Idaho schools need proper infrastructure and funding to educate our children | Opinion

School bond

Look around you, and you will see that the Valley is growing. Even if you only just moved here recently, the signs are everywhere. New homes, equipment plowing over fields, and increasing traffic. With the growing population, we have more kids in our schools. Like it or not, the way school infrastructure in this state gets funded is through bond initiatives. As a teacher at Vallivue High School, I see the aging building and the impact of increasing class sizes daily. We have been struggling to keep our heaters running in the summer and our AC units working in the summer. We need school improvements. Additionally, to accommodate incoming students, we need to build two new elementary schools. If we do not receive funding to build the new schools, we will start shipping 5th-graders to the middle schools. Some students are being bused to other schools already. Six of our seven elementary schools are at capacity. I urge you, if you live in this district, vote yes on the school bond. For that matter, anytime there is a school bond, consider a yes vote. Schools need infrastructure so we can properly educate your kids.

Jaya Smith, Boise

Libraries

Reading about Sandpoint’s library board election debate gave me the same sense of foreboding as during North Idaho College’s jazz band’s last performance. Trustee board politicization might threaten library access due to unreasonable fear of needing to protect our children from drag show story hours, legally defined obscene or pornographic material, or sexualization by our local librarians.

Moral restrictions of library material remind me of art labeled and banned as “degenerate” by the Nazis, who killed or drove most of the artists out of the country. Rather than banning different viewpoints, it should be the family’s role to instill inherent values and life skills in their children in order to safely meet life out there. I dread the day that young adults cannot have access to “Kite Runner” or Michelangelo’s David for portraying sexual reality.

We might be losing up to 50% of our library books if a narrow definition of obscenity will define what is on the shelves of our libraries. If reelected, Susan Shea will continue to provide constructive, non-partisan, and collegial ways for the library to serve all of our population.

Gabrielle Duebendorfer, Sandpoint

Debt ceiling

By now all of you have heard dealings about raising the debt. We do have a problem. The Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid to raise the debt. Remember when Biden mentioned how the Republicans want to destroy Social Security and all the Republicans got indignant about that statement. They didn’t have any problem raising the debt to give the majority of tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country.

But your Republican representatives and senators don’t care about you. They have taken from Social Security to compensate for the debt for years. It started with Eisenhower. The biggest reason for the national debt is the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts. Cuts that did nothing for the economy, what it did allow is for the very rich to buy more and more houses and apartment buildings to gouge you with rent payments.

They have taken away women’s rights, with the appointment of lying Supreme Court justices. They are gouging you with the price of gas and other necessities. Now, they want to destroy Social Security and Medicare. They seem to want two classes, the elite and the peons. Which will you be?

Jerry Johnson, Payette

West Ada bond

Property owners want property tax relief not $500 million in new property taxes. The West Ada School District levy request costs too much, not the right time and is a fatally flawed plan.

$500 million is the largest levy request in state history and would cost homeowners $89 per $100,000 of value and last 10 years. The district has $170 million they can spend if they choose. Many of these “wants” (playground equipment, weight rooms, etc.) will not improve academic excellence. As we struggle with high inflation, food and gas prices, failing banks and high interest rates, now is not the time for new school taxes. Districts complain of overcrowding but refuse to look at alternatives to relieve the problem or options to building new and expensive buildings.

The fact that this levy request has a lower voter approval threshold of 55% is motivating the district and lowering the threshold for indebtedness is dangerous.

School tax measures are low turnout elections. Taxing districts count on that fact to increase your property taxes. Take the time to educate yourself and do your own math for this massive tax increase. Make your own conclusions and vote no on May 16.

Jerry Gibbs, Eagle

Hunting

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and trophy hunters want you to believe that killing predators is conservation. That is not the truth. Biodiversity health in an ecosystem depends on predators to maintain balance. They have been doing that for many million years to produce the wildlife and ecosystems most of us love so much.

Scientists all over the world are worried about biodiversity loss. Hunting fur-bearers and predators is a big factor in declining biological diversity. To kill for fun, for money, or to “protect” livestock is anathema to what Leopold and the Wildlife Society envisioned nearly 100 years ago when they presented wildlife management principles. The North American Model for Conservation of Wildlife declares that the “frivolous use” of wildlife is simply unsustainable.

The livestock producers are responsible for keeping their animals safe. But they expect Idaho Fish and Game to kill predators on their behalf. Wildlife Services aids the Idaho Department of Fish and Game in aerial gunning to make your public lands safe for livestock or grow elk herds that are already record breaking. Idaho Department of Fish and Game and its Wolf Control Board fund bounties and pay for this destruction.

Idahoans and our wildlife deserve much better from Fish and Game.

Christine Gertschen, Hailey