You will be receiving your property assessments in the mail the first part of June. You will notice that property values have increased. In my 26-plus years of working for the Idaho County Assessor’s Office, I have never seen values like this.

Welcome to the new BPC-VRFD.

Warm weather is coming soon, and we are busy planning for our summer operations at the swimming pool. We are excited to open with our full schedule beginning June 9 as a free swim day for all! Days begin early for our lifeguards, preparing for our 7 a.m. morning lap swim, continuing with swi…

When I was 21, I became a Jane Doe. As an Army recruit, I was subjected to harassment and sexual assault by men who were my superiors.

When my daughter was a high school senior, I was a stay-at-home mom. There were significant changes to the SAT that year that we didn’t fully understand, so I spent hours scouring the Internet for information that would help us determine the score she needed to get into the college she wante…

As a citizen of the Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, which means the People, I look at gold mining as a symbol of broken promises.

Here we go again.

Recently I was told that someone complained that I should resign, as I didn’t live up to my title of “trustee.” They believed that the title meant to be trusted to unquestionably support the administration. With that, I looked the up the word. Trustee — “An individual person or member of a b…

The past 13 months have presented enormous challenges for students, parents, teachers, and school administrators. The sudden changes in work life, home life, and social life, along with new ways of learning and instructing, have firmly placed the COVID-19 pandemic as one of our most difficul…

It’s no secret that the last year has been a time of great challenge for crime victims and their families. The pandemic has resulted in more social isolation, economic uncertainty, and anxiety that experts say has triggered an increase in domestic violence, sexual assault and child and elder abuse.

Mr. Cornforth, before you throw your bricks at the Republican Party [regarding April 14 issue guest opinion], maybe you should look at how your party is destroying the foundation our founders laid. It does not matter what type of bricks you use; it is the foundation on which you build that i…

Dear Legislators,

As the 117th Congress is now in full swing, legislation is being reintroduced and work is under way on needed policy changes. Following is a brief overview of important legislation I am working with fellow senators to reintroduce this Congress.

For 31 years, my grandfather, Arthur Davis, worked around Boise on a road crew fixing roads. He knew the city well. An observation he shared with me, that I’ve thought a lot about since, was that there once were two area companies making bricks: one made good bricks, the other made cheap bri…

We need better roads and bridges in Idaho to support and sustain our economy and our Idaho way of life. Transportation is the lifeblood of our economy and is necessary in order to move goods and people to and through our state. Our legislation, House Bill 342, is a comprehensive solution to …

Idaho has an opportunity to improve our children’s ability to read and write, support working mothers and create an early childhood education system we in Idaho are sorely missing. This year, Idaho received a $6M grant from the Trump administration to improve our early childhood education sy…

My fellow Idahoans,

The left decried President Trump’s “America First” immigration policies and charged Republicans with being inhumane for seeking to uphold the laws of our country. Now, it seems these “humanitarians” have disappeared as we watch the Biden Administration’s approach play out in real-time.

Supporters of privatizing education are about to change the Idaho Constitution and 130 years of education policy without going to a vote of the people. Instead, those who want taxpayers to fund private schools should take their case to the people and let them decide as the Constitution requires.

For those who know me, there are few things in this world which I feel more passionate about than Idaho agriculture and water. Both have been cornerstones of my life since I first drew breath and the political career that has largely defined the second half of my life.

Rep. Mike Simpson is a conservative Republican from Idaho, whose concept of wildness in the 1990s was going into the rough at a golf course.

Prior to the recent passage of the American Rescue Plan, Congress came together five times to pass bipartisan bills totaling roughly $4 trillion to help Americans weather the pandemic. Recent economic projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provide proof of their effectiveness…

Senator Crabtree’s recent statement about my energy and salmon concept is emotional. I get that. I am proposing to do things very differently—to make a proactive, rather than reactive change. That is very hard. But Senator Crabtree might not be so upset if he understood a little bit more abo…

My little town has a big heart for salmon and steelhead. These fish make the identity of Riggins and are the lifeblood of our economy in this canyon along the Salmon River. If these fish disappear, my town loses its fight to keep our sense of community.

It has taken me a moment to come up with words that are print-approved after learning that Congressman Mike Simpson is spewing rhetoric to remove dams in the Northwest. Congressman Simpson asked elected officials from around the northwest to stand with him, and as of today I am here to say t…

Last week, Idaho Senator Steve Vick proposed a bill that would make it nearly impossible for Idaho citizens to qualify an initiative for the ballot.

First, I would like to thank the people who actually took the time and have reached out to get information about why we did not adopt a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Ordinance. Unfortunately, I have been made aware that there are some folks who have not reached out, asking for signatures on a peti…

Planning for the COVID pandemic by the Syringa Hospital and Clinic staff took a great many hours and much energy. All the work was done behind the scenes while still serving the community and attending to their medical needs.

It turns out that Idaho’s Medicaid Expansion program arrived just in time.

While many words have been used to describe 2020—unprecedented, historic, apocalyptic—I believe the best word to describe 2020 is “humbling.”

This past year has been nothing, if not unbelievable! The world was set on edge by a global pandemic. This impacted lives, worldwide, and continues to do so. It has impacted your life and mine.

We have all likely heard some variation of the famous saying that nothing is certain but death and taxes. Given the preeminent inevitability of taxes, we must make certain that the federal agency tasked with administering this responsibility operates with just and up-to-date guidelines. Sinc…

When Tom Mueller grew up in St. Maries, his logger father hoped his son would follow in his footsteps. A guidance counselor urged him to become an airplane mechanic. But his math teacher asked if he was going to become an engineer.

Each year, the fewer hours of sunlight, stormy weather, isolation, and holiday season brings stress to many in our region, nation and the world. Many people become overwhelmed, depressed, anxious and sometimes suicidal during stressful holiday seasons. The Regional Behavioral Health Board (B…

Since the beginning of the pandemic, many residents of nursing homes and assisted living centers have been isolated in their rooms. Despite the incredible efforts of staff to provide stimulating activities, life is not the same, and loneliness is real.

I recently had the opportunity to speak on the Senate floor about important progress under way on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests to improve the health of the forests that is a great example of the benefits of collaborative efforts. The following contains parts of the speech, and a…

One of the most rewarding things about being a foster parent is creating lifelong connections with children as well as their parents. We were over the moon when we received our first placement and just as excited when our most recent “bonus kiddo” moved in. Over the years we have learned man…

The pandemic has presented great challenges for everyone across our state, country, and the world.

CDC, (Center for Disease Control) calls on Americans to wear masks to prevent COVID-19 spread, JAMA editorial reviews latest science, while case study shows masks prevented COVID spread.

Thanksgiving is one of the most patriotic holidays we celebrate as Americans.

Having lived seven years in Vietnam, I know communism. Communism tells its citizens if they can go to church, or assemble for political meetings. It tells them who they can associate with. It tells them what news they can read, what programs they can watch, what music they can listen to, and…

Dear community members,

Local manufacturing businesses and jobs have experienced a resurgence in recent years that needs to continue for our state’s livelihood and connection to the global economy.

It is a great benefit to our state that more than 115,000 veterans choose to make Idaho their home. Idaho veterans offer a helping hand to their fellow veterans, military families and broader communities time after time. I look to Idaho veterans, the veterans organizations they lead and the …

Reduced availability of medical visits, and concerns about contracting COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic contributed to large drops in medical visits, including for preventive care. But now is the time to makes sure you are up-to-date on prevention. Even though I have no family histo…

We have different types of alarms in our life in order to be prepared and to remind us of things that are important. Some alarms we can hit snooze, or even ignore, most of the time we need to heed them. We have had alarms go off for seven months about COVID, we know there’s fatigue, but we c…

As we approach Veterans’ Day, it’s important to honor the contributions of service members and veterans to our safety and security; and, to acknowledge the skills and perspective veteran-owned small businesses bring to the business world.

This is a tale of two governors and the importance they place on every state’s largest job-generator, small businesses.