Capitol Follies

Last night, at ACHD's pre commission meeting, we had a briefing on the State's request to remove parking from State St in front of the Capitol Building. As you might have heard, St Michael's Episcopal Church is adamantly opposed to removing the handicapped parking spaces permanently from in front of their church. The City of Boise also wishes to keep parking on State St at the corners of Sixth and Eighth Streets. I have to say that I think the way the State Capitol Commission handled this was a little inappropriate in seeming to sneak this request in without any publicity. Well they got the publicity after all and they'll get a public hearing also.

But on another issue, Jefferson St on the front of the Capitol has been closed for years and is not slated to open until November 2009, and then only one lane.

Since I've been on the Commission, I've heard from a lot of merchants on Jefferson St wanting to know if the street can be opened. Their businesses are hurting, the economy is bad, and they feel, rightly or wrongly, that they need the traffic in front of their stores .

As an elected official, I believe one major tenet I should follow is do no harm. Obviously, closing Jefferson St caused harm and is still causing harm.

I asked the State Architect, who attended our meeting, if we couldn't open one lane of Jefferson earlier than November in a bid to help those retailers. I don't think the Architect has ever worked in the private sector or had to run a business because she was in no way amenable to or cognizant of those business's concerns.

That was too bad because these businesses are the taxpayers who are funding the Stateshouse renovation. We can all take pride in the Statehouse and how beautiful it will look when completely finished. I just wish our State government officials would take a little pride in the citizens who are helping to accomplish that renovation with their hard work and tax dollars derived from that hard work.