Repairs continue as new culvert is placed on Dufort Road

County allocates emergency funds, anticipates road will reopen before month’s end

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

The JFK-QAnon cult leader who believed John F. Kennedy and JFK Jr. are still alive, and claimed he met the deceased Michael Jackson in disguise, recently died due to injuries from a dirt bike accident, Salon reported. Michael Protzman in 2021 took fellow believers to Dealey Plaza (where JFK was assassinated in 1963) to witness what he said would be JFK Jr. reinstating Donald Trump to the presidency. Protzman regarded JFK as the reincarnation of Jesus, his wife as Mary Magdalene and Trump as the Holy Spirit

Lowering health care expenses is the goal of President Joe Biden’s new initiatives, AP reported. They include cracking down on “junk” insurance plans (which Biden describes as a “scam”), working to prevent “surprise” medical bills and a plan for reducing medical debt tied to credit cards.

A Forbes investigation indicates Russia has secretly spent more than $300 million to influence foreign elections. The U.S. Federal Elections Commission ruled in 2021 that foreign donors can finance U.S. referendums. The FEC decision, according to the Campaign Legal Center, “reflects a big loophole in the federal ban on foreign money in U.S. elections.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-M.D.) has introduced legislation seeking to eliminate the influence of foreign money in U.S. elections.

ADP, a payroll processing firm, said private sector jobs were up by 497,000 in June, with leisure and hospitality adding 232,000 new hires. Most of the jobs were with companies having fewer than 50 employees. As well, annual pay rose 6.4%.

By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist

Those disagreeing with the new restrictions say there is no issue to address, since the government is not forcing removal of content, and is instead notifying companies of potentially dangerous messages. Disinformation or misinformation in violation of social media platform policies is typically noted by nonprofits, researchers, or individuals and software at the social platforms themselves.

A Center for Countering Digital Hate spokesperson said the U.S. is “fangless” regarding dangerous content in comparison to places like the European Union and Australia, and needs to update social media platforms’ liability rules. He added: “It’s bananas that you can’t show a nipple on the Super Bowl, but Facebook can still broadcast Nazi propaganda, empower stalkers and harassers, undermine public health and facilitate extremism.”

So far, more than 1,000 people have been arrested for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the nation’s Capitol. The reach of the law is going higher, according to NPR and CBS. Rather than be disbarred, a Trump lawyer who promoted 2020 election lies is instead being allowed to retire his law license. Meanwhile, a Trump aide has been charged with withholding documents and conspiring to obstruct justice over allegations he helped Trump hide documents.

Presidential candidate and former-Vice President Mike Pence has told pro-lifers to never give up, “until abortion is illegal in every state,” according to the National Review.

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey Reader Staff

Bonner County Road and Bridge crews took a major step in repairing Dufort Road this week when they installed a new culvert to replace the one that failed in early June, disrupting one of the county’s most-trafficked roads.

The culvert — which is 12 feet in diameter and arrived from Topeka, Kans. in two 50-foot pieces — is meant to connect Morton Slough to the Pend Oreille River. The catastrophic collapse occurred June 4, creating a flood risk that required total excavation of the site and rendering Dufort unpassable.

According to Road and Bridge officials, repairs are scheduled to be completed by the end of July.

Road and Bridge Director Jason Topp gained unanimous approval from Bonner County commissioners July 11 to allocate nearly $300,000 in funding toward the Dufort Road repair efforts. The sum includes nearly $100,000 in unanticipated revenue from the state, a $100,000 emergency grant from the Local Highway Technical Assistance Council’s Local Rural Highway Improvement Program and about $80,000 in forest apportionment funds.

The total cost of the road’s repair is estimated at $800,000, half of which was required to pay for a sheet-pile dam to dewater the area for construction.

See occasional project updates on the “Bonner County Road & Bridge” Facebook page.

Using robots, a facility in Colorado has destroyed some of the last of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile. Some weapons were in storage for more than 70 years, The New York Times reported.

Last week a federal judge restricted government communications with social media platforms, following a lawsuit from Louisiana and Missouri. The states accused social media of censoring right-leaning content. According to a preliminary injunction, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI and “other parts of government” are to cease communications with social media for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected speech,” The New York Times wrote.

Speaking recently to Moms for Liberty, North Carolina Gov. Mark Robinson said words from dictators like Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung have been taken out of context and should be reconsidered. Salon reported that Robinson has a history of discriminatory comments and Holocaust denial, and regards communism as a greater threat than Nazism. Moms for Liberty has been pushing book bans in schools and opposes any materials in schools related to the discussion of race, ethnicity, LGBT rights and teaching of the nation’s history of racism.

Blast from the past: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013, anti-apartheid activist imprisoned for 27 years. He negotiated the end of apartheid in South Africa and became the country’s first Black president.

If you don’t like Idaho’s values, then leave.

This rhetorical dead end, usually aimed at anyone feeling a modicum of consternation regarding our state’s political climate, was directed at me recently. It was in response to an opinion piece expressing my fears about raising a daughter in a climate of legislated misogyny.

Apparently, misogyny is an “Idaho value.” One worth liking. One worth defending. Fascinating.

If you don’t like it, leave, the readers urged.

As if retreat were that simple. As if a life built of family, friendships, business associations, teachers and mentors, support networks and landscape love can simply be dragged and dropped elsewhere. As if community doesn’t take time and devotion to develop. As if a business doesn’t require a decade of sweat and striving to succeed.

If you don’t like it, leave.

As if discomfort were something to run from and dissension an existential threat. As if life is meant to be all softness and no edges, with “like” as our ultimate raison d’etre and “dislike” a kind of perdition. As if life imitates social media.

If you don’t like Idaho’s values, then leave.

As if Idaho had an immutable set of values, cast in stone, Ten Commandments-style. As if our state were a static and homogeneous entity rather than an ever-evolving heterogeneity. As if dogma were geographically defined.

If you don’t like Idaho’s values, then leave.

As if our nation weren’t founded upon the interplay of conflicting views. As if thinking in lockstep were a sign of greatness rather than stagnation.

Idaho: Love it or leave it.

As if resisting and remaining were incompatible.

Let me assure you: They’re not.

The thing is, I do love Idaho, my dissatisfaction with elements of its governance notwithstanding. I love it for my community, my home, these landscapes, the relative emptiness and wildness. I love it for the way my daughter is supported, the way our business is valued, the way core residents unite to nurture those in need. I love it enough that I refuse to leave. I love it enough to fight to make it a more equitable and empathic place to call home.

What if loving one’s home is not blindly rolling over when you think it’s in the wrong? What if loving your home is staying? What if it’s fighting the bullies telling you to do otherwise?

I often think back to an interview I heard earlier this spring in which a Russian citizen, at odds with her nation’s brand of governance, shared her dissident’s creed:

“You’re useless in prison or dead. But as long as you’re not in prison or dead — and you’re not facing a significant risk of going to prison or being dead — make a difference where you are.”

As the famous line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail goes, “I’m not dead yet!” So don’t toss me on the handcart for disposal elsewhere, even if Idaho’s current ideological shifts feel like some kind of deadly plague.

It’s one I haven’t yet succumbed to. I can still make a difference where I am. And I’d rather ruffle some feathers in Idaho than add to an echo chamber of West Coast virtue signaling.

I do not want to live in an echo chamber. I want to live in Idaho.

I actually enjoy inhabiting places that can accommodate dissenting views. I like having my opinions challenged. And by challenged I don’t mean via statements of the love-it-orleave-it variety, but in actual civil discourse. Conversation in which we can be open about our fears, our hopes and how they drive our beliefs.

Such conversations today are all too rare.

Let me attempt to begin one.

I work on behalf of bodily autonomy now — on behalf of women — because of my experiences not having such autonomy, of having my body policed, my form seemingly belonging to the collective rather than to me. I do this work because of my experience wearing a heavy cloak of shame for decades — shame over my appearance, my sexuality, my decisions and my boundaries (or lack thereof) — and I don’t want my daughter to grow up in a similar world where ownership of her body and worth are in question.

These are the hopes and fears that drive my work.

Rather than telling me to leave, tell me what my staying makes you fear. Tell me what hopes my words are threatening. Tell me, as Helene Cixous writes about the worthiest of wordbased endeavors, what “makes you tremble, redden, bleed.” Let’s not stay safe in the realm of “like” together; let’s bleed. Together. In a world where the art of debate has resorted to a limited palette of finger paints, let’s pull out the scalpel and make some hard-won collage, shall we?

If you don’t like Idaho’s values, then leave.

I admit it: We talk about it, my husband and I. We talk about leaving. Yet, for me, it is still an idle thought experiment, play acting with “what ifs.” Even as others depart, I’m not there yet. I’m not dead yet. All it takes is a walk through the woods — awareness cradled by moss and mist and unfurling ferns — for me to dig in anew, plant my flag, stand my ground.

My husband and I wed under a canopy of hemlocks. Our daughter, still small, lay underneath those trees and gazed at greening constellations of new growth, mesmerized. Our love story is firmly rooted here. Why would we — why should we — ever leave?

I love Idaho, and I think it can do better. Is it really too much to want one’s home to return to civility? To expunge extremism in favor of empathy?

Yes, I look at the recent debacles at North Idaho College, West Bonner County School District, the library board race and more, and I feel disheartened. But these are signs of a community in flux. A community that needs all the help — all the fight — we can muster.

If you don’t like Idaho’s values, then leave.

Oh, were it so simple. But it’s not. So you’re stuck with me. I’m not dead yet. I’m not giving up.

Jen Jackson Quintano writes and runs an arborist business with her husband in Sandpoint. Find their website at sandcreektreeservice.com. See more of Quintano’s writing at jenjacksonquintano.com.

Bouquets:

•The kindness of our community continues to amaze me. I’d like to thank all of those who have donated their antique typewriters to our growing typewriter museum in the Sandpoint Reader offices. It seems every time we mention typewriters in these pages, someone reaches out and tells us they’ve got an old beast collecting dust that needs a new home. In the past month or two, we’ve received typewriters from Jay Shelledy, Keith Booth, John Harbuck and Susan Bates-Harbuck — each of them beautiful machines. I don’t sell them or anything. That’s not the goal of this collection. It’s more to give these misfit antiques a home where they’ll be remembered, instead of just collecting dust in an attic somewhere. Thanks again to all for their thoughtfulness.

Vote against W. Bonner recall and work together for change…

Dear editor, already ruled unconstitutional. Worse, “Nobody Dies” Labrador announced his intention to sue and demand that the initiative be struck from the ballot, and worse, using our tax dollars to pay for the suit. The Idaho Constitution does not grant political parties the right to control who votes in our elections, including our primaries, and our Supreme Court has held the right of citizens to elect their leaders is an inviolable constitutional right. Sign the petition to put open primaries on the ballot. Read more here: reclaimidaho.org.

Fact: Branden Durst carried Bonner County 2:1 when he ran for state superintendent of schools in 2022, with the exception of a few precincts around Sandpoint.

Yet the people behind the recall election Aug. 29 against Board Trustees Keith Rutledge and Susan Brown are among the most vocal to remove Mr. Durst from the position as WBCSD’s superintendent. Claiming Mr. Durst is not their choice, while saying interim-Superintendent Luckey is “their” best choice.

The Aug. 29 recall election will be WBCSD’s most important election for education if you care about improving the education of our students. Wanting their education to be the best we can give them by changing WBCSD’s failed system. A failed, politicized system, where so many within that system refuse to accept change that would improve their schools.

It is disheartening that WBCSD spends $3,000 more per student than any other panhandle district per year while our students stay near the bottom percentages in math and reading comprehension on ISAT testing.

Democracy only works when voters do.

Nancy Gerth Sagle

Dear editor,

If Commissioner Bradshaw feels that the meetings are just too overwhelming, he may want to look for other employment.

Darwin Jensen Sandpoint

Return City Beach to nature…

Dear editor, dine on the Trinity patio and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature rather than look at a parking lot full of cars.

This is our city and our beach. Let’s turn our town’s namesake back into a place of natural beauty for all to enjoy, not a fruitless and expensive endeavor geared toward trying to impress a paltry two months worth of vacationing visitors. There are other beaches in the area that are less intrusive to wildlife, if people wish to swim.

Evan Brown Sandpoint

die (nothing “pro-life” about that). But there’s more: the futures of many people are ruined; health care professionals can’t provide necessary care without fear of reprisal, so they leave; labor/delivery units close; other health care services disappear; families move away; and so on and on.

Idaho’s anti-health care laws only focus on half the population (for now), but they affect everyone, even Herndon. What happens when he has a medical emergency, is rushed to the ER and can’t get help because of staffing shortages resulting from his actions?

Barbs:

• Sometimes I try to get in someone’s head and attempt to figure out why they made a particular decision. For example, when you’re camping by the river somewhere and you pull up to a favorite spot only to see it littered with things like coffee makers, bedsprings, Xerox machines and other items that no one in their right mind would ever bring camping. Do people really announce they’re going camping and have their significant other say, “Don’t forget the cappuccino machine!” Then, when they’re packing up to leave the campsite, do they stand there in front of a pile of appliances and say, “You know, we really don’t need that air purifier anymore, let’s just leave it here. Someone will pick it up.” That’s the phrase that drives me crazy. They all think someone else will clean up their mess. If you can’t clean up your crap when recreating in nature, then stay home and fart into your couch, because we’re all a bit sick of cleaning up your trash.

It’s time we work together and demand changes in WBCSD’s failed system, by voting against the recall of Trustees Keith Rutledge and Susan Brown on Aug 29. Mark your calendars so you won’t forget

Bill O’Neil Priest River

Dear editor, Remember when then U.S. Rep. Raúl “Nobody Dies” Labrador said that nobody dies from not having health insurance? We, the voters, then passed Medicaid expansion through the citizens’ initiative process and put that self-serving myth to rest.

Now, in a position to interfere with all citizens’ initiatives, Idaho Attorney General Raúl “Nobody Votes” Labrador is attacking all of us, not just those facing terminal diagnoses.

Ignoring his duty to be impartial and lawful, Attorney General Labrador produced titles for the Idahoans for Open Primaries initiative that are riddled with falsehoods and misleading, partisan statements — a labeling scheme the Idaho Supreme Court has

With a heavy heart and tears in my eyes I recently set off on my weekly walk around City Beach following the announcement that city leaders had authorized the extermination of more than 200 waterfowl who called the beach home. Four days was all it took for more of these beautiful creatures to return. The killings are futile and what the city has done is a despicable crime against nature. I was informed that the so-called “euthanasia” involved liberal usage of buckshot, and there was nothing humane about such a massacre.

Rather than installing artificial turf to replace the grass that attracts geese, I’m rallying for returning City Beach back to nature and into a recognized wildlife refuge.

Which would you rather see: a public space half covered with asphalt and cars, inviting constant traffic and hordes of human visitors that ring the sandy shore like beached belugas, smelly boats spewing oil in the shallow waters and rubbish bins overflowing with mountains of garbage? Or, a non-invasive boardwalk running above a natural shoreline with wetlands that are home to fish, waterfowl, majestic bald eagles, otters and beavers? How wonderful it could be to

Dear editor, The Reader provides trustworthy local news and entertainment coverage for those of us living in Sandpoint. Honest information about local politics is necessary to keep Sandpoint informed about the good and bad of our local representatives. We very much respect and appreciate the Reader for providing this information.

The Reader keeps the ultra-conservative under control by informing us all of misguided disruptive intentions.

My wife and I are neutral, voting for the best candidate, Democrat or Republican. Never voting the party line. Exposing Scott Rhodes in 2017 was phenomenal journalism earning national attention and local respect. Each issue contains such journalism, making our town a safe and desirable place to live.

We are not without our own prejudices. Whenever we see someone with a copy of the Reader we label them as OK.

Mike and Kelly Miller

Sandpoint

Dear editor, Sandpoint’s own Pro-Voice Project has shown the nation, and much of the world, just how messed up Idaho is. Idaho’s anti-health care laws, championed by Sen. Scott Herndon, et al., are impacting every aspect of life in Idaho. This exposure should be a wake-up call to voters everywhere.

What happens when half the state’s population is denied the right to comprehensive health care? Well, obviously, women and babies

Actually, I have no idea what would happen to someone like Herndon. However, most people lucky enough to survive that empty ER might seriously consider finding a safer, more hospitable place to live. When people leave, communities change; not generally for the better. True story.

Idaho is a nice place. We shouldn’t have to be embarrassed, or terrified, to live here.

Please visit theprovoiceproject. com to learn how you can find your voice, help bring sanity back to Idaho and rescue our imperiled future. Let’s get real — choose good candidates: vote.

Katharine Roser Sandpoint

Dear editor,

The road ahead for WBCSD patrons will be tough. But we cannot give up. There is so much at stake — our youth. All through my growing up years I have gone to public school. Extracurricular activities at public schools are a part of molding the future for our youth. To take the option away from them is horrible to even think about. Turning a public school into something else is not healthy. That is what I feel some members of our school board are attempting.

They have their own agenda and it is not in the better interest of our youth and certainly does not represent the wants of the vast majority of the patrons. I wonder why a person like Mr. Durst would be interested in a position in a small community like Priest River. After all, with all the credentials he has, I would think he would want to get back into politics where all the clout is.

In case some people are not aware, I’d like to point out some facts about our trustees that are being recalled: 85% of the patrons who voted for Mr. Rutledge and 75% of the patrons who voted for Susan Brown signed the recall petition, respectively. Those figures come from the county clerks’ office. Maybe people have changed their minds because they see what’s really going on with the hidden agenda.

We must get out and vote on recall day. Contact your neighbors, friends and even enemies if you have to. We have to vote them out and work to get our district back on track.

The overall numbers of voters for the levy were 38.18%. Pretty dismal. How about we shoot for a huge turnout, like 90%. An awful lot is at stake here. Let’s make it happen. Vote.

Ernie Schoeffel Priest River

‘Values affect our political views’…

Dear editor,

What we value comes out in our views and our politics. I thought it was interesting as I read through the July 6 edition of the Reader that some value the geese who were rounded up and killed because they were a nuisance at the City Beach. They were outraged that there was no compassion for these fellow creatures. A few pages later there was an article by some who place a low value on unborn human beings.

Health care used to be about benefiting the person in need. The goal was for their good. This goal has now shifted with the introduction of abortion. Now, some people are helped while others are actually killed. The controversy then arises as to who decides which ones are to be helped and which ones can be destroyed.

Who or what we value comes out in where we stand on this issue. Every person who has ever lived started out at conception. So, do we value our fellow human beings as much as we do the geese?

I am proud of our current state laws that seek to protect the smallest and most vulnerable among us.

Roselle Caesar Sandpoint

Save the shade trees at Travers Park playground

Dear editor,

An Idaho Land and Water Conservation Grant matched by local taxpayers created Travers Park in 1982. Young trees were planted in the hope that they’d someday provide shade for park visitors. Today, a beautiful red oak casts a 50-foot-wide canopy of shade next to the playground. Nearby, four large maples, three blue spruces, a willow and a sweet crabapple stand strong — but not for long.

The city wants to cut down these 10 healthy trees and remove the sturdy playground equipment to make space for a large tennis-pickleball facility. Should a different location in the park be chosen that doesn’t destroy beneficial shade trees? If the city cared to ask the parents who regularly bring their children to play there, they’d learn their answer is a resounding “yes.”

Only two years ago, the idea of completely rebuilding the playground wasn’t even a concept in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. But a diversion plan was resurrected for a summer splash pad to soften the public’s acceptance to spend $560,000 of local taxpayers’ money to match another grant for a total rebuild.

Many view this as hypocritical to ask the very same conservation agency for more money to build an artificial grass playground with plastic logs for an “Into the Woods” theme while killing the big shade trees this agency funded 40 years ago.

City Council needs to be pressured into backing up to simply add a splash pad to the existing playground with some handicap features for a lot less money. Our community’s initial investment, along with funding many years of care by the city’s Parks Department, shouldn’t be so easily disregarded. Climate issues were never even discussed.

Please convince the mayor and council that established residents want better “family friendly decisions” made ahead of wealthy retirees’ love-set play.

Rebecca Holland Sandpoint

Dear editor,

The definition of good faith is defined in legal terms as a broad word to encompass “honest dealings.” To be clear, Cornell University states that, “Depending on the exact setting, good faith may require an honest belief or purpose, faithful performance of duties, observance of fair dealing standards or an absence of fraudulent intent.”

I must ask the constituents of Bonner County, specifically Zone 2 and Zone 4: Do you believe that the board of WBCSD 83 is acting in good faith? Is it good faith to follow Branden Durst’s advice to push off the budget and disregard Idaho Code in his own favor for a two-year contract?

Let that sit with you for a moment. A man who is representing our district advised our school board who governs him to disregard Idaho law for his own benefit. Is this not an exemplary display of fraudulent intent? Is this a faithful performance of duties?

“Just do it… there is no one to enforce it.” These are the words that came from Branden Durst’s mouth during Wednesday’s meeting.

Encouraging our board members to act against their own district policy, which prohibits superintendents from obtaining any more than a one-year contract.

Encouraging them to ignore Idaho

Code, which states that budgets must be submitted by July 1. Encouraging them to declare a state of emergency to further his ability to obtain a certificate issued by the state to begin acting as superintendent.

Tell me something, Bonner County: Does this seem like good faith to you?

Nikelle Collins, LMSW Priest River

Dear editor,

I know how much some of you love or loved a dog like we did.

Bodie, our beloved border collie, passed away a few weeks ago.

We were told Bodie’s first owner was a ski instructor at Schweitzer and she named him after Bodie Miller, the famous American skier. Later we met Bodie for the first time at a farm southwest of Sandpoint on a tip my wife received from someone who knew we were looking for one of this breed.

It seems the people who ran the farm had small children and that Bodie was intent on “herding them” like border collies (and their Australian shepherd cousins) are famous for when tending sheep.

When I first saw him, he ran straight to me and acted as if he had known me all his life.

From then on for the past few years he has been my wife’s and my constant companion. He will always be in our memory.

Jim Ramsey Sandpoint

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