as locals are subsidizing the investors and new people coming here from out of state that is causing most of the inflation in housing. We need to raise current impact fees on new construction and add additional ones specially to pay for new schools and all the many, many costs that their investments and moving here are costing the local population. Not only are we being priced out of our homes , renters, who really need the relief, are being priced completely out of town. The landlords are pricing these increases on, and landlords get no tax exemption. Thus the renters are being stuck with the very high rent we have. Wake up legislators. Impact fees are the answer to booming cities and towns.
Robert Leonard, Boise