LEGISLATION: Worthy of attention

To my Legislators, Rep. Wisniewski, Rep. Mendive and to my State Senator Riggs,

As your constituent and as an Idahoan, I would like to see these issues worked on in the next session to improve the lives of all the hardworking families in District 3.

Work to finally repeal the grocery tax. It’s time to end this regressive tax once and for all.

Fully fund all-day kindergarten. Post Falls students deserve the same educational opportunities as students in Coeur d’Alene. It puts a strain on working parents to figure out how to juggle part-time kindergarten. To ease the burden of extra child care costs and to better equip our students for first grade, we need full-time kindergarten.

Remove the $100,000 cap on the homeowner’s exemption and restore the indexing of the exemption, which will reflect the changes we are seeing in housing prices. We need property tax relief and this one would offer it to our area that continues to see rising values in our homes.

These are all worthy issues to work on to help our working families here in North Idaho. Legislation that could help our community out immediately.

Long term I would like to see my legislators work toward reducing the state income tax. A tax refund was well and good, but our fiscally responsible representatives should be fighting to give our working families a leg up as we face challenging times.

CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS

Post Falls