Voters shouldn't take plunge on rec center

Of all the boondoggles to come down the Bonner County pike, an outfit called the Sandpoint Centre Corporation is now proposing a sports complex so "our kids will have something to do."

At least that's how it was explained to me by one of a trio of supplicants who, like a Girl Scout selling cookies, greeted me expectantly on my way into Safeway: "Are you a registered voter?"

The last time I was registered and actually voted was for Richard Nixon, and look where that got us.

As a private citizen, I can be arrested for panhandling in a public place, but apparently it's OK if the price tag is high enough. For an ice skating rink with seating for 1,200, conference rooms and a swimming pool, Bonner County taxpayers will be asked to shell out around $7 million.

The nice folds from the Sandpoint Centre Corporation will even set the taxes for this pig-in-a-poke ($65 per $100,000 evaluation) along Lake Pend Oreille School District boundaries, so that the pain will be equally shared among virtually all ice-deprived Bonner County citizens.

I wasn't aware that Sandpoint was seeking a franchise in the National Hockey League. Seating for 1,200 spectators? You can't get that many people to vote in Sandpoint, let alone inspire them to watch a few kids slide around on ice. The last skating rink we had went bust, and we need another swimming pool in town like a cat needs independence.

Who remembers the floating stage and convention center proposed for Memorial Field some years ago? This proposed sports center should go the same way, along with the Dodo bird.

If area kids are starved for "something to do," let them begin with learning how to count back change, or read an analog clock.

This is a plunge taxpayers shouldn't take.

CORT GIFFORD

Sandpoint