ELECTION: New wide-open space

Something I wasn’t aware of, since we didn’t live here at the time, was that the Reagan Republicans wouldn’t have supported the Salvation Army Kroc Center and the Coeur d’Alene Public Library. Reagan Republican Jeff Ward poses the question, “Why do we have a multi-, multi-, multi-million dollar library built in the late 2000s when printed books — and this is from a guy who’s been in publishing for most of my professional life — is going the way of the dinosaur?”

Really? Ward thinks a library is only about printed books? Both the Kroc Center and the library are jewels in the crown of Coeur d’Alene, adding to the city’s growing luster as first-class community.

Once during the debate on a battery recycling bill, former State Senator Stan Hawkins insisted we didn’t need to recycle because Idaho had plenty of wide open spaces. Jim Fisher, political editor of the Lewiston Tribune, observed that the biggest wide open space in Idaho was between Stan Hawkins’ ears. On that score it would appear Jeff Ward has supplanted the good senator.

MIKE BLACKBIRD

Post Falls