SHOOTINGS: It's all about morality

When I was in school it wasn’t uncommon for my friends and me to go hunting before or after school and keep our guns in our vehicles. I even had one teacher who let us store our guns in his closet until after school.

VETERANS: A war on bills

In America, most veterans who come back home, while fighting for our rights and freedom, are not able to catch up with payments for their own household, and are kicked into the streets. Is this how we treat our veterans? Is this how we should treat them, when they just risked their lives, fighting for the rights and freedom of every American citizen?

MATH: A hard problem

We are the grandparents of two wonderful students in the Coeur d’Alene School District. I’ve noticed over the years, numerous students getting awards for fabulous grades (including ours), yet I also hear that test scores are poor. How can we have A students with bad test scores consistently? When the odds are 3/10 of our students are considered proficient in math, that means there are 7/10 that are not. This doesn’t give me confidence that my grandchildren will be able to get where they need to go when competing with others their age.

COPS: Our everyday heroes

I would like to say something: I know a lot of you would agree with me, but there are others who wouldn’t.

AUTISM: Here's how you can help

The Panhandle Autism Society is doing great work in our community. The tireless dedication of the all-volunteer board was on display April 12 at Riverstone for the annual Autism Awareness walk.

LAKELAND: Worth the money

On March 14, voters in the Lakeland Joint School District will have the opportunity to vote yes for two levies to support our students who will be the business owners, employees, parents and decision makers of tomorrow. We have an obligation to ensure that these students are given a fair opportunity to grow and succeed as they begin this journey.

BUILDING: Preserve historic homes

To Our County Commissioners:

PRO LIFE: Bill falls short

My fellow Idahoans, in particular those who are excited that our state Senate has introduced a “heartbeat” bill that will presumably diminish abortion in our state: There are problems with the bill. I will name a few.

LIBRARIES: Let’s address real issues

We find ourselves amidst a controversy surrounding the books in our libraries. Some claim that these books expose our children to explicit content or LGBTQ+ ideas, pushing for bans and censorship.

SEXUALLY EXPLICIT BOOKS: Shouldn’t be in schools, children’s library section

There are many books containing sexually explicit stuff offered in our library system in Kootenai County. I listened to the people read those books to library board members. I’m an older man, a veteran. I’m shocked at what I heard that children can read and I’m not easily shocked by things. These books are illegal according to the Idaho state constitution.

IMMIGRATION: A takeover

Time to wake up folks. Our country has been fundamentally changed since Biden took office. There have already been over six million souls added to the U.S. over our southern border in just two years. To put that into perspective, that is as more people than live in Idaho (1.9M), Montana (1.1M), Wyoming (580,000), North Dakota (775,000) and South Dakota (900,000) combined.

LAWYERS: They should be defunded

The anger we all feel every time a criminal gets away with an obvious injustice, or a politician goes on destroying our democracy without consequence, is just. It isn’t the law that let’s these people go but the lawyers that contort the spirit of law to bend to the needs of a client. By extension making the rest of us subject to the same by creating a precedent that can be cited the next time in court. Our freedoms seemingly belong to the wordsmith’s of today and our will can be easily dictated this way.

TIME: Give a little

Our time seems extremely valuable these days which I fully understand and can be empathetic to the daily grind myself.

HOUSING: Residential building rate needs to increase

In my last letter to the editor, I pointed out that Kootenai County needed 3,000 housing units per year to maintain current availability in the housing market. Currently, we are suffering from a shortage of homes and can feel it as demand drives up the pricing of homes and rentals.

HOSPITAL: Trust these three

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FIREWORKS: Ban works best

Much appreciated was Jesse Engel’s article on fireworks.

LEGISLATION: Worthy of attention

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

FOURTH OF JULY: A special day

Many reasons to celebrate

Many reasons to celebrate

SCHEDULES: A student’s protest

Hello, I’m a current sophomore at Lake City High School.

THANKS: For care and support

My husband, Donald Ziegler, passed away Oct. 12 and I want to give thanks to all of the many people who cared for him during his illness, and for me and our family, too. The staff at Orchard Ridge Assisted Living, where Don and I have lived for almost four years, could not be a more caring and loving group of people, and were especially so at this difficult time.