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Cloudy skies. High 64F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..
Mostly cloudy skies with a few showers after midnight. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
ASOTIN — Practice makes perfect, and the ECH-Science team is hoping they perfect maneuvering through their underwater robotics course before they head to an international competition.
The defending champions used a six-run second inning, then had to hold off a plucky Avista NAIA World Series rookie to advance.
This editorial was published by the PostRegister of Idaho Falls.
Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
MCCALL — A $7.5 million expansion of Payette Lakes Middle School in McCall has stalled over a road dispute between the McCall-Donnelly School District and the city of McCall.
“It’s dead for the year,” M-D Director of Operations & Maintenance Jason Clay told the M-D board of trustees last week.
Clay’s statement came four months after M-D Superintendent Eric Pingrey withdrew an application to the city for approval of the expansion, which was approved by district voters in May 2021.
The district had hoped to start construction on the expansion this year, but the project has been put on hold becuase of the road conflict, Clay said.
“They are holding that condition of approval basically hostage, and so, we just couldn’t move forward,” Clay said of the city.
Trustees had no comments following Clay’s report. It was the first time the project had been on trustees’ public agenda in a year.
The board has never discussed the dispute in an open meeting and no vote was taken to withdraw the application. Pingrey withdrew the application on his own authority.
The PLMS project was included in the same bond vote that authorized expansion and renovation of Donnelly Elementary School. That project is scheduled to start next month.
The middle school expansion would add two classrooms, new bathrooms, a larger science room, renovation of the school’s administrative offices and enclosure of the main entryway.
The middle school houses sixth, seventh and eighth graders and has a capacity of about 300 students. The expansion would add room for 150 more students.
The McCall Area Planning and Zoning Commission had scheduled a hearing on the expansion on Dec. 7, 2021, but Pingrey asked for a delay after seeing the city’s conditions of approval, according to memos obtained by The Star-News in a public records request.
The conditions included a requirement that the school district donate land to widen the existing road through the school property to provide access to undeveloped property east of the middle school and Barbara R. Morgan Elementary School.
Donnelly developer Craig Groves has proposed the Pine Creek Ranch subdivision on 158 acres of that undeveloped land. No formal proposal has come before the city, but an environmental study on the project is in progress.
The requirement came as a surprise, Pingrey told trustees in a Dec. 6, 2021, memo.
“Our team really feels blindsided,” Pingrey wrote. “The city specifically told us ‘if we do not want this road, it does not happen.’ ”
“This delay will more than likely push the project back an entire year, if not derail the entire project for good,” he wrote in the memo.
The increased traffic on the road would jeopardize the safety of students, Pingrey said.
“Growth is expected to occur on much of the vacant land surrounding the school site,” McCall City Planner Brian Parker told The Star-News. “It is important that the road network be constructed in a way that allows that growth to be beneficial to the community.”
— Max Silverson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
Elk City VFW post dedicates building
ELK CITY — The name of Capt. Samuel C. Turner may not be familiar, but thanks to Bruce Gabari and Elk City VFW Wilderness Post 8311, he and approximately 3,000 Idaho service personnel who died in conflicts from World War I through the present will have a place where their ultimate sacrifice is recognized.
On May 15, more than 50 people gathered at the post to formally dedicate the facility as a veterans’ memorial building. As part of this, the post now displays vinyl banners displaying names of Idahoans who died in service in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and the War on Terrorism; the state’s recipients of the Medal of Honor, dating back to 1863; and the history and specifications of the battleship U.S.S. Idaho, which served in several major island campaigns during WWII.
“The membership went out of their way to follow up on my crazy idea,” said Gabari, Post 8311 senior vice commander, during the presentation, “but I think it worked out. It’s a good thing for the town, and a good thing for the state of Idaho.”
Gabari explained this grew out of the post’s remodeling project, which started about nine years ago. He said there used to be a wall with letter-sized sheets of paper, listing the WWII casualties.
“I thought that was kind of inappropriate,” he said, and so with the help of Katy Wensman at The Print Shop in Grangeville, he continued, she typed all 1,800 names and formatted these for the banner. “You know how many names that is, how long it took to put all those on there? She never charged us for her time,” Gabari said, recognizing her work on the project. Also motivating the project, Gabari said as he was working on this banner, one of the older post members came in and recognized one of the names, saying he knew that guy.
While the banners are important to recognize fallen comrades, Gabari said, “this is really more of a state thing,” welcoming all veterans who come into town to come into the post and who may recognize a friend or relative on one of these lists.
Gabari also contacted the Idaho Military Museum, which helped with additional information for the banners: “They were a great help,” he said.
Among the dignitaries who attended last Sunday was Joe Riener, Dist. 2 commander for the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) in Idaho.
“The display that Mr. Gabari has put together is unique in the entire state,” he said. “It took him over a year to compile all this information, and then to get all this; it’s phenomenal.”
— David Rauzi, Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville), Wednesday
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