Do we need it and how much is it costing me?

Recently, in a letter to the editor about our new boondoggle-to-be in Sandpoint, I discovered how many people here are thin skinned when stereotypically parodied. It made me smile. I felt like Tina Fey.

It isn’t that I can’t negotiate a roundabout. I’m not against one if it is inserted into an area during initial planning or when trying to solve an unusually difficult traffic problem (neither case here). The roundabout is just a symptom of a much larger problem.

There should be only two considerations that a public official has to fret over when spending my nickel. Is it needed — really, really needed — and how to make it the most cost effective in the long run.

When an “official” tells you that a project won’t cost you, the taxpayer, anything — they are either fiscally dumber than a box of rocks or are outright lying to you. It doesn’t matter if it is at the local level or national, if they say it’s free, they are either prevaricators or have craniums filled with schist. It doesn’t matter if the money came from the “Feds” or a corporation, you are paying for it. In this case, Avista, Verizon and Comcast have to move their utilities. Super 1 has to write a check. They just shrug and pass the costs on to — guess who — you.

Our officials need to be escorted out of the quarry before the bottom of their box gives out.

HERB WIENS

Sandpoint