NorthwestFebruary 1, 2025

McCall firefighter Jeremy Olson pulls caution tape across an area of thin ice near Mile High Marina on Payette Lake where two people had recently fallen through as two UTVs approach the area in the background. The first UTV fell through the ice shortly afterward and remains at the bottom of Payette Lake.
McCall firefighter Jeremy Olson pulls caution tape across an area of thin ice near Mile High Marina on Payette Lake where two people had recently fallen through as two UTVs approach the area in the background. The first UTV fell through the ice shortly afterward and remains at the bottom of Payette Lake.McCall Fire & EMS via The Star News (McCall)
Carly Behler
Carly Behler

Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part one, with part two scheduled to appear in Sunday’s Tribune.

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McCALL — In two separate incidents, four people broke through the ice on Payette Lake last Saturday in a span of 20 minutes — including two who were driving a motorized utility vehicle, which now sits at the bottom of the lake.

All four people who fell in were rescued by those out enjoying the ice, where hundreds of people gathered last week.

First to fall in were two people who were seen stomping on the ice near Brown Park, north of Mile High Marina, where a dog broke through the ice earlier in the week and was open water only days before, said McCall Fire Chief Garrett de Jong.

Their names were not released.

The UTV that broke through the ice was driven by McCall residents Daniel Scott, 58, with Richard Scott, 59, in the passenger seat, according to the Valley County Sheriff’s Office.

They could not be reached for comment.

Daniel Scott is the former general manager and president of The Shore Lodge and Whitetail Club. He is currently the executive vice president of strategy and business analytics at the Boise development firm Alscott Inc.

The Scott family operates the Boise Alscott Inc, and controls The Shore Lodge and the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation.

The first incident occurred at about 2:30 p.m.

Randy Annunziato of McCall was enjoying a pickup hockey game when he saw two men disappear into the ice.

Annunziato began yelling for a rope and sprinted to the area with three other bystanders. The victims were holding onto the sides of the hole in the ice to keep afloat. Two of the rescuers inched toward the hole on their stomachs, distributing their weight as much as possible.

The four rescuers formed a line on their bellies, taking each other’s feet in their hands. Using their hockey sticks to reach the swimmers, they were able to safely pull them out of the water.

“It was thick enough where we didn’t go in too, which was great,” said Annunziato, 38.

The two men who fell in were evaluated by McCall Fire but were not taken to the hospital.

After the excitement, Annunziato went back to his hockey game, enjoying the sunshine and the smooth ice conditions. But about twenty minutes later two UTVs drove onto the ice from the marina and quickly headed north.

“Everybody just stopped and watched them,” Annunziato said. “Every person on the ice knew that this was a bad idea.”

As the UTVs pulled up to the boat ramp to venture onto the lake, McCall resident Dylan Sifford warned the UTV drivers that the ice was not safe to drive on.

Sifford had been skating on the ice for about an hour before heading to work that afternoon and knew that the ice would support people, but a UTV seemed too heavy and would endanger everyone on the ice.

“I just instinctively walked up to him and said, ‘Don’t drive those out on the ice right now. There’s too many people out there. You’re going to put someone in danger. You’re going to ruin this for everyone else,’ ” Sifford told The Star-News.

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The UTVs drove onto the lake, rounded the marina and headed north, right for open water, de Jong said

They passed by people on the lake attempting to warn them and continued to drive past the firefighters waving them down from the shore, he said.

“Sure enough, ice breaks, ice moves out of the way, vehicle hits, vehicle sinks,” Annunziato said, shocked to be participating in a second rescue minutes later.

The UTV in front sank within a minute, but both occupants were able to exit the vehicle safely and ended up in the water. Once again, several bystanders assisted with hockey sticks to pull them out of the water.

Both occupants refused assistance from first responders and appeared to walk home, De Jong said.

There were no citations issued, but the UTV owners will be required to remove the vehicle once the ice thaws, according to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

“I can’t think of any state code that this would trigger. Sometimes bad decisions don’t equate to illegal,” said Valley County Sheriff Kevin Copperi.

“Having situational awareness and a purpose for being on the lake is imperative,” De Jong said. “There is no way to keep everyone informed about where on the lake is safe to play and where it is not safe, and it is constantly changing.”

— Sierra Christie, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday

SRS funds not renewed; translates to $1 million loss for MVSD

GRANGEVILLE — “My biggest news to report this month is that the SRS funds were not renewed,” Carly Behler, Mountain View School District 244 comptroller, told the board at the Jan. 16 meeting.

Congress failed to reauthorize the 24-year-old bill that pays millions of dollars to schools and funds wildfire and conservation work.

SRS — Safe Rural Schools — is quite a chunk of change for MVSD each year.

“It’s about a million dollars,” Behler said, adding that just because it wasn’t renewed at the end of 2024 doesn’t mean it might not be later.

The bipartisan Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act — first passed in 2000 — was reauthorized by the U.S. Senate in November. However, in the run-up to the passage of a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government open until March, an agreement could not be reached about how the rural schools bill should be funded and it died without a vote.

“Should we write a letter to Sen. Crapo? A million bucks might be pocket change to some, but it’s not to us,” vice-chairperson Larry Dunn stated.

Superintendent Alica Holthaus said she had reached out to Senator Crapo’s office.

“He does realize the financial hit Idaho will take,” without the reauthorization, she said. “I may be a Pollyanna on this, but I just think it got caught up in that push and shove that happened with budgets and I really think it will come back.”

In other news, Holthaus praised the work of district IT director Michael Stevens.

“He is incredibly valuable to this district, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I just need to recognize him. He is good at what he does and he is a good guy,” Holthaus said, adding Stevens was not present at the meeting that night because he was helping out the junior high students with their dance. “They were worried about their play list and their technical issue and he’s there because that’s just who he is.”

“He does his job well,” chair Tyler Harrington emphasized.

— Lorie Palmer, Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville), Wednesday

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