Urban renewal plan is a real 'STINKER'

I think "Urban Renewal District" or URB, is to bland a name now that the mayor and Sandpoint City Council have decided to pass another tax onto us all apparently without a vote. Something flashier is in order, something like … "Sandpoint Taxpayers Incorporated for New Korporate Endowment and Realtors" … or STINKER ((Yes, I know it's not spelled with a "K").

Marcia and Karl of the county say in reference to the huge new development going in near Pack River, that it's all about private property rights with little regard to how the neighbors are affected. But the mayor and most of the council don't mind us neighbors footing the bill for the benefit of private enterprise, Realtors, developers and speculators do they? Besides, I thought the marvelous BID was providing for such things?

What's next? An application to the feds to rebuild Sandpoint to certain specifications, give a no-bid contract to Haliburton and repeal that pesky Bacon-Davis act so as to insure low wages all for their, uh, our greater good?

The city actually says, they want to "capture" these taxes. I feel like we've been "captured" all right, by the enemy.

LAWRENCE FURY

Sandpoint