Capital for a Day in Bonners Ferry

BONNERS FERRY — Bonners Ferry was the Capital for a Day on May 30 for the first time since Governor Brad Little was elected, but it will be the fourth time over the past year that he has come to the area. This is the second one for Little, the first one being in his hometown of Emmett. The city hall was two blocks from his house, and four blocks from his office.

The idea behind it is to bring elected officials and representatives to cities throughout Idaho for a day in order to bring the people and the officials together. Doing that gives the Idahoans a chance to voice questions and concerns and know that they are heard.

“What is important now is the dialogue between my cabinet members and the members of the community,” Little said. “Not many people get a chance to go toe to toe or face to face with the directors, and that is why we do Capital for a Day.”

The attendees of the event were able to voice some heavy topics such as drug influx prevention measures, traffic and road questions, and a variety of other topics.

“A lot of it is giving people comfort about what we are doing from the state standpoint, whether it is the road projects that are going on, or obviously everybody is concerned about the rules process and I think that was a good question, I think everyone was comfortable with it, it is a big change.”

Every rule in the Health and Welfare Department, education, water, are all changing, raising questions and concerns. There were also a couple of law enforcement issues they also addressed in order to give people more comfort.

“Obviously, roads are important up here,” Little said. “The question on good neighbor was a good question, and I know they didn’t like that answer, because the county used to get money, but on the other hand, there are a lot of jobs being produced by the Good Neighbor authority.”

It is really important, the further residents are from Boise, the more important it is for them to have this opportunity to meet with the representatives so that people can see that the people that run Littles administration are real people that care about the state.

For more information, or to submit a question of concern, visit www.gov.idaho.gov.