Voting people helping people


Ordinary people doing extraordinary things, even the hard issues.

Ideas We Have

In Salmon, Idaho, $26,823 is the median income, with 19.5% of the population  below the poverty line, including 28.3% of those under age 18 and 14.3% of those age 65 or over.

With Recovery Funds and other grants and loans available to small cities, we live with a city council, who finds it appropriate to just increase our waste-water tax.  Instead of finding help with the expense from other sources, instead of finding the most sensible solution to the waste-water system, the council read this tax-increase ordinance for the first time, last Wednesday (December 23).

The Environmental Protection Agency has many documents showing free-water surface wetlands the best value for small towns, where land is available.  The city council chose Keller Associates, from Idaho Falls, to propose a solution. No wetland solutions are in Idaho.  Wetland solutions are in South Dakota, where it is even colder.   Apparently that firm did not examine the EPA documents about small town waste-water systems, which are generally 2-8 times less expensive than the conventional treatment plant we have.   If you think a $35 increase for waste-water is unreasonable, you may want to tell the council to cease and desist on their waste-water tax increase, until they do an adequate evaluation of the problem.