Letters to the editor: George Floyd, Greater Idaho, Interfaith Sanctuary
George Floyd
Some of my heroes are Black Americans, Barack Obama and Colin Powell to name a couple. George Floyd is not one of them. There is no doubt that Derek Chauvin should be prosecuted for George’s death. He was a bad cop. But should George Floyd be canonized? Should we put a statue of him in the Capitol Rotunda while taking down statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington because they owned slaves? They were leaders who founded the amazing country we live in today. George Floyd was a petty criminal trying to pass a phony twenty-dollar bill who ran afoul of a mean cop.
Cable networks and other media have sensationalized an isolated incident of police wrongdoing, resulting in riots and looting. Even worse, cities like Minneapolis have hamstrung their police so that many more deaths have resulted. Now Minneapolis is short of officers.
Let’s face it, we’re a racist country, but fanning the flames of outrage only leads to more riots and deaths that politicians exploit to buy votes. Wouldn’t it be better to promote income equality and methods to uplift disadvantaged kids, like George Floyd was? Shouldn’t we help police departments reject bullies like Derek Chauvin?
Jack Havlina, Boise
Greater Idaho
I see our legislature is now discussing combining part of Oregon with Idaho. I am very pleased about this because we here in Idaho need more desert. I can see we are rapidly running out of sage brush and vast unusable land that generates very little revenue. What next? Are we going to pull in Montana when we run out of old white legislators that want to tell us how to think and act? This also may be just another attempt by California to steal our water, so buyer beware.
Tom Buckmaster, Boise
Interfaith Sanctuary
Boise’s a city of opportunity filled with caring citizens. Recently, we have heard people proclaim NIMBYism on our small Veterans Park Neighborhood near the Interfaith Sanctuary proposed shelter site. Instead of NIMBY, our neighborhood is YIMBY. Yes, YIMBY. YIMBY’s support of increasing the supply of housing within cities where housing costs have escalated to unaffordable levels. Veterans Park Neighborhood has a diverse and charming population. I seized an opportunity to rehabilitate a house to call home. Renovating the kitchen, bathrooms and working on a beautiful outdoor barbecuing space. As a YIMBY, I volunteer with the Veterans Park Neighborhood Association and work with the city to properly plan our neighborhood. Recently the association added little libraries, community benches and street signage. Veterans Park Neighborhood’s future is bright, holding its first Fall Harvest Festival in 2019. As a YIMBY, I welcome and support Valor Point, Good Samaritan, Wiley apartments and Salvation Army. Soon, Boise Planning and Zoning will have the opportunity to protect the homeless by following the city code and denying a conditional use permit to Interfaith Sanctuary. Individuals suffering from homelessness should receive appropriate support services with dignity and respect. Interfaith Sanctuary relocation takes the homeless further from services the city has highlighted as important in its comprehensive plan to end homelessness by 2025.
Scott Burney, Boise
Concentrated poverty
What does concentrated poverty mean? It is generally defined as high concentrations of low incomes within a neighborhood, which translates to neighbors’ poorer quality of life. Over time, we have learned this is terrible for communities and is something city planners should work hard to address and avoid. In many ways it is easier for a city to concentrate the less fortunate as the areas are usually less expensive, have fewer restrictions, and community members are less able to fight back due to lack of resources, racial disparities, and less knowledge of the systems that are impacting them. HUD has clearly identified in “Understanding Neighborhood Effects of Concentrated Poverty” a direct correlation between concentrated poverty and negative outcomes for individuals within poverty-less children finishing high school, more domestic violence, worsening health effects and greater numbers of folks suffering with mental illness and substance use. Concentrating poverty within any residential neighborhood will never work and only bring other vulnerable Boiseans to crisis. I ask my fellow Boiseans to dive deep into the potential move of Interfaith Sanctuary and ask what this means for the area around Veterans Park Neighborhood — one of the poorer and higher risk neighborhoods in Boise.
Pete Barnes, Boise