[Vision2020] What a Deal!

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (November 2, 2012) Lewiston Tribune.

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What a deal
By Marty Trillhaase 
JEERS ... to Idaho schools Superintendent Tom Luna. Hewlett-Packard's $182 million contract to deliver mountains of laptops to Idaho high school students has Luna's signature on it. But it reads like HP wrote the terms.
Consider what the Spokesman-Review's Betsy Russell has already unearthed:
Sticker shock - You're paying at least 25 percent more than Luna promised. You're also paying $1,171 for a unit that would cost you half as much at a retail store.
The legislation Luna steamrollered through the 2011 Republican-controlled Legislature is open-ended. Unless voters repeal the Luna laws Tuesday, what Luna signed, you must pay. All of which means the state can burn up every dollar in its school stabilization account and still wind up millions short.
Throw in a $14 million penalty for canceling the eight-year contract early.
You're not buying the computers. You're leasing them from HP.

If the student wrecks or loses his laptop, who pays? Not the student. Not his family. HP will bill the state for the repairs. If a device is lost or stolen, HP collects all remaining payments due on the machine - plus a $35 fee.

HP "strongly" recommended Idaho buy some insurance. But at $17 a unit, that would have added about $9 million to the contract cost. So Idaho said no.
Not to worry, says Luna spokeswoman Melissa McGrath: "... Just about 1 percent of devices a year, if even that, must be replaced or repaired outside the warranty."
Leslie Fiering, research vice president for Gartner Inc., told Russell something else: She used to think soldiers were tough on equipment. Then she learned " ... kids are worse than the soldiers. So I can understand why HP did that to protect themselves."
So who was protecting you?
CHEERS ... to Fourth District Judge Mike Wetherell of Boise. Wetherell's ruling Monday compelled Education Voters of Idaho to cough up where it got $641,000 to promote the Luna laws. It also went a long way toward discouraging similar impropriety in the future.
Before EVI disclosed it had collected $200,000 from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and $250,000 from Albertsons heir Joe Scott, EVI was thumbing its nose at the 1974 voter-passed Sunshine Initiative.
EVI's leaders - former state Rep. Debbie Field, R-Boise, and former congressional staffer John Foster - argued their status as a 501(c)(4) trumped any obligation to disclose.
Even if Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa's lawsuit ultimately prevailed, it looked as if EVI might run out the clock - and delay disclosure until after the election. After EVI's attorney Christ Troupis made a faltering pass at the federal courts, he asked for a new state court judge, landing the case on Wetherell's desk Friday.
By Monday's hearing, it was obvious the judge had devoted much of his weekend researching the case because he tied EVI in knots:
Federal law does not trump Idaho's ability to compel disclosure. Even the U.S. Supreme Court's reviled Citizens United decision respects campaign finance reporting.
"Idaho law is clear and unambiguous - there can be no anonymous contributions either in favor of or in opposition to Propositions 1, 2 and 3 by a political committee as defined by law."
Two years ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Washington's Sunshine law against a similar challenge.
Wrote Wetherell: "The fact that the federal disclosure laws, apparently by omission, create a 'loophole' as to reporting requirements for 501(c)(4) entities through which it appears truckloads of millions of dollars drive through, does not bind either the voters of Idaho or their Legislature."
JEERS ... to Congressman Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. During his Oct. 25 Idaho Public Television debate with Democratic challenger Jimmy Farris, Labrador maintained his radical anti-abortion rights stance: "I support banning all abortions except for the life of the mother."
In other words, Labrador would re-victimize victims of rape and incest.
Labrador has co-sponsored five anti-abortion bills, including Rep. Duncan Hunter's Life at Conception Act, granting full constitutional rights to fetuses.
And when Farris pressed Labrador about whether he would criminalize women seeking abortions, he replied: "I'm not here to answer your questions, but thank you."
Later, Labrador clarified that he would punish abortion providers, not women.
CHEERS ... to Nez Perce County Clerk Patty Weeks. Until Idaho follows Washington's enlightened vote-by-mail system, people looking for an alternative to standing in line on Election Day must rely on the absentee voting system.
Still, it means taking time during the work week to head down to the county polling station. Absentee voting closes today at 5 p.m.
Except for last Saturday.
With her staff and son Sam, Weeks provided voters a four-hour window to stop by the Brammer Building and cast an absentee ballot. In all, 129 people took her up on it.

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Seeya at the polls, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students.  The college students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


 
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