OpinionJune 13, 2015

Leave it to Boise Weekly columnist Bill Cope. He wants to know why former Idaho Department of Administration Director Teresa Luna keeps landing on her feet.

Doesn't everyone?

Luna wound up working as the new emergency planner for the state Bureau of Homeland Security. Granted, her new $56,285 salary falls short of the stratospheric $95,202 paycheck Luna collected at Administration. By definition, however, this position would seem to require specialized training for strategic planning under emergency circumstances. How many people without any college education would get snapped up for a job like this?

"... What is it about Teresa Luna that seems so indispensable to whomever does the hiring? ..." Cope wrote last week.

Certainly not her background.

It began when Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter tolerated his friend and former Administration Director Mike Gwartney's meddling with the $60 million Idaho Education Network, shifting the contract from low-bidder Syringa Network LLC to Qwest (now CenturyLink). As the Spokesman-Review's Betsy Russell reported, CenturyLink has contributed $35,000 to Otter's various campaigns. Syringa gave $5,000 to Otter's 2010 Democratic challenger Keith Allred and $5,000 to his 2014 GOP rival, former Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian.

Syringa sued, and as its case progressed, the federal government - responsible for 75 percent of IEN's funding - withdrew its support. Later, the U.S. Justice Department, through the Office of Inspector General, launched a probe.

It continued when Luna, as Gwartney's successor, either downplayed the severity of the problem or withheld information from the Legislature. She even renewed the IEN's contract through 2019 much earlier than necessary.

It ended when a district court judge invalidated the IEN contract and lawmakers transferred the program - and the state money to pay for it - away from Luna's agency and handed it over to state schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra, who went out and provided schools with more bandwidth at less cost.

Luna's reappointment to head up her department would not survive a confirmation fight. So she resigned.

Except when Russell went nosing around in April, she found Luna still working at the department as a "program specialist." Still collecting $95,202 - while interim director Keith Reynolds was getting $8,154 less.

When she surfaced at Homeland Security, Bureau Director Brad Richy told Russell Luna "brings a wealth of subject matter expertise to the organization."

Cope wants some enterprising reporter to find out why Otter keeps Luna around? Does she have something on him?

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"How does that happen, Butch (or Brad)? Is it at all possible she has a crude clay doll with a lock of your hair glued on top, perhaps, along with a sharp pin or two that she keeps in a secret place, and you fear that if you cut her loose and send her out into non-governmental employment territory, she might take it personally?" Cope says.

Short of mind-reading or finding a cache of records, we'll have to settle for the obvious.

Former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus was notorious for firing non-performers. That got rid of the problem and it alerted the survivors to follow the rules. In one way or another, Andrus' successors - or their chiefs of staff - stayed the course.

Except for Otter.

He wasn't bothered by former State Tax Commission Chairman Royce Chigbrow playing favorites.

Nor by Corrections Corporation of America so mismanaging the Idaho Correctional Center that it became known as a "gladiator school."

Even Ralph Powell, the state police chief who failed to investigate CCA, kept his job.

About the only people who don't stay are whistleblowers. Among them, former Transportation Director Pam Lowe, who collected a cool $750,000 settlement check, and former Board of Correction member J.R. Van Tassel of Lewiston, who was openly skeptical of CCA.

And yet, Idahoans returned Otter to a third term.

Obviously, unhappy voters do not concern Otter.

An unhappy Luna does.

What more do you need to know,

Bill? - M.T.

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