Wow! The ongoing diatribe over the fill for the Kroc Center site has gone ballistic over the past few days. Name calling, accusations, opinions from anonymous contributers who's credentials are unknown, opinions from people who don't even live in the state, interviews with the man who will run the facility who is "suspect", bloggers being "banned" from a popular newspaper sponsored blog. Gee whiz!I've been sitting on the sidelines observing all this and have come to the conclusion that not all the issues have been addressed nor or is it likely they will be to anyone's satisfaction. The animosity is too well entrenched. Civil discourse and a plan laid out to the public before a committment might have avoided a lot of this.
Too, the reporting of the issues has left a lot to be desired. In this morning's Coeur d'Alene Press it was announced that a group of civic minded developers have donated $300,000 bringing the total of the $6 million needed before June 1 to $5.4 million. Front page news.
Now, the Spokesman Review reports the same donation, in a squib on the first page of Section B, but says the total is $4.4 million. A million dollar difference this close to ground breaking is huge.
Which paper has it correct? You wonder why the public asks hard questions? Rather than dismissing us as anti-Kroc Center, which is nearly universally untrue, answer the questions correctly and with documentation and keep the character assasination to yourselves. And to the press - get the information correct.
This is a Republican state. Well, you're acting like the Republican administration with the war. If you're not with us, you're against us. Nonsense. There is a portion of the public that understands there are responsibilites beyond just wanting the facility and those questions are not being answered. And the press isn't helping the matter with sloppy reporting.
2 comments:
I was standing with Major Chamness today when he got a phone call from Jack Riggs, asking about that campaign discrepancy.
Tom Greene, the reporter from the Press, just plain got it wrong. A typo, or lazy proof-reading.
The Major told me that they have enough "asks" out there that they are confident the remaining $1.6 million will be coming in over the next six weeks.
Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for June 27th.
By the way, Chamness is a very nice guy, willing to talk to anybody, even a fellow soccer dad, about anything regarding this project.
I can't help but wonder whose ox is being gored in this quagmire. The situation is disquieting and the visceral reactions are disturbing in the extreme.
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