Numbers crunching

Never before has president ‘Ronnie’s’ “Here we go again!” utterance been more appropriate than now, since two of our county commissioners have decided to go into the mall business!

Apparently the fiasco over the county’s computer and record keeping event hasn’t taught them anything! But the taxpayers haven’t forgotten what it cost them!

But you certainly can’t call them pikers! The computer venture was only around a million dollars, and this latest one fifteen times as much! Charging ahead valiantly, despite warnings from their own legal advisor that they were entering unknown proceedings, and the loss of their bonding agent to go along with their plan, they have committed taxpayers to it, whether it be a success, or failure!

Questioning the propriety of the disbursement of taxpayer’s money into private ventures, I dug out my 2004 copy of the Washington State Constitution, just to see what our money could be used for. In it I found the following:

Article VIII

Clause 7: CREDIT NOT TO BE LOANED

No county, city, town or other municipal corporation shall hereafter give any money, or property, or loan its money, or credit to or in aid of any individual, association, company or corporation, except for the necessary support of the poor and infirm, or become directly or indirectly the owner of any stock in or bonds of any association, company or corporation.

As my document is eight years old, I decided I’d better consult with someone who knew for sure, the correct answer. I called the legislative office in Olympia, and their agent who handles these affairs told me the following:

Taxpayer’s money can be used for certain private ventures, as long as any proceeds are used to benefit citizens of the State of Washington. No on has clarified the meaning of “certain private ventures” and there certainly is a gray area that could only be resolved in the courts. This tells me that no one knows for sure whether it is legal or not! But a little thing like that hasn’t seemed to bother the two commissioners.

I know this for sure. If it’s an economic failure, we’d get the same answer we got about the computer system. “We should have crunched the numbers!”

Well, the numbers they should be crunching are:

*How many people are going to drive from Idaho into Washington to pay a two-percent plus higher sales tax on everything they buy except certain food items.

*How many from Moscow, Idaho, are going to ignore the new Super Store that WalMart is building there?

*How many more small businesses in Colfax are going to suffer, and perhaps go under, when their customers drive to that new mall?

*How many signatures could Tim Eyman get on an initiative requiring any elected official to have to repay to the taxpayers, any losses from private ventures capitalized by the taxpayers?

*How many people would vote for it?

*And last, but not least. How many votes will I get, if this fails?

These are the numbers they should be crunching!

Jerry Harnois,

Oakesdale