Alexander and Associates Inc.

On Dec. 9, I went to a public hearing in support of the oil equipment shipments. Many people were there to show their support and I had hoped to testify. Unfortunately, this particular hearing was more formal, with attorneys on either side calling witnesses to speak before the Idaho Transportation Department board. I prepared some comments and I will seek another opportunity to enter them into the record. In the meantime, I have pasted them below.

Good morning. My name is Martin Johncox, (address). I have lived in Idaho 20 years. I am currently a public relations consultant and I have always been a strong supporter of business.

According to news reports, the Chinese are ready to spend $511 billion to build up to 245 nuclear reactors and are moving forward with renewable energy as well. The Chinese are now testing a bullet train to go more than 300 mph. China already has the world’s longest high-speed rail network with 7,500 miles and is ambitiously expanding it.

In America, anyone who would propose a power plant, wind farm, refinery or high-speed train will find the process long, expensive and discouraging. Maybe that’s why we have zero miles of high speed train and not enough juice to power one if we did. We’ve become a nation of consumers and borrowers, no longer a nation of builders and producers.

We are different from China in one important way, however: We have freedom and democracy, while they have oppression. And we may use our freedom to promote development and prosperity, or deny it.

The opponents of the megaloads have many valid points. The weight will stress our roads. Road closures will reduce business in the area. There are serious safety and environmental concerns. I believe Conoco Phillips and the state must address all these concerns. That means adequately recompensing people along the road and the state for any repairs it must make. We can and must hold Conoco Phillips to this standard: They must leave the road and communities along it in better condition than they found them. The good news is, this is fully doable if we choose to do it. The concerns of the residents and businesses along the route should be a template for safe and fair use of the road – not a means to kill this project.

The irony isn’t lost on me that many people at this hearing drove here in cars powered by fuel from these very same sand fields. Using gas doesn’t mean we necessarily approve any proposal, but it does obligate us to think about our shared responsibility in delivering these resources, and how important these resources are to us in this very room.

I hope these meetings conclude with a commitment to accomplishment, recompense and action, and that the shipments commence as soon as possible. Our ability to remain a prosperous, advancing nation depends on the outcomes of meetings like these.

A number of years ago, when I was an Idaho Statesman reporter, I was fortunate enough to cover a speech by Daniel Kemmis in Boise. Kemmis is a former Montana legislator and mayor of Missoula who is a consultant and known for his ability to find consensus in difficult situations.

Kemmis’ book “Community and the Politics of Place” (he signed my copy!) is influential in public policy circles and has some important lessons for the current controversy about hauling massive oil drilling equipment through Idaho’s mountains.The Spokesman-Review sums it up the issue well:

ConocoPhillips Corp. wants to send the loads, which are so wide they’ll take up both lanes of the two-lane road, across the route immediately to get the equipment to its refinery in Billings, Mont., though it still must receive permits from the state of Montana.

They’re just the first mega-loads proposed for the route, however; Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil has a proposal in the works for 207 giant loads to start traveling this month and continue for a year, to run from the Port of Lewiston through Montana and up to its Alberta oil sands project in Canada.

Residents and business owners along the route sued to block the loads, saying the Idaho Transportation Department violated its own regulations in issuing permits to ConocoPhillips.

I’m not expert on Kemmis, but I think I know enough to apply some of his ideas here.

One of the leading principles in “Community and the Politics of Place” is: The best solutions come from citizens on opposing sides working out their own solutions – compromising and sharing responsibility – and then presenting their contract to officials, who may enforce  it. Too often, citizens dump their problems in the laps of public officials, when the public officials may not have a stake or the ability to craft a good solution. As Kemmis notes, there is precious little listening going on in a public hearing and no effort by stakeholders to resolve their problems among themselves. The results satisfy no one and produce continual lawsuits, hearings and challenges.

The responsibilities and interests are clear. Idaho relies out-of-state fossil energy for about 80 percent of its electricity, according to Jessica Ruehrwein of the Sierra Club (counting electrical generation and gasoline transportation energy) Idaho is eighty percent fossil fueled, yet we have zero fossil resources! We in Idaho depend completely on other states to extract and send us fossil energy for electricity and transportation and we therefore have a responsibility to do our part to help that process. For their part, the oil companies that want to use Idaho roads have a responsibility to not burden Idaho residents, to recompense them adequately if they must burden them, and leave the route in better condition than they found it.

Opponents of the plan are pressing for public hearings, where they hope to delay or stop the shipments. Instead of court battles and attempts at administrative delays, I think the people along the route, environmental groups and other concerned people should have a conference with the businesses wanting to ship the equipment. Business owners along the route and state officials could present information about how much lost tourist reveue the shipments would create, how to deal with environmental concerns, how to protect the roadway and how to deal with liability. Oil companies may need to post a higher bond and create a special fund for affected residents and demonstrate the ability to address a worst-case disaster.

Opponents will say this reckoning will be too complex, but it is no more complex than developing, extracting and refining fossil fuel, a process from which Idahoans are spared (although they pay millions to fund it buying gasoline). Oil companies will say citizens are trying to place exorbitant costs on business, even as these companies stand to profit greatly by selling fuel.

Both sides are right and both have legitimate claims. As someone who believes in collaborative democracy, I believe both sides could resolve their differences, continue getting what they need and serve the common good.

The Boise City Design Review Committee’s treatment of the Simplot family and its proposed 7-acre downtown project is appalling. Besides showing the city’s over-regulation of a good proposal, the delays also highlight the city’s complete ignorance of the 95 percent of Boise that is not downtown.

The JUMP project (for Jack’s Urban Meeting Place), announced in May 2008, is a $100 dvelopment to include a foundation building and new headquarters for Simplot Co. between Front/Myrtle streets and 9th/11th streets. It is intended to be an arts center, meeting space and tribute to J.R. Simplot. In my opinion, it is an inclusive, sensitively designed project that would bring jobs and vitality to downtown Boise. As a public relations consultant for nearly a decade in Boise, and a newspaper reporter for 12 years before that, I saw cases where local governments were helpful and on-the-ball regarding development proposals, as well as obstructionist. This case appears to fall into the latter category.

But what do I know? According to the Idaho Statesman, delays by the city of Boise have reached a point where the Simplots are considering pulling their project, and I can’t say I blame them. After a meeting with Mayor David Beiter (one of over 100 meetings the Simplots have had with city officials), the Simplots completely redesigned the project. After that, the commission came back with a list of 60 changes, all but two of which the Simplots have adopted.

Meanwhile, in the 95 percent of Boise that is not downtown, the city’s lack of interest in redevelopment and good urban design is astounding. The city routinely allows developers to build parking lots between buildings and the street – perhaps the biggest no-no in urban design – and huge tracts of abandoned school sites grow weeds and become eyesores. Thousands of low-income residents remain at risk of eviction from rickety trailer parks, yet the city has studiously ignored them while it obstructs the Simplot project. The Bench’s few remaining historical buildings are routinely razed while Boise City and its historic preservation department show little interest outside of downtown.  The Design Review Commission does a good job at the minutiae of sapling caliper sizes but is utterly unable to see the vital relationships between buildings, streets, affordable housing and people.

The abandoned school sites are good examples of Boise not getting it. Supposedly, the school district was supposed to work with the city to find uses for these properties that would add value to the neighborhoods. At this point, they’re going to become mostly parking lots, with some strip development at the rear. Besides its toothless comprehensive plan, the city shows no interest or vision on the Bench and is overconcerned about Downtown.Children routinely walk to school without sidewalks, yet the city is far, far behind the curve in getting sidewalks in these neighborhoods.

My advice: Defer to the Simplots much more (it really is a good design) and roll up your sleeves and focus on the pressing needs for safe routes to school, urban decay, historical preservation and low-income housing in the rest of the city. This won’t be nearly as much fun as sticking your fingers in a $100 million mega-project, but it will mean so much more to Boiseans.

These days, the Boise mayor and council seem deeply uninterested in addressing urban decay problems south of the Boise River. Hundreds of Boiseans are at risk of being evicted from rickety trailer parks and hundreds of school children walk to school in dangerous conditions without sidewalks, yet the city is spending huge amounts of energy (and, possibly, money) on a downtown streetcar.

Boise City should be spending stimulus and other money on finally helping neglected Bench neighborhoods with better housing, reinvestment and life-safety features such as sidewalks. Unlike the downtown streetcar, these are all urgent needs.

In the past two years, at least four mobile home parks have closed in Boise and Garden City. In contrast to the streetcar committee of movers and shakers, trailer park residents are the moved and the shaken. According to a Boise State University study, about 5,400 Boiseans live in manufactured housing. Half are seniors and a quarter, astoundingly, live on $900 a month or less. Most are women and nearly half have a chronic medical condition. One in four live in a park listed for sale or redevelopment.

This issue has receded with the economy, but it will return and what is the city doing now to prepare? Helping these people is complex job that will require imagination and commitment, but it could be done in partnership with local housing agencies, the Capital City Development Corporation and federal stimulus funds.

If that’s not enough of a priority, the city could focus on building sidewalks, the lack of which is a serious safety issue on the Bench. One of the reasons our family and three children moved from the Bench was the severe lack of sidewalks; we just didn’t feel safe letting our kids walk to school. Nowadays sidewalks are required – much like electricity, indoor plumbing and fire codes – but the city decades ago allowed Bench neighborhoods to be built to primitive standards. Now is a good time to go back and fix this and connect these sidewalks with the new schools the Boise School District recently built. (Indeed, the Boise School District has done far more reinvestment in neglected neighborhoods than the city.)

If the city really wants a streetcar for the economic benefits that come with it, I suggest it build a streetcar line between the crumbling strip mall at Orchard/Emerald and the mostly vacant strip mall at Orchard/Overland. Don’t laugh – a streetcar in fact used to run on Orchard Street! A modern line there would spark private-sector urban renewal the city wants and show Bench neighborhoods that they, too, are worth the good stuff. After 40 years, the city has done a great job with downtown. It is a decade overdue for the city to turn its urban renewal efforts to the Bench.

The city will say the federal funds are only for transit projects, not for sidewalks or developing decent housing, but I think that’s just hiding behind process. If there’s a sincere political will to build sidewalks or help people who are about to lose their homes, the city will find a way to do it; the money is out there. In fact, on Dec. 1, The Statesman reported new federal grants for “projects that connect destinations and foster the redevelopment of communities into walkable, mixed use, high-density environments.”

This sounds just like what we need in some places south of the Boise River. I implore the city to stop doting over downtown and get to the real work of improving lives and safety in neglected Bench neighborhoods. Follow your consciences.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Elmore County collecting petition signatures and otherwise finding and networking with people who support our proposed nuclear plant. I like the work because I’m pretty extroverted, but there’s a sense of urgency. Wednesday, April 22 will be a make-or-break day for the plant effort, as the Elmore County Commission will hold a hearing about our request to rezone land for the plant.

Today I spent the afternoon and early evening in Hammett, a small farming town of a few hundred people between Mountain Home and Glenns Ferry, and a few miles from the site of our proposed nuclear plant.  There’s a lot of hardship in Hammett and for a Boise PR consultant used to a comfortable life, it was an eye-opening experience.

In Treasure Valley, as hard as we have it, I think we’re largely insulated from the worst of the economic downturn. To really see a town suffering, spend some time in Hammett. Given the events of the day, the comments of some of our opposition seem downright callused toward people who are struggling to get by and find work.

I went door-to-door and to the few businesses that were open. Closer toward the Interstate, one woman and some friends stood around a car in front of her house; the engine wouldn’t start and they were waiting for a friend to come and help.

“Will there be work there for women?” she asked me in Spanish. “I worked at the potato plant for 13 years and they laid me off when it closed. It’s really hard to find any work now.”

I told her we will make it a point to hire from Elmore County and if someone has a clean background, a good work history and completes training, we will have a job for them in construction or operations – if and when the plant is ever open (my mother is from Mexico and speak fluent Spanish). I’m paid to communicate and I do it well, but I really felt helpless. I could offer promises and hope, and my assurance I’m working as hard as I can to get the plant built, but I could do nothing to help her life immediately.

I heard loud banging around a group of mobile homes. I found two men repairing a car body with a hammer. They signed my petition, but told me they didn’t have much faith the plant would get built. Companies have let Hammett down before, they said, by not hiring much locally, or closing their factories.

“We’ve got to get something built around here,” said one of the men.

Another woman told me Hammett is always neglected, not getting the services and infrastructure it should have, and believed that would continue even if the plant were built.

“If the plant opens, it will just be a pissing match between Glenns Ferry and Mountain Home to get the benefits,” she told me. “Hammett won’t get anything.”

I’m typing this blog in the comfort of my home in Hidden Springs. Today, I was an outsider in a town where people are having a hard time coping with job loss and recession. I spent  the day getting some peoples’ hopes up. Now, it’s time to deliver and devote all of my energy to the goal of developing the power plant, so that our team and the Elmore County Commission will come through for the people of Hammett.

I spent today in Glenns Ferry doing community organizing (take that, Barack Obama!). One of my clients is Alternate Energy Holdings Inc., which has proposed a large nuclear reactor near Glenns Ferry in Elmore County, about 65 miles southwest of Boise.

I drove to Glenns Ferry eager to meet with residents, particularly local small business owners who are suffering since the loss of a potato processing plant and other local employers. My head was filled with facts and figures and enthusiasm for working to bring the stable, well-paying jobs that come with a power plant. The owner of a local gourmet foods store said if I really wanted to find lots of supportive people, I should go to the local VFW hall, where volunteers were distributing food baskets.

The desperation of many of the town’s residents really started to sink in at the VFW hall. My first action was to hold the door open so an elderly lady could cart out boxes of donated food. Inside, people formed a line and passed by tables of volunteers to receive food. Yes, I got many people to sign a petition in support of the plant, but I felt empty. These were people of all ages, many abilities, with families and skills and great contributions yet to be made. What kinds of skills would be needed at the plant? several asked. As I ran down the list of typical jobs, I never wanted our plant to be up and running as much as I did then. Each one of these people deserves a good job and I kept them foremost in my mind as a continued meeting with other business owners throughout the day.

I also attended a Glenns Ferry City Council meeting today. Local officials in Glenns Ferry, from what I have been able to tell, strongly support our project and they realize the need for economic development. The meeting began with Liz Woodruff, a Snake River Alliance representative, briefly apologizing for her behavior at a meeting two weeks ago (I did not attend that meeting). At that meeting, AEHI CEO Don Gillispie updated the city council on our proposal and, from what a number Glenns Ferry residents have told me, her behavior included rolling her eyes, giggling, smirking and generally acting rude during Don’s presentation to the council. I’ve seen her act that way at other public meetings, so it’s a pattern.

Woodruff’s behavior two weeks ago made an impression on a number of Glenns Ferry residents, so it is understandable she felt the need to apologize today for being “visibly upset” and acting “unprofessionally” (her words today to the council). She said today her “upset came from misinformation being spread” about our proposed reactor (in other words, her behavior was Don Gillispie’s fault). I am pleased to report the audience accorded Woodruff the respect she should have given Don Gillispie. Glenns Ferry people – even those who disagree with our plans to build a plant – have at all times been polite to me.

As I sat through Woodruff’s presentation, though, I kept thinking what she would have told the people picking up food at the VFW – if she would even care to go there – and what she is doing in her own community organizing work to bring more jobs to Elmore County.

It’s easier to obstruct than construct, to tear down rather than build up, to lash out rather than listen respectfully. But that’s not the kind of community organizing that’s going bring people jobs, opportunity and industry.

Good work by the Greater Boise Auditorium District and the state for putting in a request for federal stimulus money to finally build a larger downtown Boise convention center.  I did some PR consulting work for GBAD in 2002 and I applaud their persistence in trying to get this important part of our economy in place.

The Idaho Division of Financial  Management has submitted a list of agency and private sector requests for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It’s asking for $30 million for a new convention center in downtown Boise, called the Idaho State Convention Center. The convention center will be on a parcel of land GBAD  owns between 11th and 13th streets on the east and west, and by Front and Myrtle streets on the north and south.

Agencies and companies all over Idaho have submitted $4.75 billion in requests. Smaller projects include $5,200 for doors at Blackfoot schools, while larger proposals include $48.2 million for a new Canyon County Jail, $33 million for wastewater system improvements at the City of Meridian and $210 million by Idaho Wind Energy LLC for a wind farm (hopefully environmentalists won’t oppose it too much).

GBAD has put funding the convention center to voters twice before, where it got a majority of votes but missed the 2/3 supermajority. A deal with a private developer also fell through, although GBAD Chairman Stephenson Youngerman said Oppenheimer Development may unveil blueprints for the new convention center in March. Given all the design that’s been done, this should be a shovel-ready project.

In the interest of public openness – and their own success – I encourage GBAD to announce the request formally, with a news release but not much other fanfare. This would give them a chance to talk about how many people they’d put to work on construction and the obvious economic benefits of having an expanded convention center. The stimulus money is exactly for projects such as this.

I do support the stimulus spending, as long as it’s for capital projects. If future generations are going to pay off a share of the stimulus, we should at least leave them some working infrastructure they will need to sustain their economy. That includes safe schools, good roads and bridges, airports, sewer plants, energy generation and, yes, convention centers