Airport is sustainable
In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration, which started local interest in the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport. WPA airport projects were built as part of a national defense system and to develop commerce.
The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport provided both national defense and commerce development with the completion of the airport during World War II.
In 1944, the first Idaho intrastate airline company, Zimmerly Air Transport, started service in Lewiston.
In 1946, Zimmerly Air Transport became Empire Airlines, the second certificated interstate airline in the United States to serve small-town America.
Today Lewiston is served by commercial airline service as a result of the pioneering efforts by Zimmerly Air Transport.
The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport continues to contribute to national defense, regional commerce development and public convenience. For example, federal dollars are contributed to all community airports in some form for national defense and commerce. Local dollars contributed in addition to federal dollars increase the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport’s total contribution to community commerce.
The question that was asked: Is the Lewiston airport financially sustainable?
Yes, with benefits.
The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport provides public convenience, necessity, commercial growth and national defense, as do the four bridges crossing two rivers in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.
Douglas Black
Lewiston
Ruled by a few
This year Robert Reich published a new book titled “The System.” In this book, Reich explains why he believes that the USA is now an oligarchy and not a democracy.
Reich wrote: “Today the great divide is not between the left and right. It’s between democracy and oligarchy.” We the people are not the masters, but the servants. Oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
Reich wrote: “Three big systematic changes over the last forty years have reallocated power upward in the system. They are (1) the shift in corporate governance from the stakeholder to shareholder capitalism, (2) the shift in bargaining power from large unions to giant corporations, and (3) the unleashing of the financial power of Wall Street.”
Antitrust laws are no longer enforced, resulting in unlimited power of corporations and essentially destroying the influence of labor unions.
The average American, Reich wrote, “has little wealth and has ‘near-zero, statistically non-significant’ political power. Almost all wealth and power now reside in the oligarchy.”
He cites a Rasmussen poll from the fall of 2014 in which 66 percent of the respondents believed most members of Congress didn’t care what their constituents thought, and 51 percent said even their own representatives didn’t care what they thought.
By definition. we are not a democracy. Question: What are we going to do about that fact? Nothing.
Tom Fellows
Lewiston
Pities Miller
Howard Miller, I read your letter in Sunday’s paper. All I can say is: I’m sorry. It must be so exhausting to wallow in a mind so full of hate.
Oh, and having to be right all the time — goodness, I can only imagine. Poor baby.
Oh, I know there are several others out there who dwell in the same state of hateful mind. I have read their letters, too.
My sympathy for your state of exhaustion as well. You are such an example for those of us that have the nerve to believe in tolerance toward others’ ideas, who even enjoy a good exchange without having to break into hate speech or even having to be right.
Not.
Nancy Clovis
Clarkston
Spending too much
We are in complete agreement with Lewiston City Councilor John Bradbury and the need for fiscal discipline at the city of Lewiston. With the latest property tax increase and increase in utilities rates, we are now paying more than $600 per month to live in our modest 1951 home on Normal Hill. It’s not like we live in Sun Valley, McCall or Coeur d’Alene, yet we have the second highest property taxes in the state.
No wonder so many people are moving out of the city limits.
The problem can be summed up in two words — uncontrolled spending. The staff asks and the council raises taxes and utility rates to pay for whatever it wants.
Please contact the city council and demand a change in its spending habits — or we will vote them out.
Brian and Sherri Rothfusz
Lewiston
