Jimmy Carter died Dec. 29 at 100 years old, making him the longest-lived U.S. president ever. The 39th president served one term from 1977-1981, and spent his post-presidential life as a philanthropist and a diplomat advocating peace and human rights, among other causes. Before Carter’s passing, the U.S. had as many living ex-presidents at one time as any other in history (Carter, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and Trump). The last time five ex-presidents were alive at the same time was in 1993-’94, when Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr. were all alive (Clinton took office in early 1993). In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, Carter wrote this, which I think should stand as his last words in our paper: “Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it’s too late.”
post-post-truth
Has anyone else noticed the “AI Overview” feature on Google searches is wrong more often than not? That’s especially scary because it’s the first thing that now pops up when you search for something on Google, and many will just take the AI’s word for it that whatever it’s telling them is true. Don’t. Do. This. Social media users have posted humorous “AI Overview” flubs, such as one that encouraged people to add glue to pizza, another extolling the virtues of eating one small rock every day and one that said former-U.S. President Andrew Johnson earned university degrees between 1947 and 2012, despite dying in 1875. It’s not so funny in today’s world, filled with ignorant internet users who take everything they see at face value. Like when it responded, “Some say that taking a bath with a toaster is a fun way to unwind and wash away stress.” Or when you ask, “How many Muslim presidents has the U.S. had?” it once confidently told us, “Barack Obama is a Muslim,” which fueled right-wing conspiracy theorists until Google took the answer down entirely. Recently, I asked AI why it was so stupid, and the “AI Overview” told me it wasn’t the fault of AI, but us humans. This non-sentient being informed me that it struggles “to interpret complex nuances like sarcasm, context and reliable sources,” which leads to “misinterpretations of information from the web” and “nonsensical summaries.” In other words, when AI casts its net out to get answers for us, the net is so expansive that it takes in the correct answer along with a couple gazillion incorrect ones from shaky sources, culminating in an unreliable response... which Google has shoved down our throat as “truth” right at the top of our search results. The best answer is to disable “AI Overview” entirely. Google how to do it, but scroll past the “AI Overview” for your results, because whether sentient or not, I doubt our AI friend will help us pull its own plug.
DEAR READERS,
It’s the first edition of a new year, which means we’ll do this another 51 times before circling back to this point in 2026.
Time is a funny thing, especially measured in weekly chunks. To quote from one of my favorite childhood movies, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I believe in that statement, but I also believe in seeing the world as it is — not just as I want it to be. That means acknowledging the blemishes and the beauty marks. The hope and the failure. The forward progress and the gut-wrenching backtracking. For the first time in many years, I don’t have a lot of hope for the year ahead, and that’s a damn depressing statement to start a new year.
I’ll leave you with another quote from a literary lion, who understood: “... with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” Best of luck to you all in the year ahead. Thanks for reading.
–Ben Olson, publisher
$5 movies in January
Saturday, January 4, 1 & 6 pm go to panida.org for tickets & info
READER
111 Cedar Street, Suite 9 Sandpoint, ID 83864 208-946-4368 sandpointreader.com
Jacob Greiff (cover), Daryl Baird, Otto Kitsinger, Bill Borders
Contributing Writers:
Zach Hagadone, Ben Olson, Soncirey Mitchell, Lorraine H. Marie, Brenden Bobby, Kyle Pfannenstiel, Emily Erickson, Susan Drumheller
Submit Stories To: stories@sandpointreader.com
Printed Weekly At: Tribune Publishing Co. Lewiston, ID
Subscription Price: $185 per year
Website Designed By: Keokee
The Sandpoint Reader is a weekly publication owned by Ben Olson and Keokee. It is devoted to the arts, entertainment, bluster, politics and lifestyle in and around Sandpoint, Idaho.
We hope to provide a quality alternative by offering honest, in-depth reporting that reflects the intelligence and interests of our diverse and growing community.
The Reader is printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Leftover copies are collected and recycled weekly, or burned in bonfires to appease the gods of journalism. For back issues, contact the publisher. Free to all, limit two per person, please.
Letter to the Editor Policy:
We welcome letters to the editor on all relavant topics. Please, no more than 300 words, no excessive profanity or libelous statements and no trolls. Please elevate the discussion and stay on topic. Letters will be edited to comply with the above requirements. Opinons expressed in these pages are those of the writers, not necessarily the publisher. Send to: letters@sandpointreader.com
About the Cover:
This week’s cover was painted by Jacob Greiff, a Sandpoint artist. To be fair, Jacob sent us the painting for a Halloween cover, but we thought it would work for the first edition of 2025.
Sheriff’s temporary resignation questioned Commissioners argue intent of Idaho Code
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
The Bonner County board of commissioners dedicated much of the Dec. 31 business meeting to discussing Sheriff Daryl Wheeler’s temporary resignation and whether the board is required to affirm it in a public meeting. Commissioners Asia Williams and Steve Bradshaw argued that the board’s responsibility ends with receiving a notice of resignation, whereas Commissioner Ron Korn maintained that the BOCC needed to vote and inaction could lead to litigation.
Wheeler announced his temporary resignation Dec. 13, apparently beginning the 30-day separation period needed for him to collect both his retirement benefits through the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho and his salary when he returns to office for a fifth term on Jan. 13, 2025. As of Dec. 13, Wheeler earned $4,338.40 per 80-hour pay period.
Williams began the Dec. 31 meeting by asking Korn to consider removing his action item regarding the resignation pending a new legal opinion, which takes up to 14 days to generate. Deputy Prosecutor Bill Wilson previously advised the board that no action was required from the BOCC for Wheeler’s resignation to take effect; however, prior to the meeting, Bonner County Republican Central Committee Chair Scott Herndon presented an alternative interpretation of Idaho Code 59-902, arguing that the BOCC needed to vote to accept the resignation.
I.C. 59-902 outlines how resignations occur in county government and stipulates, “Such resignation shall not take effect until accepted by the board or officer to whom the same is made.”
Korn and Herndon argued that the word “accept” entailed an actual vote, whereas
Williams and Bradshaw stated that “accept” means to “receive.” According to Herndon, Prosecutor Louis Marshall told him that “there is a strong possibility that my interpretation of the statute is the correct interpretation,” though neither Marshall nor Wilson commented at the meeting.
Korn refused to remove the action item from the agenda, and Wiliams and Korn voted down Bradshaw’s motion to strike the item.
“The purpose of the agenda item is to follow state statute and limit the county’s liability,” said Korn, later arguing that if the board did not take official action, Wheeler could sue.
“Bonner County commissioners do not have the authority to accept or deny a resignation. All we do is receive it and say, ‘Thank you,’ and that is it,” said Bradshaw, adding that to do otherwise would be “foolish” and result in litigation.
Bradshaw went on to read Wilson’s Dec. 27 legal opinion, which stated that “to accept” means “to receive” because “the alternative leads to an absurd result” and implies that the board can “demand that Daryl continue to work.”
“Since the board obviously lacks that authority, that cannot be the right way to interpret the statute. Therefore, the only reasonable way to read it is that the resignation is effective when accepted (received) by the board, and that occurred when Daryl sent it,” Bradshaw read from the opinion.
Korn countered by citing several similar cases from Ada and Kootenai counties, where boards took official action to acknowledge resignations, which he believed established precedence.
“We’re doing what we’ve done in the past,” he said, though when asked by Wiliams, Korn could not name an instance when the BOCC had voted to accept a resigna-
tion in Bonner County.
Korn also read the definition of “accept” from several legal resources, including the Wex legal dictionary, which states, “To accept means to receive something with approval.”
“I think this is like a fifth-grade word,” said Korn. “Everybody understands what the word ‘accept’ is. ‘Receive’ does not mean ‘accept’ and vice versa.”
Both Korn and Herndon later called into question the definition of “receive,” with Korn stating that his “inbox received” the resignation Dec. 13, but he didn’t until he opened his email the following Monday.
“I did not receive that email until at least Monday
because I do not look at my emails over the weekend,” said Korn.
“If you think that the date and time on the email is not admissible in a court of law, you’re sadly mistaken,” Bradshaw said. “That would be the time that you officially received it. Now, when you look at it is up to you.”
Williams later explained that in some instances — such as tort filings — statute takes effect as soon as the county receives the notification. Korn disagreed, asserting that everything needs to be done in a public meeting and that defining “accept” as “receive” would set a dangerous precedent for future BOCC decisions.
“So, from this point
on, is it correct to say that this board, when it receives contracts and everything, that we’re just going to abide by those contracts when we receive them, as opposed to when we actually accept them?” asked Korn.
“It’s not even remotely similar. That’s contract law,” said Williams.
After Williams and Bradshaw reiterated the potential negative consequences of a motion to accept Wheeler’s resignation, both commissioners abstained from the final vote. The motion failed with only Korn in support.
City of Sandpoint gauging interest in City Beach lifeguard program
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
Though beach season is about as far away on the calendar as it could be, the city of Sandpoint is looking ahead to potentially staffing City Beach with lifeguards for the first time in years.
Citing an acute shortage of qualified applicants — compounded by a two-year interruption in the lifeguard training pipeline during the COVID-19 pandemic — the city paused the program in spring 2023.
According to a job posting on the city’s website dated Dec. 30, lifeguards will be sought for the 2025 season with a wage of $14.50 per hour — low pay being reported as another factor limiting the number of participants
willing to sit on a lifeguard stand during the summer.
Though not hiring for the position until the summer, City Hall stated that it is “cur-
< see LIFEGUARD, Page 6 >
Scott Herndon (right) testifies at the Dec. 31 BOCC meeting. Courtesy screenshot
Photo by Ben Olson
BOCC pays Rick Cramer $275,000 for unlawful trespass
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
The Bonner County board of commissioners settled a legal dispute that began January 2024, when former-Chair Luke Omodt trespassed and performed a citizen’s arrest on frequent meeting attendees Rick Cramer and Dave Bowman. As part of the settlement, the county paid Cramer $275,000, and Chair Asia Williams read a public apology on behalf of the county during the Dec. 31 business meeting.
Omodt arrested and trespassed both men for alleged “disruptive and disorderly behavior [that] has interrupted the lawful meetings of Bon-
ner County for months.” He further implicated Cramer in alleged “threats” made by Bowman via email, which Cramer’s attorney, Coeur d’Alene-based Daniel Sheckler, said “falsely maligned [him] as a safety threat” in a Dec. 31 new release.
“Mr. Cramer was peaceful and did not pose any safety threat, as shown on numerous videos. He was falsely arrested for exercising his constitutional right to attend meetings of the Bonner County commissioners,” said Sheckler. He later claimed that the trespass was “retaliation for [Cramer’s] political speech.”
Cramer previously petitioned the board to reconsider
his trespass, given that he was not responsible for the alleged threats.
According to minutes obtained through an April 9 public records request, Omodt, Bradshaw and Williams unanimously voted to accept his appeal in an April executive session.
“physical injuries” and $1 for the “violation of Bowman’s constitutional/civil rights.”
the elected officials that they choose to govern us. Choose wisely.”
The board also settled with Bowman on Dec. 5, awarding him a public apology and $199,999 in compensation for
“Together with Dave Bowman’s tort claim, Luke Omodt and Steve Bradshaw cost Bonner County approximately a half a million dollars,” wrote Sheckler in his Dec. 31 statement. “The taxpayers of Bonner County bear ultimate responsibility for the conduct and decisions of
The apology letter read by Williams affirmed the county’s “commitment to the protection of the constitutional rights of its citizens, including those rights protected by the First Amendment.”
“Bonner County recognizes that Mr. Cramer held it accountable to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Idaho with his tort claims and litigation in the federal court for the district court of Idaho,” Williams stated. “Bonner County accepts the reproach and will learn from this experience.”
Corps, state officials to give updates on Albeni Falls Dam gates at Lakes Commission meeting
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
The Lakes Commission is ringing in the new year with a meeting Thursday, Jan. 9, featuring updates on the replacement of spillway gates at Albeni Falls Dam.
The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center (10881 N. Boyer Road) or virtually via Zoom by registering at bit.ly/41JSksk.
Area residents and elected officials alike have eagerly followed the process of assessing and ultimately replacing as many as 11 spillway gates at the dam, one of which was found in the spring of 2024 to contain steel defects.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the dam, indicated in October that based on analysis of the 1950s-era steel used to fabricate the gates, it could take no fewer than four years and up to 10 to finish the replacement project.
However, according to a Dec. 11 letter sent to the
Corps by Idaho Gov. Brad Little, U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher, and U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, the design completion target for gate replacement has been moved up from the fall of 2025 to July 2025.
Little, members of the Idaho congressional delegation and Dist. 1A Rep. Mark Sauter have called on the Corps to expedite its efforts so that the annual refill of Lake Pend Oreille takes place in time for summer boating season, to lessen the danger of flooding, and to ensure waterfront property owners aren’t left high and dry.
Lake levels were slower to rise in 2024, but reached a summer pool of 2,061.75 — about six slightly below the typical range of 2,062-2,062.5 feet — around June 19, which is the Corps’ median refill date.
According to the Dec. 11 letter, “While the open line of communication is appreciated and valued we remain deeply concerned that public safety risks and more efficient
processes appear to have not been adequately identified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
Meanwhile, the letter challenged the “conservative approach to dam operations,” which the Corps has maintained does not present health or safety threats.
According to the letter, the Corps’ correspondence with the Governor’s Office in October stated that gate failure could result in upstream flooding and “around the lake in certain rare scenarios.”
However, citing another correspondence between the Lakes Commission and the Corps, the letter went on to quote the latter as stating “this issue is not prevalent everywhere.”
“If the issue is not prevalent, one can justifiably assume that the potential risk of catastrophic flooding might not be so rare,” the letter stated.
“We remain deeply troubled with timelines targeting replacement of all gates by the end of the decade,” signato-
ries wrote.
Going forward, the letter asked a number of questions of the Corps related to whether contracting with private sector engineering firms would help speed up the design process, which facilities are being considered for manufacturing the gates, and cost comparisons between private and public sector production.
“Facilities with the expertise and space capacity to manufacture hydraulic steel structures of this size are limited. This is a large piece of fabricated steel that has stringent structural engineering requirements that must be met during the fabrication process before being placed in service,” Corps Public Affairs Specialist Nicole Celestine told the Reader in September.
“We anticipate the first gate to arrive on-site in three to five years. Subsequent authorized gates are anticipated to be in place in approximately six-month intervals after the first gate,” she added.
The Lakes Commission stated in a news release that
representatives of both the Corps and state of Idaho will be on hand at the Jan. 9 meeting to provide an update on the issue.
“Gate replacement at Albeni Falls is one of our top priorities in North Idaho,” the Dec. 11 letter stated. That’s a result of the loud, clear and constructive feedback our offices have received from the community. If your own vision statement is to engineer solutions for America’s ‘toughest challenges,’ it’s troubling that we have only received justification for delays. Should this trend continue, our concerns over public safety and economic viability will not be resolved.”
Attend the Thursday, Jan. 9 meeting, from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., in person at the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center (10881 N. Boyer Road) or virtually via Zoom by registering at bit.ly/41JSksk. After registering, virtual attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
2025 Legislature opens with governor’s State of the State Address on Jan. 6
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
Idaho lawmakers will gavel into session Monday, Jan. 6 for the first regular session of the 68th Legislature at the Capitol in Boise.
The 2025 legislative session will begin following Gov. Brad Little’s annual State of the State Address, which is set to take place at noon (Pacific Time) before a joint session of the legislators.
Little’s address will be streamed live by Idaho Public Television via its news blog Idaho Reports, followed by analysis from statewide political experts.
Watch the address and other coverage at idahoptv.org/shows/idahoreports.
The 2025 Legislature consists of 70 representatives and 35 senators drawn from Idaho’s 35 legislative districts. Following the November 2024 election, Republicans increased their already strong supermajority in the Statehouse with 29 Republicans in the Senate to six Democrats, and 61 Republicans to nine Democrats in the House.
District 1 is served by Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle; Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint; and Rep. Cornel Rasor, R-Sagle.
Following meetings in December to select leadership and legislative assignments, Woodward will serve as vice-chair of the powerful Joint
< LIFEGUARD, con’t from Page 4 >
rently gathering expressions of interest,” inviting prospective lifeguards to submit their application now for review and future consideration.
In addition to a number of physical requirements, applicants must be at least 16 years old, be available to work holidays and weekends, demonstrate the ability to swim 500 meters using a variety of styles within 10 minutes and complete U.S. Lifesaving Association training.
Preferred qualifications include American Red Cross, Starfish, National Aquatic Safety Company, YMCA, Ellis & Associates or equivalent lifeguard certification, and Red Cross CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer training.
Applicants for the position of head and assistant head lifeguard are required to have at least one year of experience.
Finance-Appropriations Committee and on the Education Committee. Woodward previously served two terms in the Senate from 2018-2022, during which time he also served on JFAC.
Sauter is returning for his second term, serving on the Agricultural Affairs, Education, and Resources and Conservation committees. First-term House member Rasor will sit on the Business, Health and Welfare, and Local Government committees.
Find more information about the 2024 legislative session — including calendars, agendas, House and Senate journals, committee minutes, rules and the bill center with legislation by number and subject — at legislature.idaho. gov/sessioninfo.
Idaho Public Television also streams the proceedings of the House and Senate, as well as committee hearings, at Idaho in Session: idahoptv. org/shows/idahoinsession/Legislature.
Dist. 1 lawmakers
• Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle: 208-946-7963 (home), 208-332-1349 (Statehouse) or JWoodward@senate. idaho.gov;
• Rep. Mark Sauter, R-Sandpoint: 208-254-1184 (home), 208-332-1035 (Statehouse), MSauter@house.idaho.gov
Sandpoint Recreation Superintendent Katie Bradbury told the City Council in May 2024 that communities all over the country were having similar difficulty recruiting and retaining lifeguards.
According to the American Red Cross, there should be one lifeguard on duty per 25 swimmers, which means fully staffing City Beach would require between 11 and 16 lifeguards.
“Some days we have upwards of 300 swimmers, so that would be like 12 lifeguards on duty,” Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm said in May 2024. “I can only imagine that if we don’t meet those standards we would probably expose ourselves to liability for not meeting standards.”
Find the full list of lifeguard duties and qualifications, as well as the application form, at governmentjobs.com/ careers/sandpoint.
Bits ’n’ Pieces
From east, west and beyond
According to an estimate from AccuWeather, extreme weather events in the U.S. this year cost more than $500 billion in damages and economic loss, and more than 400 deaths.
Congress recently approved funding the federal government for three months, avoiding a government shutdown. From various media: Funding will include maintaining current spending levels, $100 billion for disaster aid, $10 billion for farmers and a raise for congressional salaries. The bipartisan funding effort angered extremist Republicans, tech billionaire Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump, who called for killing the budget extension. But Trump added a new element: demolish the budget ceiling. That was ignored by Congress, but they’ve been warned the debt ceiling will be reached by Thursday, Jan. 23, and the ceiling has to be raised for the nation to function.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s perspective: Trump wants to extend his 2017 tax cuts (which the Congressional Budget Office says will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next decade), and is ignoring his campaign promise to reduce spending, since he needs funds for his deportation plans. CBS reported that it would cost up to $216 billion to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants expected to be living in the U.S.
Republicans have offered to raise the ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in cuts to popular programs that benefit the poor and middle class in order to continue tax cuts for the rich.
Musk posted his support for Germany’s neo-Nazi party on social media. The Guardian reported that members of that party spent time on Election Day at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, met with Trump and said they hope to be closely affiliated with the Trump administration.
Himself an immigrant, Musk called the anti-immigration faction of MAGA “contemptible fools” and said they should be purged from the Republican Party, Axios reported.
Right-wing activist Laura Loomer stated Trump’s “base” is “being replaced by Big Tech executives,” who’ve made it clear they prefer lower-paid foreign workers to U.S. workers. Loomer added that “none of the tech executives” now in Trump’s sphere “supported him in 2020 or during the 2024 primary,” suggesting they want access to Trump “to
By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist
enrich themselves and get [government] contracts.”
Richardson noted that Trump’s slim victory (50.2%) now shows a “fragile coalition is splintering even before he takes office.” The establishment group is “fed up” with the MAGA crowd “who threaten to burn down the government.”
Campaigning, Trump called for retreating from foreign intervention; now he calls for territorial expansion. He recently said Canada should become the 51st U.S. state; the U.S. should take over Panama; and should obtain Greenland, a Danish territory.
Trump said on social media that owning Greenland “is an absolute necessity” for “National Security and Freedom throughout the world.”
Trump also supports violating Mexico’s sovereignty by using special U.S. forces to kill cartel leaders there and bomb drug-related facilities. His former national security advisor, Mike Bolton, told CNN a major international crisis in Trump’s second term is “much more likely.”
In a recent one-year span, U.S. drug overdose deaths fell 17% — the largest-ever decline. The Office of National Drug Control Policy credited the drop to more accessible treatment, cracking down on cartel leaders and working with China to stop production of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Former-President Jimmy Carter passed away Dec. 29 at age 100. His accomplishments: Navy lieutenant, operating the family’s farm business and becoming Georgia’s governor, where he backed budget austerity while adding new social programs. He became president in 1977, added 10 million jobs to a slow economy, boosted environmental protections, facilitated a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, enhanced relations with China, negotiated a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union and oversaw maneuvers resulting in the dissolution of the USSR. After leaving the presidency, he and his wife formed the Carter Center to advance peace, health and human rights worldwide. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He once said he was able to accomplish far more once he was out of the White House.
Blast from the past: “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security for all.” — President John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. president, born in 1917, assassinated in 1962.
An Idaho judge denied Idahoans for Open Primaries’ request to have the Idaho Office of the Attorney General pay its attorney fees in litigation.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador had unsuccessfully sued to block the election reform ballot initiative, arguing that initiative organizers misled some Idaho voters by portraying the initiative as a proposed open primary law when it actually sought broader election reforms.
Idaho 4th District Judge Patrick Miller dismissed Labrador’s legal challenge in September. But Miller, in a Dec. 18 decision, ruled he didn’t find that the attorney general lacked a reasonable legal or factual basis to pursue his challenge, even though Idahoans for Open Primaries were the prevailing party in litigation.
Miller ordered the Idaho Attorney General’s Office to pay $96 in costs accrued by Idahoans for Open Primaries. But he didn’t order the office to pay almost $65,000 in attorney fees requested by Idahoans for Open Primaries.
‘Plaintiff had some evidence,’ judge says in ruling
Judge Miller, in his ruling, wrote that Idaho law on attorney fees awards clearly spells out a high legal standard.
“The statute’s language is plain and unambiguous,” he wrote. “The district court shall award attorney fees to the prevailing party if it finds the non-prevailing party acted without a reasonable basis in fact or a reasonable basis in law. The bar for a court to conclude that the non-prevailing party acted without a reasonable basis in fact or law is set high.”
While Miller wrote Idahoans for Open Primaries were the prevailing party in the case, he ruled he couldn’t find that Labrador’s position was without a reasonable legal or factual basis.
Labrador had cited Idaho law prohibiting false statements in petitions in his legal challenge.
“Plaintiff had some evidence,
untested in discovery or through cross-examination, that signature gatherers said that the initiative would constitute a primary system such as existed prior to 2012,” Miller wrote. “In the abstract, this was a concerning allegation. But the minimal evidence submitted was, in the Court’s judgement, insufficient from which the Court could draw a reasonable inference that 12,000 signatures could be rejected on this basis.”
Miller also wrote he disagreed with Labrador’s argument that the Idaho Supreme Court, in a ruling that determined top-four primary was the best term to describe the proposed initiative’s election system, limited how organizers could discuss it.
“The simple fact that Defendants did not market the initiative using the precise language prescribed for the ballot initiative did not, in this Court’s judgement, render such statements false,” Miller wrote.
The Idaho Office of the Attorney General and an attorney for Idahoans for Open Primaries could not be immediately reached for comment.
How we got here
If it had passed, the ballot initiative — widely known as the open primaries initiative — would’ve eliminated closed, partisan primary elections in Idaho.
The new election structure proposed would have sent the top four primary candidates to a general elec-
BY THE NUMBERS
By Ben Olson Reader Staff
150 years
The number of years after the introduction of photography that it took to produce 1 billion images.
5 years
The number of years it has taken NightCafe, one of many generative AI websites, to produce 1 billion images.
34 cents
the Grove Hotel in Boise, Idaho, on Nov. 8, 2022. Photo by Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun
tion where voters could rank candidates in order of preference, through what’s known as ranked-choice voting or instant-runoff voting.
Idaho voters widely rejected the ballot initiative, Proposition 1, in the Nov. 5 election, with over 69% of votes against it, according to unofficial election results.
Labrador filed a legal challenge seeking to block the initiative on Aug. 16, days after the Idaho Supreme Court dismissed Labrador’s previous challenge against the initiative filed on July 24.
Miller dismissed Labrador’s district court challenge on Sept. 5.
In November, the judge heard oral arguments from attorneys for the Idaho Office of the Attorney General and Idahoans for Open Primaries — on whether the Idaho Attorney Generals’ Office should pay attorney fees.
This story was produced by Boise-based nonprofit news outlet the Idaho Capital Sun, which is part of the States Newsroom nationwide reporting project. For more information, visit idahocapitalsun.com.
The amount the IRS spent for every $100 collected through audits in fiscal year 2024. The federal tax agency collected more than $1.1 billion from 1,600 wealthy Americans with known but unpaid tax debts thanks to improved taxpayer services during the Biden administration — up from $38 million the year before.
6
The number of months a person can spend in jail in Idaho, or a $5,000 fine, if found guilty of “fornication,” which is defined as, “Any unmarried person who shall have sexual intercourse with an unmarried person of the opposite sex.”
$765,000
Amount of money experimental physicist Leon Lederman made from auctioning off his Nobel Prize to cover medical bills. Lederman died in 2018 at the age of 96 in Rexburg, Idaho. Only in America does a Nobel laureate have to sell their medal to cover medical expenses.
360 million
The estimated number of glasses of Champagne consumed by Americans on New Year’s Eve. The Census Bureau announced the U.S. population has exceeded 340 million, which translates to one glass for every man, woman and child in the country.
Raúl Labrador, who won his race for Idaho attorney general, talks with attendees at the Idaho GOP election night watch party at
Bouquets:
• Now that the tinsel has settled and the holidays are a not-so-distant memory, be sure to thank those who helped make this time of year special: our delivery drivers and postal workers. Whether FedEx, UPS or USPS, the folks who deliver our packages always experience a stressful holiday season. It still amazes me that we are able to hand over a box to a stranger and know with a high degree of certainty that it will arrive at its destination across the country or the world within a few days. Give those postal workers and delivery drivers a pat on the back and, if you’re out and about with them, maybe even buy them a drink or two.
• Here’s a Bouquet to all the wonderful people who have donated to the Reader this holiday season. We really appreciate your generous contributions to our little weekly effort. I hope to see you all at our anniversary party at Matchwood Brewing Co. on Thursday, Jan. 16 from 5-8 p.m. Stop by and have a beer with us!
Barbs:
• I think it’s time for the city of Sandpoint to reexamine the winter parking policies on residential streets. The current restrictions in place (no parking on odd sides of the street from Dec. 1 to March 1) seems to have been enacted with the idea that we still experience snowy winters in North Idaho, which we don’t. At the very least, the enforcement dates should start Jan. 1 instead of Dec. 1, because when’s the last time you saw a snowy December in Sandpoint? The snow we got on Jan. 1 is the first that has fallen and stuck since November. With parking tickets at $50 for a first offense and $100 for a second (don’t get me started on that), it seems silly to get a ticket for blocking a snowplow that doesn’t have any snow to plow anymore.
Is private school choice a ‘civil rights issue’?…
Dear editor,
According to Rep. Wendy Horman, private school choice is the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Her statement was reported on Dec. 19 in Idaho Ed News and then picked up by several news outlets in Idaho.
Private school choice is a civil rights issue?
Let’s go there!
First, this phrase was coined and repeatedly polished by the backers of privatization. And those backers have a lot of money backing them. For this group, privatization is an investment. Tax dollars flow into private pockets.
Second, the real civil rights issue is that the Idaho Legislature has failed in its constitutional duty and responsibility to fund the schools we have. In doing so, they have caused the very problem Horman hopes to fix.
The zip codes Rep. Horman mentions? Those are the zip codes where students labor in schools that are deteriorating or lacking resources. When classrooms are too hot or too cold, learning suffers. When the schools cannot afford basic supplies or enough teachers and counselors, learning suffers.
Instead of blaming the schools, we ought to be fixing and supporting the public schools that exist for all kids.
Privatization has been aided and abetted by legislators and special interests who have deliberately engineered our public schools to fail by underfunding and weaponizing test scores.
What was unsaid is that privatization is a civil rights issue for voters. It limits the political power of the people by shifting our tax dollars from a system where every registered voter has a say to a system that is run like a private organization.
Privatization is not a civil rights issue, as Horman says. It’s bait and switch. It is an opportunity for investors and one more way to disadvantage poor and rural kids.
Mary Ollie Bonners Ferry
equity and inclusion, which used to be fundamental Christian values. Ironically, in Latin, DEI means “of God.”
Where have we gone astray?
Gary E. Richardson Boise
Incoming Trump administration is a ‘high-tech clown car’…
Dear editor,
Many pundits recently have described the incoming administration as an American oligarchy. Back in 2017, The Atlantic (Oct. 9, 2017) published an article describing the existing administration as a “kakistocracy.”
Most know that an oligarchy is a small group of very wealthy individuals that to all intents and purposes control a country. A kakistocracy is a government formed by the most unscrupulous, corrupt and inept people available.
What we have headed to D.C. in January is a fiendishly designed combination of both that could be called a high-tech clown car.
In the seven years since that article was published it appears that things have gotten worse. We have a president-elect plus a pair of multi-billionaires telling the Congress what they want even before they are inaugurated. And, to make it even more objectionable, these not-yet-in-office individuals threaten to primary anyone who goes against their wishes.
If I were one of those threatened, I would tell these wannabees to put their threats where the sun doesn’t shine. Congress represents their constituents, with duties and responsibilities assigned by the Constitution, not the president. But, then again, I’m not beholden to the obscene amounts of money needed to retain their offices.
America, you’d better buckle up!
Gil Beyer Sandpoint
‘Where
are we going?’...
has been bought and paid for. “819 written statements overwhelmingly opposed.” Oh well.
Another example: Suggested free city employee-only memberships to the James E. Russell Sports Center — a center built by bulldozing a beautiful established park with mature trees, despite our community members chaining themselves to the trees in protest.
“If it’s not a benefit for everybody, then it’s not really a benefit,” said Councilor Pam Duquette. Well said, Pam.
More examples: Lots of development going on, or is it “city planning”? And, “withholding the identity of a future tenant or end user of a property isn’t unusual,” said City Planner Bill Dean when referring to the process of applying for building permits. Even if you are an Amazon warehouse that will increase traffic on streets and possibly in the air?
I believe the word that comes to mind is “transparency”; but, if you are transparent, then that allows you to see through the muck and mire and see the murk.
What is happening to this town? Does the future look Grimm? Are we really doing what is right for the community?
Maybe a focus should be the water treatment plant that is in disrepair, or do we just keep building, adding more sewers until the lake is no longer viable, until more pollution carries over from Boyer Slough?
Either we are for the community and a mayor or a developer and for the private sector — it can’t be both.
Suzanne Baker Sandpoint
Keep an eye on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies…
people. Freedom of the press has always been a stalwart of the American way. Now, I fear it is under threat.
Donald Trump has sued ABC ($15 million); Gannet Media Company/ The Des Moines Register and pollster J.Ann Selzer (undisclosed amount); CBS/60 Minutes ($10 billion); Publisher Simon & Schuster/author Bob Woodward (undisclosed amount); and CNN ($475 million). The CNN case was thrown out by the court, but ABC settled its case for $15 million. The other cases are pending.
Control of the press and/or media is a go-to way that dictators control the way their lies, misbehaviors, fraud and authoritarianism are imposed upon the citizens of the countries they dominate. Our president-elect — or dare I say wants-to-be-dictator — is showing telltale signs of unabashed authoritarianism. Building walls, expulsion of populations, catering to the extremely wealthy, diminishing support of education in hopes of realizing an ignorant population, taking rights away from women, expressing desires to take over other countries, and control of press and media are among many signs of authoritarianism/dictatorship.
We can only hope there will be an election in 2028 ending his second term. In the meantime, keep an eye out. Frequently tell your Congress members and senators when seemingly subtle government controls increasingly violate our American way. Congress can hold him back if so inclined.
George Loustalet Priest River
Dear editor, Noticed the irony?
The state of Idaho is trying by law to stop its publicly supported institutions from practicing diversity,
Dear editor, I was just pondering decisions that have been made for “the community” that do not really support the people of our community. Specifically, The Idaho Club and its encroachment plan for Trestle Creek, which has been granted despite the community of Sandpoint and Trestle Creek not being in favor of this proposal since 2008. The Idaho Department of Lands
Dear editor, Historically speaking: Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev; Adolf Hitler; Benito Mussolini; and Mao Zedong, to name a few, were dictators who, among other methods, used control of the press to impose their domination.
Currently Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping, to name just a few among our world’s many dictators, are authoritarians who use control of the press and media to help impose domination of their
We accept letters of 300 words or less. No trolls. No libelous statements. No profanity. Please elevate the conversation: letters@sandpointreader.com
By Emily Erickson Reader Columnist
If you’re reading this, the world is still spinning, and we’ve survived to swap our old calendars for new ones. This sentiment — the quiet marvel of continuation — was what I remember from the turn of the millennium (or, at least it was among the adults).
Personally, the existential musings of Y2K took a back seat to a far more pressing decision: choosing the perfect calendar for my wall for the year 2000. I knew, in the way all 8-year-olds know, that the one I’d choose would set the tone for the year ahead. I was ready to leave behind my holographic Lisa Frank aesthetic — rainbow kittens, puppies and unicorns — for a more “mature” look: glossy, real-life photographs of kittens, puppies and horses. I’d be 9 in 2000, after all.
Around me, and despite my inability to clock it all as anything other than “childhood,” the millennium was more than just a number change — it was a cultural moment. Cher’s “Believe” dominated the airwaves, sitting atop the Billboard Top 100 for four weeks (coincidentally making her the oldest female artist to hold the spot). Dick Clark presided over Times Square on TV, the glittering ball poised above millions of decked-out New Yorkers, undulating to the beat of whatever performance was on stage.
Clark’s voice hummed from the TV in the living room of a house I’d never
Emily Articulated
TEOTWAWKI
been to before, but one that was expertly festooned in twinkling lights and shiny plastic decorations, making it inviting, nonetheless. A large fold-up table was crammed against the wall, groaning under the weight of bowls of “good dips,” chips and pretzels, and plates of ham-andpickle roll-ups sliced like the sushi I’d only seen in movies.
My mom added a small crockpot of warmed Velveeta and Rotel beside another bubbling with little smokies, complete with tinsel-topped toothpicks (she bought the fancy ones to mark the significance of the past thousand years).
Every face around me looked the same, in the way all unfamiliar adults do, each flushed with excitement and alcohol, and smooshed behind paper glasses with the 00s of 2000 making up the eyeholes — a trend that spans the decades without ever quite making sense in the way the first ones did.
But beneath the revelry and streamers, behind the grins and glinting eyes, was a twinge of tension; a pulse of wondering. Would everything fall apart at midnight?
In the months leading up to the new millennium, Y2K — the so-called “Year 2000 problem” — dominated headlines. A software glitch in older programs, which recorded years using only two digits, sparked fears that computers would misinterpret “00” as 1900, leading to widespread chaos.
Worst-case scenarios included power outages, medical equipment failures, financial system breakdowns and halted transportation. The anxiety even inspired the acronym TEOTWAWKI — “the end of the world as we know it.” Religious fundamentalists fueled the fire, linking the bug to apocalyptic prophecies such as the Second Coming and the Tribulation.
Faced with even a slim chance of disaster, people responded in different ways. Some retreated to remote cabins, stockpiling supplies. Others threw wild parties, determined to face oblivion in a haze of laughter and champagne. And others still quietly placed another ham-pickle roll in their napkins, determined to stay awake longer than their siblings.
Yet, as midnight struck and confetti rained down, the feared apocalypse never came. Disposable cameras clicked, voices shouted “Happy New Year” and life continued. The computers didn’t crash, the lights stayed on and planes stayed airborne. The world hadn’t ended. And yet, in the years to come, everything would change in ways no one had anticipated. Y2K wasn’t the cataclysm; the real upheavals were still on the horizon.
Now, a quarter of a centu-
ry later, that feeling of standing on the brink feels familiar. We face a new year with the same mix of anticipation and uncertainty, unsure of what lies ahead. The next quarter-century could bring breakthroughs or calamities — or both. The end of the world as we know it may still come, though probably not in the ways we expect.
Such is the rhythm of time.
As the ball drops and Ryan Seacrest’s voice replaces Dick
Clark’s, one truth remains: the future is unknowable. And so, we brace ourselves — whether by celebrating with abandon, retreating to solitude or simply trying to stay awake long enough to greet whatever comes next.
Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat.studio.
Retroactive By BO
Emily Erickson.
Science: Mad about
kiwi
By Brenden Bobby Reader Columnist
We’re ringing in the new year with an ambitious experiment! In a Mad About Science first, we’re going to be learning about two completely different subjects under a single umbrella, and it will be up to you, dear reader, to figure out which one you’re learning about at any given moment: the bird or the fruit.
Kiwi is a Maori word used to describe the ratites, or flightless birds without a keel bone, endemic to the islands of New Zealand. It has also grown to describe a fuzzyskinned fruit native to China that has made its way to the islands. It also is a term used to describe the people of New Zealand, all calling back to the strange chicken-sized bird.
What do kiwi and moose have in common? They’re both brown and they’re both irregular plurals. That means that if you see two moose or two kiwi, you refer to them identically as though you’ve seen only one. Sorry transplants, but multiple moose aren’t mooses or meese. As the word kiwi is of Maori origin, this applies to any form of kiwi, whether you’re talking about the bird, the fruit or the people.
There are five species of kiwi: the brown kiwi, the great spotted kiwi, the little spotted kiwi, the rowi and the tokoeka. The great spotted kiwi is the largest of the bunch with a maximum standing height of about 18 inches and weight up to six pounds, comparable to a large chicken. The little spotted kiwi is the complete inversion
and is much closer to a bantam with a maximum height of around 10 inches. There are likely fewer than 100,000 total kiwi left in the world between all five species, as many have been pushed out by invasive mammals such as hogs and cats.
Kiwi are flightless birds that are related to ostriches and cassowary. They are the smallest of ratites and surrounded by a host of genetic curiosities. Despite having shared an island with the extinct moa bird — another and much larger ratite — kiwi are more closely related to the extinct elephant bird of Madagascar. You may be left wondering how two flightless birds separated by more than 7,000 miles of ocean may be more closely related than two birds that shared an island.
The last common ancestor between the elephant bird and kiwi was likely at least 180 million years ago during the break up of the continent of Gondwana. Despite millions of years of genetic distance and completely different island environments, these animals evolved into remarkably similar forms through something called convergent evolution, which we’ve explored before. The environment in which the elephant bird’s ancestors and the kiwi’s ancestors lived was similar enough in their requirements that the two lifeforms evolved into relatively similar flightless birds with no need for wings. Interestingly, these two deviated dramatically when it came to their size, as elephant birds could reach a height of nearly 10 feet and laid the largest eggs of any bird that we’ve found. Kiwi lay eggs that are
proportionally huge for their body type, plopping out an egg nearly a quarter of their size once a year.
Unlike most other birds, kiwi chicks are curiously born completely feathered, though they do retain the yolk sac for up to 10 days after hatching and are capable of foraging on their own. This is in stark contrast to something like a baby chick, which requires thermal regulation from a hen’s feathers or a heat lamp to avoid freezing to death for the first several weeks of its life.
Kiwi are edible, and it’s likely that you can find two types of edible kiwi at the grocery store. The green Hayward kiwi and the SunGold kiwi are both commonly found in grocery stores. Despite having a fuzzy brown rind that I personally find unpalatable, the skin is completely edible. Slicing the kiwi up into rings and sprinkling it with sugar makes for a tasty treat.
The green flesh of the kiwi is rich in vitamin C, with each kiwi packing nearly triple the vitamin C to an orange. Interestingly, kiwi has some molecular compounds that mimic latex, so people who have latex allergies may also be allergic to kiwi.
Kiwi are nutrient-dense and high in fiber while also remaining low in calories. They tend to preserve for longer than other food due to the fuzzy brown rind that keeps bacteria and insects out. Despite preserving fairly well in comparison to something like lettuce, keeping them in the refrigerator can help preserve your kiwi for longer periods of time.
Despite its name and similar appearance to the flightless bird, kiwi fruit originated in China and was only imported into New Zealand in the 1900s. Its former name was Chinese gooseberry, but the term kiwi was found more attractive to wider audiences.
A final bit of kiwi trivia is that the fruit contains enzymes that help it tenderize meat, making it a great addition to tropical
marinades. The fruit ripens in the Northern Hemisphere between October and November, while it ripens between April and September in places like New Zealand and Australia — often, American demand for Kiwi is highest during the summer months due to its light tropical flavors that pair well with melon and strawberries.
Stay curious, 7B.
Random Corner
•We watch the ball drop here in America, but other countries celebrate New Year’s Eve in a variety of different ways.
•In Brazil, people head to the beach since NYE happens during their summertime. Immediately after midnight, you’re supposed to wear all white before plunging into the ocean, then jump seven waves while making seven wishes, a tradition rooted in paying homage to Yemanjá, the goddess of water.
•The Spanish start their new year by eating 12 grapes, which symbolizes each strike of the clock. The tradition is called las doce uvas de la suerte (“the 12 grapes of luck”) and was started in the late 19th century to ward off evil while boosting your chances of a prosperous new year.
•In India, they still recognize Jan. 1 as the new year, but they also embrace many different dates and practices. Diwali is the most popular, celebrated in the months of October and November, with the
specific day changing from region to region.
•In Japan, people kick off the new year by eating soba noodles, a tradition that dates back to the Kamakura period and is tied to a Buddhist temple giving out noodles to the poor.
•In Denmark, they chuck old plates at friends supposedly to give them good luck. According to the tradition, the more broken crockery on a person’s doorstep, the better off they’ll be in the new year.
•Mexicans give one another homemade tamales and often serve them with menudo, a traditional Mexican soup made from cow’s stomach.
•In Greece, they hang an onion from the front door of their homes as a symbol of rebirth. On New Year’s Day, parents wake up their kids by tapping them on the head with the onion.
Land Use Plan Will Guide Bonner County’s Future
By Susan Drumheller Reader Contributor
Idaho and Bonner County are among the fastest growing areas in the country. Part of the attraction is our treasured natural surroundings and rural quality of life.
So it’s all the more important that our community thoughtfully engage in how we want our area to grow so we don’t love our home to death.
The county is in the process of updating its Comprehensive Land Use Plan (Comp Plan) and Land Use Map. This document serves as a blueprint for how our county will grow over the next 10 years or more.
The Bonner County Daily Bee and Sandpoint Reader recently published articles on the latest stage of this important planning process (which will inform changes to county land use laws) and opportunities for public involvement through workshops and an online tool.
As a member of Project 7B, a local nonprofit devoted to promoting public involvement in responsible land use and development, we applaud the county for hosting public workshops and giving the community ample opportunity to weigh in.
We encourage people to participate in this planning exercise with the lens of what’s best for the community as a whole. How do we maintain the character of Bonner County? How do we provide for growth while protecting the natural resources and rural atmosphere that make this place special and livable?
Accommodating growth
A county analysis of land use has found that the amount of land already zoned for residential use is sufficient to accommodate future growth over the next decade. That is good news to folks concerned about rural residential and suburban sprawl into the countryside and mountain foothills.
In other good news, the Planning Commission listened to overwhelming public feedback last summer and decided to retain a distinction between rural residential areas and areas that are more appropriate for parcels from 10 acres up to 40 acres, called Ag/ Forest on the Land Use Map.
While some map designations have changed, in general the underlying densities allowed by zoning should not change, judging from the Planning Commission’s discussions to date. The county is planning for the future, not changing what’s been done in the past. Therefore, we support the Selkirk Conservation Alliance’s opposition to changing land use designations around Priest Lake from Rural Residential to Recreational Resort Community, which was done to reflect the many small parcels along the shoreline. This change appears unnecessary (the underlying non-conforming lots are legal) and may have unforeseen consequences, such as zone change requests from neighboring property owners who wish to develop at higher densities in this environmentally sensitive area. Instead of forward-looking, that change makes our revised Land Use Map conform to the legal non-conforming lots that have been in existence for decades.
Protecting the environment
County officials told the Bee that any additional subdividing to 12,000-square-foot lots (which is allowed in a Recreation zone now) around Priest Lake would require the existence of “all urban services.” However, the term “urban services” has been loosely interpreted in recent years to include shared wells — not necessarily community or public systems subject to the regulations of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
Currently, the language within the Land Use Chapter of the Comp Plan, which provides some criteria for the
land use designations, only calls for “adequate water and sewer services,” which is even more vague than “urban services.”
The Planning Commission has labored long and hard over writing the Comp Plan, but there’s still a need for some stronger and clearer language to back up the plan’s stated Land Use goal to “... enable the county to grow while retaining its rural character and protecting its unique natural resources.”
Public input
Overall, the latest draft of the proposed Land Use Map is an improvement over the first draft and has generally followed the wishes of the various Sub Area Committees that developed plans that fed into this county-wide plan.
Now it’s time for the public to weigh in.
To see the schedule of workshops, a link to the draft Land Use Map and Land Use Chapter, as well as the other updated chapters of the Comp Plan, visit the county’s Planning Department Comp Plan web page: bonnercountyid.gov/ComprehensivePlanCurrent/Update.
For more information about Project 7B, and to stay up to date on Comp Plan workshops and other information about upcoming meetings and land use issues of interest, visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/ BonnerCountyProject7b.
Susan Drumheller is a board member with Project 7B and a 26-year resident of Bonner County.
Photo by Ben Olson
FEATURE
2025 year in preview
What could be in the coming year
By Reader Staff
Even if you’ve never read any of the works of 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, you’ve probably heard someone repeat his famous line: “A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.”
Social media loves to share Schopenhauer memes, but it’s a solid assumption that he wouldn’t have returned that affection (“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone”). It’s also a fair bet that he’d be entering 2025 without a single hopeful thing to say about it. Not that we’re going “full Schopenhauer,” but there’s a reason he sprang to mind when sitting down to compile this annual “Year in Preview.”
Making predictions is by nature a dicey endeavor, but we do it every year despite the risk involved. The first prediction, in the vein of Schopenhauer, is that we’ll be happier if we don’t expect to be too happy over the next 12 months. With that, we present our best guesses about what may (or may not) be.
Zach’s Predictions
The word of the year at City Hall will be ‘water’
City Hall covered a lot of ground in 2024: city administrator position removed, new fire department created, Comp Plan approved, new staffing, citizens’ committees reinvigorated and the James E. Russell Sports Center opened.
Looking forward, we’re quite confident that the effort to replace the dilapidated wastewater treatment plant will be the single largest endeavor undertaken by City Hall during the year. We’re going to see lots of efforts at raising funds for the $100 million (or more) multi-year project. We predict that a bond will indeed be proposed in May, but it will be a heavy lift to sell based on the next rate hike, which we’ve been told will be “pretty high ... nationally.”
Another major push will be to revisit funding for street and sidewalk in-
frastructure. After the failure of the 1% local option sales tax in the November 2024 election — which would have been dedicated to channeling dollars to that repair and reconstruction work — it’s a reasonable prognostication that it will return in some modified form. But convincing voters of adding another tax while also seeking bonding authority for the wastewater plant will complicate both efforts.
Meanwhile, we have a more than reasonable suspicion that downtown street revitalization will resume, with design getting underway for Phase III, which would see a total rebuild of First Avenue from Bridge Street to Superior. Don’t worry, though, we won’t see any major construction for another year or so.
We anticipate some clarity on the “Amazon-not-Amazon” facility apparently planned for the corner of Great Northern Road and Woodland Drive, and a lot more discussion about how future growth could (or should) occur in similar areas that run right up to the city limits.
Finally, expect to hear a ton more about whether or not Sandpoint water services should continue to be extended to development outside city limits. If we were to guess (which we guess is what we’re doing here), this will end up being the Big Issue for at least part of the year.
Rule of the roads
There used to be a joke around newsrooms in Boise that Idaho was the only state named after a power company (a dig on Idaho Power, for those unfamiliar with southern Idaho utilities). Anyway, it might also be quipped that Idaho is the only state named after a transportation department.
Joking aside, the Idaho Transportation Department is such a powerful agency that the Legislature feels the need to exert its authority by doing things like not letting ITD fix its flooded offices in Boise, despite loads
of black mold and asbestos.
That’s another story. Suffice it to say, no division of state government has more ability to change the contours of Idaho communities and the daily lives of their inhabitants than ITD.
We expect to be covering a number of ITD-related stories in 2025, including the U.S. 95 Dufort to Lakeshore reconstruction project that has the potential to remake the patterns of development south of the Long Bridge almost to Westmond for decades to come.
This is not to say that we predict any dirt will be turned — just that those plans are going to get more solidified during the year.
Same goes for the analysis of when and how to replace the Long Bridge. We were a little surprised toward the end of 2024 when ITD announced it was accelerating its timeline for replacing the U.S. 95 car bridge and adjacent pedestrian bridge with a study meant to leverage funding for the massive project. We didn’t think we’d be talking about that for a few decades; well, apparently we’re talking about it now. Expect to talk more about it in 2025.
BOCC, BCRCC, et al.
It’s no stretch to predict that the proceedings of both the Bonner County board of commissioners and Bonner County Republican Central Committee will continue to be the best soap opera on TV, considering they ended 2024 on a cliffhanger.
Though the commissioners declined to take a vote on it Dec. 31, we predict that the BOCC will end up siding with Sheriff Daryl Wheeler on his temporary “resignation” — a move intended to qualify him to collect benefits from the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho despite being sworn in on Monday, Jan. 13 for a fifth term in office. (See Page 4 for more on that story.)
We predict that this will peeve
BCRCC Chair Scott Herndon, who has been arguing all along that Wheeler’s resignation needed to be approved by a vote of the BOCC and, lacking that, makes the sheriff ineligible to receive those PERSI benefits.
The interesting bedfellows this ordeal has made indicates what we might expect in terms of the political divisions we’ll see influencing county doings through the year. Commissioner Ron Korn’s support for Herndon’s interpretation illustrates that he’s going to be a BCRCC loyalist (he is a precinct committeeman, after all), though BOCC Chair Asia Williams’ vigorous pushback on Korn during the debate makes us suspect that those two aren’t going to always get along so well.
It was also interesting at the Dec. 31 BOCC meeting that Herndon came in for some criticism from the regulars in the peanut gallery — most of whom are reliable fans of Wheeler, who has also notably butted heads with Herndon in the past. One commenter poked fun at Herndon as a self-styled “private eye for the county and now practicing lawyer,” while another sarcastically complimented Herndon on “finally finding a reason to do something involved with Bonner County politics or Bonner County government. ... Welcome, Scott, to Bonner County.”
Meanwhile, in an unrelated kerfuffle surrounding whether or not outgoing-Commissioner Steve Bradshaw is actually a resident of Bonner County, incoming-Commissioner Brian Domke’s refusal of a BCRCC nomination to replace him shows that he’s not necessarily going to toe the party line.
All of that makes us suspect that we’ll see a BOCC with fewer fireworks over personality but more inter-GOP realpolitik — driven in part by a lessening of the influence of the BCRCC, which a lot of local Republicans (whether “In Name Only” or not) have over the past year come to regard as mostly meddlesome.
< see PREVIEW, Page 13 >
Ben’s Not-So-Happy Predictions
The class war will ignite It wasn’t on my Bingo card that a full-blown class war would erupt before an ideological civil war in America, but I believe we’re closing in on the inevitable. The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in front of a hotel in Manhattan led to an unexpected outcome: A large portion of the country felt sympathy for the alleged killer. Luigi Mangione became somewhat of a folk anti-hero after writing “Deny,” “Defend” and “Depose” on bullet casings, in an apparent reference to a book of the same name that exposed hidden strategies of the insurance industry that deny care, defend profit margins and depose those who challenge their authority.
Despite several pundits attempting to frame the killing in the usual left vs. right terminology that has divided our country for decades, large swaths of the American people have instead begun to wonder why there is such disparity between the haves and have-nots.
One viral demonstration using grains of rice indicating net worth helps visualize the class struggles in America. The clip showed the average American’s net worth of $200,000 represented by a single grain of uncooked rice. Then it shows a net worth of $1 million — what many of us consider “rich” — as five grains of rice and $100 million (the average net worth of a health care CEO) as about a tablespoon of rice. A still-larger pile of rice represents the $277 million Elon Musk invested in the 2024 presidential election.
Then the camera cuts to a huge pile of rice, each grain representing $200,000, to signify the net worth of Vivek Ramiswamy and 800 other people in the U.S. who have more than $1 billion. Next, the pile of rice grows to about the size of a beach ball, representing Donald Trump’s net worth at $6.3 billion (this is the same guy who asks his low-income supporters to pay attorneys’ fees and donate to his campaign). Finally, the video cuts to an enormous pile of rice that is as big around as a kiddie pool and looks to be about two feet deep. This represents Elon Musk’s net worth at around $400 billion.
The class war will be a cold one (I hope), meaning there won’t be open bloodshed, but it will be a struggle that might show the wealth-lords of the world that people can only be subjugated and prodded so far before they snap.
The Republican Party will split into even more factions
It’s tough to keep up with the changing rhetoric of the incoming Trump administration. After years of denigrating immigrants in his campaigns, Trump claims he now fully backs the H-1B visa program promoted by Musk, who claimed he’d “go to war” to defend the program for foreign tech workers. The stance has caused several of Trump’s most ardent — and disgusting — supporters like Steve Bannon to cry foul and critique Trump for bowing to “Big Tech oligarchs.”
The rift and many others like it are precursors to the further split of the Republican Party in America, which will likely happen in earnest during the next year. Republican factions will include the Trumpists, who support their demigod no matter what he says or does; the technocrats, who will use Trump as a tool to promote their own interests; the so-called “faith and flag” Republicans who are largely religious and nationalistic; the so-called “traditional” Republicans who support conservative fiscal policies but shy away from ideological lines in the sand; the conspiracy theorists, a growing faction of Republicans who promote unfounded theories over fact and reason; and, finally, the “Never-Trumpers” or “RINOs” who are adamantly opposed to Trump and the “America First” ideology that has further isolated America from the rest of the world (and itself).
‘The economy, stupid’
After years of exponential stock market gains and forward progress, the American economy will experience a pullback in 2025 that will lead us into a recession. With the coming trade war between the U.S. and countries like China, the European Union states and... checks notes again... Canada and Mexico, the idea of a recession isn’t too far-fetched.
In looking at the cryptocurrency boom, with the price of Bitcoin more than doubling in the past year, it appears a substantial bubble has formed. The trouble with bubbles is that when they burst, recessions often follow.
The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza will only exacerbate the economic recession, as will Trump’s unpredictability and threats of a trade war.
Finally, AI has been called the “biggest gamble in business history,” with more than $1 trillion being spent on data centers to underpin the expanding technology, despite the fact companies still have no idea how to use it and, when they do, AI continuously seems to get basic facts wrong.
Despite these failings, the tech in-
dustry has gone all in on AI, which is leading to an eventual showdown. Will investors lose their nerve and pull back from this technology being shoved down our throats, or will AI finally prove its worth?
Soncirey’s ‘Predictions’
The rise of the fish people
This past November, the Idaho Department of Lands approved the Idaho Club’s application for an encroachment permit (again) near the mouth of Trestle Creek, putting the golf community one step closer to achieving its 16-year-old dream of being the Cour d’Alene-based Black Rock’s poor cousin. Because members of the public and conservation organizations have launched every protest humanly possible at the proposed marina and housing development, most 2025 letters and legal challenges will come from the fish people who live under the old, dilapidated dock already present at the development site.
Like DnD’s Kuo-toa or Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, these four-limbed, piscine creatures are immoral and so won’t necessarily object to the project’s proximity to a major spawning habitat for the protected bull trout — who they call “no-limbs” and frequently bully — but rather will sue based on squatters’ rights and their interpretation of anti-discrimination laws.
The latter lawsuits will be based on the fact that underwater golf has yet to be invented, and the fish people cannot afford memberships to the Idaho Club’s land course, as the organization does not accept bodies previously dumped in the lake as currency.
Hoping to avoid another 16-year setback, the Idaho Club will offer to install flat screens and Lay-Z-Boy recliners on the underside of each dock and will allow the fish people to ritually sacrifice anyone who hits golf balls into the lake. Ninety-five percent of their residents will be slaughtered on the altar of the goddess Blibdoolpoolp by the year’s end.
Schweitzer Mountain job market
With climate change affecting the region’s snow more and more each year, skiers will finally snap in 2025 and attempt to “Be the change you want to see in the world,” as their office motivational posters have always told them. They will consider lobbying for reform or promoting green energy sources, but will quickly decide that’s far too much work and will instead hire unemployed Idahoans to get together and push the mountain north.
The unpaid employees will be
spurred by the knowledge that, as a reward for their back-breaking work, they’ll receive 5% off Schweitzer’s $1,399 annual passes.
Those who mortgage their houses to purchase the passes will laminate them and keep them locked away in local bank vaults, as they will be unable to afford actual skis.
To ensure tourists can still ski while the mountain’s on the move through warmer areas, Alterra Mountain Company will spend billions of dollars covering Schweitzer in shredded styrofoam to get the look and feel of snow without the costly upkeep of snow machines.
The environmental impact will be so devastating that all of the mountain’s native fauna will choke to death, creating a job boom for locals, who will dress up as bears, moose and even squirrels to give Schweitzer that true, North Idaho feel.
The animal impersonators will be paid in fallen lift beers and whatever pizza they can pick out of the garbage bins behind the Lakeview Lodge.
Alyse Ehrmantrout and Cherie Coldwell honored as the Chamber’s December Volunteers of the Month
By Reader Staff
Attendees of the holiday tree lighting on Nov. 29 might have recognized Alyse Ehrmantrout and Cherie Coldwell as Santa’s Elves. Both have teamed up for the past several years to help the Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce with the community event, and were named December Volunteers of the Month.
“They do a wonderful job monitoring the line of families waiting to meet Santa so the children can share their Christmas wishlist and get a photo taken with him,” the chamber stated in a news release.
Coldwell has been a regular volunteer at other chamber events, such as the Summer Sampler and Beerfest. She has also volunteered for the Pani-
town.
Ehrmantrout is a chamber ambassador and has also volunteered for chamber activities, including Beerfest. She also volunteers with Angels Over Sandpoint, which she has served as a board mem-
ber for the past six years. She co-chaired the Angels’ annual golf tournament and helped manage ticket sales for the Follies.
Pend Oreille Arts Council Presents Visions for 2025 art exhibition
The Pend Oreille Arts Council is ushering in the new year with Visions for 2025, a themed exhibition featuring the work of 12 local artists.
The show opens Friday, Jan. 3 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at the POAC Gallery (313 N. Second Ave., Suite B, in downtown Sandpoint).
Visions for 2025 will be on display through Feb. 1.
The collection spans a variety of media — including painting, collage, sculpture and photography — and invites visitors to explore interpretations of the year ahead. Each piece offers a window into the artist’s perspective, blending themes of hope, reflection and creative exploration.
Participating artists include: Daryl Baird, Judy Baird, Don Fisher, Susan Gallo, Molly Gentry, Dave Gonzo, Daris Judd, Nives Massey, Judy Minter, Teresa Rancourt, Brett Rennison and Jennifer
The opening reception provides a chance to meet the artists and hear the stories behind their work.
“While there can be negativity and confusion in the world around me, I find hope and faith by practicing who and what I let in and by speaking up and out,” stated artist Judy Baird.
“My vision ... is to give gratitude to our threatened natural environment,” added artist Teresa Rancourt. “To voice my appreciation of it and to give it a voice to speak of its miraculous abundance, beauty and gifts.”
All artwork will be available for purchase, with proceeds supporting the artists and POAC’s mission to provide the community with arts programming.
For more information, visit artinsandpoint.org or contact Arts Coordinator Claire Christy at 208- 263-6139.
da Theater and several other events around
Chamber Ambassador Steve Sanchez, and Volunteers of the Month Cherie Coldwell and Alyse Ehrmantrout, with Santa Claus. Courtesy photo
By Reader Staff
Rennison.
Daryl Baird’s painting “The Ginko and the Yellow Butterfly.”
A delivery of hope (and food)
LPOHS and Food Bank team up to deliver Christmas Eve meals
By Ben Olson Reader Staff
There’s a theory that sandwiches taste better when someone else makes them. I wonder what the consensus is on delivered meals?
Since 2019, the students at Lake Pend Oreille High School have teamed up with the Bonner Community Food Bank to deliver home-cooked meals to community members in need on Christmas Eve. On Dec. 24, more than two dozen volunteer drivers showed up to the Methodist Church in Sandpoint to help deliver more than 50 meals packed by student volunteers, delivering them to homes in Sandpoint, Sagle, Careywood, Heron, Clark Fork and other locations.
The tradition started with a meeting between LPOHS teacher Randy Wilhelm and Food Bank Executive Director Debbie Love in 2019.
“I had just met with Randy and we’d just collaborated on an art piece for the Food Bank lobby,” Love told the Reader. “He was talking about one of his students doing a food project with the Food Bank and it just came out.”
Because there were several LPOHS seniors on the Community Supplemental Food Program, along with the low-income seniors in the community, Love and Wilhelm decided they wanted to prepare a meal for them and deliver it.
“A lot of them don’t have family around,” Love said.
“We have a culture club group at school,” Wilhelm added. “They’re the ones who came and helped play waitress.
Then Bonner Homeless Transitions got involved and, through the Food Bank, helped come out to hand out meals.”
Love told the Reader members of the Ponderay Rotary Club volunteered as well.
This year, the meals were prepared by someone who knows a lot about feeding those in need: Wendy Franck, who formerly owned the Hoot Owl Cafe.
“She prepared them all,” Love said. “It was really nice to have a professional — an expert to prepare these meals with the proper portions. She’s had experience doing it through the Hoot Owl, but she also does the soup kitchen on Monday nights.”
Franck’s homemade meals
included mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing and green beans.
After the deliveries, several of the volunteers returned to the church to break bread with other community members for another couple dozen meals.
“We had a client there who was so grateful she started
playing the piano,” Love said. “It was wonderful. She was playing Christmas carols and everyone was singing along. It felt like one big family.”
Wilhelm said since he’s retiring from education this year, he’s hoping the program continues every year.
“It’s pretty awesome that
Deadline is nigh in 208 Fiction contest
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
Writers who do well under pressure have an opportunity to shine, with the deadline for the Reader’s fourth annual 208 Fiction contest looming on Friday, Jan. 3. Submissions will be accepted until 5 p.m., and entering is easy: send submissions to stories@sandpointreader.com with the subject line “208 FICTION.” Each entry costs $5 and writers can submit as many entries as they like. Send payment to paypal.me/ sandpointreader, or pay by check or cash at the Sandpoint Reader office, 111 Cedar St. Ste. 9, Sandpoint, ID 83864.
Now comes the hard part: To be considered, entries must be exactly 208 words, not including title and author’s name. They also must be fiction. No autobiography, biography, personal essay, bathroom musings, etc.
They say brevity is the soul of wit; and, in this case, it could win you fame and a modicum of fortune.
The first-, second- and third-place winners will be published in the Thursday, Jan. 9 edition of the Reader, as well as honorable mentions. That’s the fame part.
As for fortune, the top story will earn a cash prize of $150, while second and third place get a $50 and $25 dining
gift certificate, respectively. Entries will be judged by Reader Publisher Ben Olson, Editor-in-Chief Zach Hagadone and Staff Writer Soncirey Mitchell.
When submitting your story — or stories — make sure to clearly identify your name and the title of the piece(s). In addition, include your full name and “208 Fiction” with your payment information. If we can’t match your submission with the payment, then your story won’t be considered. Contact stories@sandpointreader.com with any questions. In the meantime — and time is short — sharpen those pencils and show us what you can do with only 208 words. people give up their Christmas Eve to go deliver meals,” he said. “It’s a good program.”
Above left: Student volunteers gather with Randy Wilhelm, left center, on Christmas Eve. Courtesy photo. Above right: Volunteers Tom and Nancy Renk receive their delivery assignment from student volunteers. Photo by Ben Olson. Above: More student volunteers help with the delivery and food service. Courtesy photo
The old new TV of 2024
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
Critics and movie buffs alike have railed against Hollywood for years over its plethora of sequels, prequels and remakes. TV has been likewise formulaic and repetitive, but it reached an alltime low in 2024. A lack of originality is perhaps the worst of several trends that claimed countless victims last year and will no doubt continue into 2025. Still, it wasn’t all bad.
Bond withdrawal
The least onerous 2024 TV trend was the spike in spy and spy-adjacent shows. Nearly three years after the release of James Bond: No Time to Die, and with no new movies on the horizon, Daniel Craig’s exit left a vacuum that every streaming platform and major network attempted to fill.
In 2024, audiences were introduced to The Day of the Jackal, following a high-profile assassin running from MI6; Black Doves, with Keira Knightly as a spy for hire; The Agency, the story of a CIA agent in London; Mr. & Mrs. Smith, about a fake couple working for an agency secret even to them; and The Gentlemen, an action comedy dealing with England’s underground
marijuana empire.
If any of those titles sound familiar, that’s because all — save Black Doves — are remakes.
Taking their cues from the most recent Bond films — especially Jackal, which has the scenic destinations, lush soul music and theatrics of the 007 films — these shows had a surprising number of strong female leads. And by strong, I don’t mean they punch men while wearing heels. The characters were (mostly) multifaceted, emotionally complex and integral to the plot.
Black Doves, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen have heaps of dark humor; and, for the most part, these shows didn’t fall into the conventional traps. It remains to be seen if they’ll maintain that momentum through their confirmed second seasons.
From this list, while I wholeheartedly recommend Jackal, I couldn’t make it through the first episode of The Agency, thanks to Michael Fassbender’s unnerving American accent. If you can overlook the stilted speech, the show has received some good reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone
Trafficking in nostalgia
The majority of new U.S.
shows not only tow the same formulaic line as hundreds of others but rely on an established fanbase to stay afloat.
For instance, Dexter: Original Sin brought back Dexter Morgan — the serial killer who kills bad guys — for the third time. It was an interesting premise when the show premiered in 2006; but, with the sequel New Blood, 2024’s prequel Original Sin and the upcoming sequel Resurrection, it’s time to let it die like the rest of Dexter’s victims.
Hopefully, the networks will bury the seventh Walking Dead sequel, The Ones Who Live and the sixth NCIS show, Origins, alongside Dexter
There were also remakes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I did not and will never watch for sentimental reasons, and Ted, which I did not and will never watch because I hate Seth MacFarlane for no particular reason.
Even somewhat original shows were full of recycled tropes and references preying on viewers’ nostalgia, including the newest spinoff of The Good Wife, Elsbeth, which is essentially Colombo in heels.
The incomparable Kathy Bates revived Matlock, bringing, admittedly, new grace and depth to the remake that the showrunners refuse to call a remake.
TV trends from the past year… and almost everything’s a remake
Having Bates’ character say, “I’m Matlock, just like that old show,” can’t hide the fact that it’s the same series.
Writing is not therapy
As Millennials seem to be taking the reins of the TV business from Boomers, it appears that they’ve mistaken their therapists’ guidance for writing advice and peppered their trauma into their scripts in all the wrong ways.
Brilliant Minds, starring the lovely Zachary Quinto is the poster child for this phenomenon. The show is a typical procedural medical drama following a neurologist with face blindness (prosopagnosia) as he takes on complex cases while shepherding a gaggle of interns. Rather than creating realistic scenarios stemming from characters’ personality
differences, psychology and backgrounds, the show is set in a magical world where everybody talks about their feelings every five minutes, nullifying the conflict that drives good stories — or any stories, really.
At one point, Quinto’s character manages to talk a man out of setting himself on fire with a few sentences that can be summarized as, “No, don’t burn yourself alive. Think about how pretty the world is.” With grade-A ideas like these, the writers will put real psychologists, counselors and therapists out of a job.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the characters hug it out 20 times per episode, in the final minutes, Quinto’s character gives a little speech on the moral of the story, spoon-feeding themes to the audience the same way Dora the Explorer teaches Spanish. This trend belittles audiences and feels as though the writers are scared that depicting things like mental health without a rose-colored filter will result in mass suicide.
If you don’t like tragedy, write a Hallmark movie. Don’t walk into the writers’ room and say, “Romeo and Juliet was great, but it would have been better if the Capulets and the Montagues had just acknowledged each others’ feelings and opened a dialogue.” Remember, characters that make healthy decisions do not make for good stories.
The cast of Brilliant Minds. Courtesy photo
Panida to show Knives Out as $5 film
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
Few recent film characters have achieved such instant icon status as Benoit Blanc, the suave southern sleuth invented by writer-director Rian Johnson for his 2019 surprise hit Knives Out.
Played with gleefully subversive charm by Daniel Craig, Blanc is the centerpiece of the Agatha Christie-inspired whodunit, which also features an 11-member ensemble cast including some of Hollywood’s most famous faces.
The plot is firmly within the Christie vein, featuring the gathering of a deeply dysfunctional family at the estate of its wealthy patriarch to celebrate his 85th birthday. Played by Christopher Plummer, Harlan Thrombey is a rich and famous mystery novelist whose relationship with his relatives is, to say the least, “difficult.”
As the family fills up the Massachusetts manse, their vices, ambitions, grievances and divisions are revealed. Things are tense from the get-go and
— wouldn’t you know it — the next morning finds Thrombey with his throat cut. While the local authorities think it’s a suicide, Blanc enters the scene as an anonymously hired private investigator to suss out the truth as only he can.
What follows is a mashup of Clue and Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, in which each of the quirky characters are interrogated with Blanc’s inimitable style on full display.
With devilish details and a cast that includes the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson and Toni Collette, among others, it’s no wonder that the popularity of Knives Out has since spawned a sequel, Glass Onion (2022), and will see a third installment, Wake up Dead Man, in 2025.
The Panida Theater will put Knives Out on the big screen Saturday, Jan. 4 as the latest in its $5 movie series, with showings at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Doors open 30 minutes before the show. Get tickets at panida.org or at the box office at 300 N. First Ave.
Send event listings to calendar@sandpointreader.com
THURSDAY, january 2
Live Music w/ Double Shot Band
6pm @ Connie’s Lounge
Special send-off to our favorite brothers from Priest River in their final performance at Connie’s
Live Music w/ Courtney & Company
5:30-8:30pm @ Barrel 33
Live Music w/ Nick Wiebe
5pm @ Connie’s Lounge Singer-songwriter vibes
Live Music w/ Brian Jacobs
5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery Pop, indie and rock favorites
Live Music w/ Bright Moments Jazz
6-8pm @ Baxter’s on Cedar
Live Music w/ Marcus Stevens
5:30-8:30pm @ Barrel 33
Live Music w/ Liam McCoy Band
9pm-midnight @ 219 Lounge
This guy rips!
Trevor Chambers and the Southpaw Band
8:45pm @ The Hive
A night of country music, dancing and fun. Line dancing lessons from 7:308:30pm ($10). Free entry to main show
Live Music w/ Jordan Pitts
5pm @ Connie’s Lounge Country music covers
Sandpoint Chess Club
9am @ Evans Brothers Coffee Meets every Sunday at 9am
6pm @ Outdoor Experience 3-5 miles, all levels welcome
Live Piano w/ Carson Rhodes
5-7pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
Live Piano w/ Dwayne Parsons
5-7pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
Journal Making Class
5:30-7:30pm @ Barrel 33
With Nicole Black. Make your very own journal from scratch. $65
Game Night
6:30pm @ Tervan Tavern
FriDAY, january 3
Live Music w/ Hot Cheetos
6-8pm @ Idaho Pour Authority
Live Music w/ Ron Greene 6-8pm @ Smokesmith BBQ
Live Music w/ John Firshi
5:30-8:30pm @ Matchwood Brewing Co. Every first and third Thursday
Karaoke (Fri, Sat and Sunday nights)
8pm @ Tervan Tavern
SATURDAY, january 4
Live Music w/ Bright Moments Jazz
5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
North Idaho Old Time Fiddlers
2-4pm @ Sandpoint Senior Center
Free performance. 820 Main St.
Live Music w/ Ian Newbill
8-11pm @ St. Bernard at Schweitzer Country and classic rock
Free First Saturday / Hands On History
10am-2pm @ Bonner Co. History Museum
Bring kids 2 and older to enjoy handson activities and imaginative play. Free admission
SunDAY, january 5
Magic with Star Alexander 5-8pm @ Jalapeño’s
Up close magic shows at the table
monDAY, january 6
Estate Planning Seminar
5:30-7pm @ Sandpoint Library
Free seminar by a local attorney where you can learn the basics of estate planning, protecting your assets and securing your family’s future
tuesDAY, january 7
wednesDAY, january 8
Live Trivia ($5 entry/person) 7pm @ Connie’s Lounge
ThursDAY, january 9
Cribbage Night (double elimination) 6pm @ Connie’s Lounge ($5 entry)
January 2-9, 2025
Family Pizza and Game Night
6-9pm @ Sandpoint Church of Christ No RSVP needed. 1331 Cedar St.
KLT Winter Fun Day
9-2:30pm @ Sled Hill (Pine St. Woods) Outdoor fun with sledding, playing, games, exploring, snow forts and more. Register: kaniksu.org/happenings ($30)
Friends of the Library Monthly Book Sale 10am-2pm @ Sandpoint Library
50% off nonfiction, oversized books
New Years Ball (dance)
7pm @ Sandpoint Community Hall
1-hour night club two-step basics dance lesson at 7pm, general dancing 8-10pm. $8 cash at door. All welcome $5 Movie: Knives Out 1 & 6pm @ Panida Theater
The acclaimed mystery thriller from 2019 starring Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis and more. Two showtimes
Free Legal Day
9am-5pm @ Sandpoint Library
Book a free 45-minute consulation with an attorney and get personalized advice on family law, business, real estate and more. No walk-ins. Register at bit.ly/FreeLegalDay
Registration Deadline: Murder on the Red Carpet
An Oscar-themed murder mystery dinner at Talus Rock Retreat. (208) 255-8458 to register. $127/person
The films of 2024
A passel of prequels, sequels, remakes, retreads and a few real gems
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
The past year lacked anything like “Barbenheimer” in more ways than one. No two films captured the cultural imagination like Barbie and Oppenheimer did in 2023, much less one. What’s more, most of the biggest films of the year were either remakes of some kind or additions to preexisting franchises.
Looking back on the list of movies I saw in 2024, it was jarring how many contained a colon in their title. In alphabetical order, those were: A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien: Romulus, Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. I couldn’t bring myself to watch Joker: Folie à Deux (since lead actors Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga themselves said it was garbage).
The above list doesn’t include other prequels/ sequels that I watched during the year, including Gladiator II and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Meanwhile, my kids saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Despicable Me 4, Inside Out 2, Moana 2 and Wicked without me.
I can’t stomach Marvel movies, so I skipped Deadpool & Wolverine — though God knows I saw enough clips and promos and trailers and memes that I’m sure I got the gist. As for Twisters, I figured I’d see a more damaging wind rip through the Capitol Mall on Jan. 20.
My biggest regret was that I wasn’t able to catch Robert Eggers’ take on F.W.
Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu by presstime. Soon, dear readers. Soon.
To say that 2024 was a year of cinematic retreads is an understatement — even after more than a decade of theater offerings dominated by recycled intellectual property.
Regardless, I viewed one truly original movie of 2024 that, after much consideration, made it into my top position: Civil War. Director Alex Garland’s stunning, grimdark rumination on near-term American civilizational collapse was a masterclass in teasing out the moral ambiguities of politics, the media and loyalty — and how different generations process those vagaries. Tightly written and paced, beautifully shot, harrowing and at times possessed of a certain gallows’ humor, it’s a must-see, especially going into 2025.
Of the prequels/sequels/ reimaginings I took in during the year, Dune: Part Two and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga took the other top spots.
Both depict ruthless, desperate struggles fought on desertified landscapes with seemingly unlikely young heroes at their core who go on to do big, bloody things. Both were visually arresting, expertly paced and left me wanting more additions to their respective franchises and revisiting past installments (which is almost never the case).
Everything else I saw either in the theater or streamed at home paled in comparison.
Alien: Romulus came closest to earning a spot
on my best-of list, but it didn’t offer much to the constellation of related films dating back 45 years. While it provided a little more nuance to the kind of galaxy in which the Alien movies play out, it was yet another “haunted house in space” setup, complete with a few androids with inscrutable motives.
Good visuals and OK acting, but if you’ve seen Alien and Aliens, you don’t really need to see Alien: Romulus, unless you want to see how those movies would play out as a mashup.
I enjoyed Godzilla x Kong, but only insofar as it was a mindless slugfest between “big dumb beasts,” as I put it in my review at the time. However, it’s the most lackluster of the franchise so far. In the Big-Smart-Beasts Department, I’d almost forgotten I saw Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes until I looked at a list of films that came out in 2024. That’s my “recommendation.”
Gladiator II was Gladiator
with half the soul, 100% more rabid baboons and killer sharks, and a plot that becomes entirely predictable no later than the 25-minute mark. It’s still fun to look at, though not for theater prices.
When I claim that I “watched” A Quiet Place: Day One and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, I mean that in the academic sense: Their scenes played on a screen and my eyes processed their occurrence. I don’t think I made it past 20 minutes in either.
Other notables: Conclave and The Return — two Ralph Fiennes-led vehicles — left me lukewarm. The first was an overlong “thriller” about the selection of a new pope that forgot to add the “thrills,” and the second was a retelling of the myth of Odysseus that took itself so seriously that it forgot about the mythology. And also any real “thrills.” Plus a criminally underemployed Juliette Binoche.
Finally, my Oscar nom-
ination in the “WTF Did I Just Watch?” category goes to Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which is supposed to be “a fable” about the decline, fall and salvation of “New Rome” (a.k.a. New York City as the U.S. writ large).
It features the kind of cast only Coppola could assemble, including: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, D.B. Sweeney, even freakin’ Dustin Hoffman. It also has the luminous Nathalie Emmanuel in a leading role, but somehow makes no sense at all until the very end, when that “sense” falls so flat it seems like a joke on the audience. Call it Mega-slop-olis or Mega-flop-olis — no matter, skip it and watch Civil War if you want a more intellectually honest vision for the American trajectory.
Courtesy photo
first of the year monthly meeting Community Board Meeting held in the Little Theater, 302 North First Avenue Thursday, 6 pm
Panida Theater presents $5 movie, 2 showings Knives Out
fun 2019 mystery thriller with all-star cast Saturday, 1 & 6 pm, doors 1/2 hour prior
S.O.L.E. presents: S.O.L.E Backcountry Film Festival
Mountain Fever Prod. presents 3 days of the Banff Center Mt. Film Festival
29th year of outdoors, adventure, and inspiring films Fri & Sat 7 pm, Sun 6 pm, doors 1 hr prior
MUSIC
Ben’s best albums of 2024
By Ben Olson Reader Staff
Let me begin by stating how ridiculous it is that I’m the one writing this article highlighting the best albums of 2024. New music is like penicillin: It might be useful for some people, but it just gives me hives.
That said, some albums dropped in 2024 that caught my interest. Here are some that didn’t suck.
The electronic artist Roberto Carlos Lange (who performs as Helado Negro) has created a universe of detailed, highly listenable songs in his seven albums, but his eighth drop, Phasor, attains a level that is almost sublime. Leaning into his genre as a groovy pop artist with psych rock tendencies, Phasor starts off with a bang. The first three songs are the best on the album, with “Best For You and
Me,” taking the cake as the song I couldn’t stop playing for about a month straight. The synth bass and galloping drum beats are near-perfect and reach a high chamber of groove that doesn’t really exist in popular music. Fans of his 2019 release This Is How You Smile will enjoy Phasor because it holds the listener captive in that liminal space where the beats and synth soundscapes are equal to the narrative storytelling the Ecuadorian-born artist has crafted.
The Cure: Songs of a Lost World
There are those who love The Cure, and there are those who are truly lost. Thankfully, I count myself among the former. Generations of 1980s post-punk or new wave fans have lost themselves in Robert Smith’s songwriting. The band has undergone many lineup changes over the years, but Smith’s dark songs and emotive voice
remains a staple that launched the English band to stardom, giving us several great albums in the process. Sixteen years after the band’s last full-length album, The Cure released Songs of a Lost World in 2024 to critical acclaim. The album is a bit of a departure from Smith’s former work, which fans will either love or hate. One thing is certain, though: It’s a meditative masterpiece filled with beautiful imagery — just like most of The Cure’s past work. From the first airy synth track (“Alone”), which nods to the band’s iconic ’80s sound to its last track (“End Song”), a long, emotional dirge that explores the hopes and dreams of youth being erased by time (ouch), The Cure came back with something to say in 2024. Let’s hope the world can still listen.
DIIV: Frog in Boiling Water
Brooklyn indie rock band DIIV (pronounced and formerly known as Dive) is the
brainchild of psych rocker Zachary Cole Smith, who formed the group in 2011 as a solo recording project. DIIV’s early sound was likened to a modern Nirvana, incorporating rock elements and antihero tendencies that appealed to an audience tired of the usual drivel churned out by major record labels. The group has gone through some shit the past decade and was on the verge of disbanding a year ago. Bassist Devin Ruben Perez left the band when his antisemitic and racist comments on 4chan were exposed. Other members left due to drug addictions, health issues and broken friendships. In an attempt to find the magic again, DIIV camped out in the Mojave Desert with guitars and books on Zen poetry, humanity’s failures and psychological warfare, determined to come out of the desert with something substantive. They emerged with Frog in Boiling Water, a manifesto of sorts that laments the destructive tendencies of late-stage capitalism and what the band believes is an inevitable societal collapse. While I hope we have a few more years before we begin the Mad Max years of American society, at least we’ll have a few albums like Frog in Boiling Water to listen to if the end comes sooner than expected.
A snapshot of notable live music coming up in Sandpoint
Courtney and Company, Barrel 33, Jan. 3 Liam McCoy Band, 219 Lounge, Jan. 4
Courtney Riddle has a recognizable, deep voice that makes her unique among the Pacific Northwest music circuit and adds depth to her soulful, folksy tunes. According to her website, Riddle began singing in church at the age of 4 and pursued music in college, after which she met harp guitarist, singer and songwriter David Powell in Spokane. Powell also began his foray into music at a young age, learning piano,
trumpet and bass, and classical and fingerstyle guitar before settling on the tailored harp guitar, which he makes and sells through his company, Tonedevil. See how well Powell’s delicate stylings compliment Riddle’s growling, powerful style Friday night at Barrel 33. — Soncirey Mitchell
5:30-8:30 p.m., FREE. Barrel 33, 100 N. First Ave., 208-9206258, barrel33sandpoint.com. Listen at courtneyandcompany.net.
Despite his young years, Liam McCoy has made himself a fixture of the Sandpoint music scene. A regular at the Eichardt’s Monday Night Blues Jam, McCoy is also a familiar face with outfits such as Glizi, Right Front Burner, and Big Phatty and the Inhalers.
Those in the know know those are some of the premier local groups; but, this
This week’s RLW by Soncirey Mitchell
READ
R.F. Kuang is one of the best authors writing today, and she keeps churning out thought-provoking, spellbinding novels while pursuing her Ph.D. at Yale (she previously attended Georgetown, Cambridge and Oxford). I’m anxiously awaiting her upcoming novel, Katabasis, about two students descending into hell to rescue their academic adviser. In the meantime, consider reading her satirical novel Yellowface, about racial diversity and “token” representation in the publishing industry.
LISTEN
time, it’ll be The Liam McCoy Band at the 219 Lounge for a Saturday, Jan. 4 show including Sheldon Packwood on bass.
Keep the party going into the first weekend of 2025, and don’t forget to keep up the snow dances.
— Zach Hagadone
9 p.m., FREE, 21+. 219 Lounge, 219 N. First Ave., 208263-5673, 219lounge.com.
I’ve recently discovered the queer indie band The Last Dinner Party, whose music feels both pioneering and nostalgic at the same time. Their newest album, Prelude to Ecstacy, has some delightful baroque pop elements, combining almost operatic vocals with upbeat alt-rock beats and guitar. The song “Sinner” is especially catchy and shows off the band’s hedonistic ethos and lyrics that frequently deal with freedom, religion and sexuality. Listen on Spotify.
WATCH
It goes without saying that I’m going to be first in line to see Nosferatu when it premieres at the Sandpoint Cinemas on Friday, Jan. 3. Any horror film starring a Skarsgård is going to be good, but add Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Hoult to the mix and be prepared for greatness. For general movie-goers, I recommend researching the film before buying a ticket, because gothic tales toy with the mind and traffic in sensuality in ways that go above and beyond average horror. Proceed with caution, my spooky friends.
Helado Negro: Phasor
From Pend Oreille Review, January 2, 1914
TOBACCO
CHEWING
DEER ABROAD
NEW YORK WORLD PUBLISHES STORY FROM PRIEST RIVER OF DEER THAT LIKES CLIMAX
The story which Leonard Paul set loose in Spokane last fall of the Priest River deer that chews tobacco has gone a long way abroad and it appears under a Spokane date line in the New York World this week, as follows:
Spokane, Dec. 25 — At least two persons whose veracity goes unquestioned among their fellows have brought to Spokane a story of a pet blacktail deer which is a fiend for chewing tobacco. The deer is a ninemonths-old buck animal which domiciles near Coolin, Idaho, and his biographers and sponsors are Leonard Paul, owner of a general merchandise store at that town, and Charles Boon, a well known Spokane hotel clerk.
Mr. Paul says the deer appears at his store every day in the year except Sundays and makes himself a general nuisance until given a chew of tobacco.
“The intelligent animal has come to realize that the store is closed on Sunday,” said Mr. Paul in Spokane, “and he fails to shop up in town on that day. Though the deer chews like a veteran sailor we haver been unable thus far to teach him to expectorate.
“It may be a serious blow to the foes of tobacco to learn that swallowing a piece of cut plug six days out of a week seems to do no harm to the deer. The deer was found when but a few hours old, lying in the brush by the roadside near Priest River, Idaho by Hugo DeWitt, driver of the Priest River-Coolin stage. DeWitt took the animal home to his children, who raised it on a bottle, and how it is the pet of everyone in the town.”
BACK OF THE BOOK
New Year’s resolution: Cry more
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
It’s been far too long since I’ve had a good, cathartic cry — one that lets the emotion wash over me so I can process the pain and move forward. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some tears here and there in the past few months; but, every day, it seems like our collective grief builds up behind my eyes and just won’t drain.
It reminds me of getting stung by a wasp as a child. I sobbed for so long that the tears just stopped coming, leaving behind the dull ache of the venom and an overwhelming fatigue.
I cried so much for years it’s practically what I was known for in high school. I’d cry when I saw a dog tied to a post awaiting its owner. I’d cry thinking about my childhood friend who moved away 10 years prior. I’d even cry when I saw a crushed milk carton or cracker box in the store because people kept pushing it aside to grab the pristine version behind it. Then I’d buy the smashed one even if I didn’t want it so it would go to a good home and know it was loved.
(OK, I still do that last one, just without the tears.)
As embarrassing as it was to have people say, “Sonci’s crying again,” and awkwardly pat my back or avoid eye contact, it’s so much worse to feel this invisible
STR8TS Solution
sadness like an old injury that I’ve learned to ignore.
The thing is, everything changed in 2016 — slowly at first, so most people could pretend not to notice. It was the first presidential election in which I was old enough to understand what was happening, and I had the sweet, naive, hopeful belief that I was going to finish the final leg of adolescence under our first female president.
We all know how that turned out.
From that point on, it was like a tidal wave of sexual assault stories, human rights violations, police brutality and death until it seemed like I couldn’t get through the day without hearing about at least three tragedies. Eventually, my body couldn’t keep up with the bad news. The well ran dry and I was left with a cold, persistent headache.
Crying is the first skill we learn when we exit the womb, and it seems I’ve forgotten how it’s done. So, for my 2025 New Year’s resolution, I’m going to relearn how to cry.
We like to think that the New Year is a fresh start, giving us the opportunity to leave behind past mistakes and grief. It’s a romantic notion, but we’re still dragging the weight of decades of callousness, selfishness and shame into 2025. Dressing it up in a party hat doesn’t change that, though it might make it easier to normalize.
Our issues took years to create,
Sudoku Solution
and they will take countless more to dismantle, but caring is the first step. In the face of hatred, despair and an incoming president who would like nothing more than to strip the vast majority of humanity of its rights, the Earth of its resources and the American people of their souls, nothing can be more important than unflinching empathy.
I relish the idea of a bleeding heart. Why not care too deeply or feel too much? We can’t let the saturation of sadness make us so numb that we convince ourselves this is the way the world is, has always been and always will be. In 2025, we need to embrace the pain so that we can work through it to a New Year that’s actually worth celebrating.
Happy New Year to you all. Let’s cry together.
Crossword Solution
Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, mankind should be thinking about getting more use out of the weapons we already have.
Laughing Matter
Solution on page 22
By Bill Borders
Word Week of the
[noun] 1. the introduction of something new; innovation
“His artistic novation introduced a new aesthetic that quickly gained popularity.”
Corrections: In the Dec. 24 events calendar, we published an incorrect listing for Taps at Schweitzer for New Year’s Eve. Apologies for the confusion. Also, a reader reported that “The Sandpoint Eater’s” recipe didn’t specific how much vinegar to use in the recipe.
