Grateful for community
The March 3 incident at Lewiston High School was scary for all parties involved and the larger community.
I am so thankful it was a false alarm. As a parent of two students at the school, I panicked.
But as of now, all I feel is gratitude for the community for supporting the bond issue.
The new buildings have controlled access and egress, and can be locked down with the superintendent’s phone. All of our high schoolers are better off for it.
Laura Von Tersch
Lewiston
Vote yes for CHS
I have successfully owned and operated affordable rental dwellings in Clarkston for more than four decades.
Never have I raised the rent on my tenants as a result of property taxes being increased as a result of a school levy or bond.
We need to invest in our Clarkston High School in order to provide educational opportunities for our kids so that they can have a better chance to improve their future. We need to invest in our facilities so that all of us will take pride in our community.
Talk to the students and faculty at Lewiston’s new high school and learn what a difference a safe, modern facility can truly make. Vote yes for CHS — for our future.
Don Brigham
Clarkston
Help out the fish
The four lower Snake River dams combined have a power-generation capacity of 3,030 average megawatts, but annually produce on average only about 925 megawatts. According to the Gov. Jay Inslee-Sen. Patty Murray Benefit Replacement Report, power generated by the dams must be replaced before these dams can be breached.
In its 2021 power plan (2021-26), the Northwest Power and Conservation Council reported that between 2018 and 2028, coal-fired power generation capacity serving the Pacific Northwest would decline from 7,000 megawatts to 2,400 megawatts. Four coal-fired plants were shuttered in 2020 alone. The council’s projected loss of 4,600 megawatts represents the equivalent capacity of six lower Snake River dams.
No governor or U.S. senator claimed this disappearing power must be replaced before the coal plants could be closed.
When energy suppliers identify a future need for additional power, they often post a “request for proposals.” In 2020, for example, PacificCorp requested bids for 4,300 megawatts of renewable energy resources available by 2024. Bidders responded with proposed projects totaling 36,000 megawatts — eight times the requested supply.
Bonneville Power Administration markets power from 31 federal dams. If BPA posted an RFP for renewable energy equivalent to the power capacity of the dams, the requirement for “replacement before breaching” would soon disappear. The cost to ratepayers and taxpayers would be well below the cost of dam maintenance and BPA’s failed Snake River fish program. The dams could then be breached, and wild Snake River salmon and steelhead could begin their path to recovery.
Linwood Laughy
Moscow
What is the real cost?
The group that is pressing taxpayers to support a new Clarkston High School are not sharing much information.
I attended the first “Informational Fair” at the Asotin County Fire Department (a building we are still paying for). Let me save you some time for the other “Informational Fairs:” Don’t waste your time as there is little-to-no information.
The fair has stations about education and other activities at the school. There is a station to have you sign up as a voter, another station to “estimate” the tax increase to your property and drawings of the proposed school.
Questions I asked are:
How much does each construction phase cost (there are three)? Don’t know.
How is the proposed bond worded? Not available.
Any school board members here to talk to? No.
How much will this cost? The architect told several of us “about” $79 million. When I explained the unbuilt Asotin jail estimates were so high the project is on hold, this gentleman explained other projects (today) are coming in with bids $50 million more than their estimate. Now we are at $129 million for the school.
Why is the tax liability to each taxpayer an estimate in length of term, amount and interest? I can answer this one: They don’t know how much the school is really going to cost, so they want the taxpayers to sign the check and the school district will fill in the amount later.
Mike Cloke
Clarkston
