Opinion

On Sept. 13, United Payette (UP) will host the 5th annual Clean UP! event, focusing on picking up and removing trash from endowment lands surrounding Payette Lake. For the past four years, numerous UP members and community supporters have gathered in early September to show a little love for the state-owned endowment lands that many of us enjoy for hiking, camping, gathering, hunting, bird watching, and many other recreation activities. We show our appreciation for the endowment lands by targeting key parcels that see heavy use during the summer for a Clean UP! effort, and we invite you to join us!

Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality has quietly rewritten cancer protection rules to benefit one gold mine — Perpetua Resources’ Stibnite Gold Project — and in doing so, made our children the most vulnerable in the nation to pediatric cancer. Carefully crafted thirty years ago, the law has simultaneously protected Idaho’s children while minimizing regulatory burden on our industries. Now, to facilitate this mega-mine, both our children and our industries face unprecedented risks.

Building Pine Creek Ranch (PCR) as proposed will result in increased stress on the community of McCall. Community stressors include effects upon emergency, fire, medical and law enforcement responses, code enforcement, water systems, sewage disposal systems, community medical care, increased vehicle traffic with the corresponding increase in road maintenance, noise and air pollution, light pollution, waste disposal, increased endangerment to Payette Lake (McCall’s sole source of potable water), and impacts on McCall-Donnelly School District – and more.

As probably the newest residents in The Woodlands Subdivision, my wife and I have been amazingly surprised by the culture of this neighborhood. On our first drive through we encountered dogs lying in the street ignoring us, kids playing street hockey, numerous hikers, bikers, couples walking, etc. We are impressed by the “family” nature of all who reside here. These are local families that work in McCall and live here with children and pets of all ages. Long term and longtime residents. No Airbnb’s here. The streets are narrow and all who reside here actually drive 5 to 10 mph and respect the neighborhood culture.

Land is voiceless, relying on its residents to be good stewards and make wise decisions for its future. That’s why it’s vital for McCall to reject the 492-home Pine Creek Ranch proposal for the following reasons:

In reading the article on “M-D takes over school bus service” I noticed some information missing. The company, Harlow’s School Bus Service, had its beginning in 1962 by Harlow Hageness and his family, in Rolette, ND. As the company grew, a branch of the Company, Harlow’s School Bus Service, Inc. of MT was formed. This Branch of the company took over School Bus operations for the MDSD in 1999. Harlow’s actually ran the Bus Operations in McCall for 19 years. I was hired as site manager in June 2004. I ran the operation until retirement in 2017. At that time it was still owned by the Hageness family. In 2018 the school bus operations of the company was purchased by the Landmark Company. They maintained the Harlow name and trademark which is still property of the Hageness Family. Later, a private equity group bought the contract, which is who the school district was most recently negotiating with. I am writing to let the public know that the Hageness family was not the ones asking for such a large increase (47.5%), but a nameless private equity group.