EDITORIAL: Wish list for NIC's big deadline

Today is the deadline for North Idaho College to sell its accrediting agency on reasons why it should not be marched to the academic guillotine known as lost accreditation.

Finger crossing and prayer muttering are reportedly near all-time highs, but will that — and a lot of hard, 11th-hour work by rightful President Nick Swayne and his team — be enough to keep the bloody blade at bay?

This being both the NIC deadline and April Fool’s Day Eve, we thought we’d put together a simple little checklist that might save the day — both now and into the murky future.

It would start with apologies from the three trustees constituting cement blocks drowning an institution that previously was a powerful swimmer.

The apologies would reflect full responsibility and eschew the shotgun-blast blame game popularized by Todd Banducci, Greg McKenzie, Mike Waggoner and their preferred president, Greg South — including the following targets: the newspaper, the students, the faculty, the staff, the community, the accrediting agency, the most honorable Tony Stewart, astute and ethical Judge Meyer, the Woke movement, a drag dancer and President Biden’s dog.

The apologies would be followed immediately by resignations, effective yesterday.

Art Macomber, the attorney they hired who, through no fault of his own, is happily harvesting a money tree — OK, that’s not true; it is his fault — would also apologize and resign.

Macomber, Banducci, McKenzie and Waggoner would pool their personal resources and submit them as a tiny down payment on the financial damage they've caused the college.

The Idaho Legislature would soon gather in special session and adopt legislation intended to prevent this kind of authoritarian lunacy from happening again. (Kootenai County’s nine legislators would all vote against the measure.)

The Republican Party’s local central committee would admit that its candidate vetting process is fatally flawed. For the good of both the party and the entire community, they'd adopt a resolution pledging not to endorse candidates in primary and nonpartisan elections. Now that would be common sense.

Going forward, those in control of NIC would focus exclusively on the business of training and educating students, rather than camouflaging foundational destruction with daily distractions and deflections.

And we all could live happily ever after.