ANDR EW C R IS P
TROUBLE IN THE HART-LAND
IO N R E T R AT L U S L A -R A D L T O IL PHO A RAME L E IL
NEWS
NEWS/CITYDESK
Embattled lawmaker faced rude awakening ZACH HAGADONE The city of Hayden doesn’t look like much from U.S. Highway 95—nothing more than the northern-most appendage of a sprawling strip that has become the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene corridor. Visitors tool past posh suburban developments with street names like Stratford Drive, Whispering Pines Road and Canticleer Court. McMansions abound as Hayden turns into the City of Hayden Lake, dominated by the Avondale Gold Club and Hayden Lake Country Club. This is Phil Hart country. With an official population of just more than 9,000 residents, Hayden is the biggest city in Idaho’s recently redrawn Legislative District 2, and while Rep. Hart lives in nearby Athol, it’s in Hayden that he has to lock up enough votes to hold onto his 2B seat for a fifth term. It may be the GOP lawmaker’s biggest challenge yet. While his staunch libertarian and “constitutional” stances have made him a hero of the far-right wing, Hart’s political baggage looks to be weighing him down. First there was the messy business of Hart’s alleged theft of state-owned timber back in 1996, then the matter of his procedural wrangling to get out of paying more than $500,000 in back income taxes and fines. Though Hart maintains that his refusal to pay up is a stance against what he calls unconstitutional taxation, both issues resulted in ethics hearings in 2010 that led to his being booted off the House Revenue and Taxation Committee. Now, with the U.S. District Court’s ruling that legislative immunity won’t protect Hart
from paying the piper, the bad (and weird) news keeps piling up. On April 2, Hart found himself in the middle of a crime scene when he was awakened by sheriff’s deputies while sleeping in his car at a Latah County rest area where a 28-year-old Princeton woman was shot by an apparent stalker. Hart claimed he slept through the incident. Bedeviled by so much drama, Hart’s former image as a Samuel Adams-style anti-federalist firebrand is for many voters morphing into something of a Don Quixote character—sans the noble intentions. Indeed, though Hayden may be Hart country, it’s hard to tell during a pre-primary drive around town. On some streets, every third house boasts a “Ron Paul for President” yard sign. Notably absent are Phil Hart materials. His challenger, Democrat Dan English, meanwhile, looks to be getting his message out. English, a respected former Hayden city councilman, served as Kootenai County clerk and a member of the local school board. Political wonks are beginning to suggest that this election may be the first in 18 years in which a Democrat has a shot in the district. But English isn’t the only contender for Hart’s seat. Ed Morse (a real estate appraiser), former Republican Rep. Ron Vieselmeyer and local firefighter Fritz Wiedenhoff have also thrown their hats in the ring to challenge Hart in the Tuesday, May 15, GOP primary. That is far heftier competition than Hart is used to. First elected with 60 percent of the vote in 2004, Hart won again (2006) and
Things are anything but happy at Happy Land.
IRAQI HOOKAH OWNER SAYS LAW IS TAKING AWAY HIS CULTURE Wake up, again Mr. Hart. It’s (2008) a sheriff’s and again deputy. (running unopposed in 2010). What’s more, Hart is also among the targets of a newly created group of prominent Republicans seeking “reasonable” GOP candidates. Calling itself the North Idaho Political Action Committee, the group made up of area business leaders and former political power brokers, has made no secret of its desire to cull lawmakers like Hart from the Republican establishment—in fact, the group formally endorsed Morse for Hart’s seat on April 5. Hart’s biggest political liability among many voters is that his agenda seems to be himself. At least that’s the temperature of much public discussion, including comments on the Coeur d’Alene Press website, where opinions seem split: one camp maintains that Hart remains an anti-tax crusader, and the other holds the view that while Hart may be fighting the good libertarian fight against unfair taxation, he has lost the moral high ground. As one commenter wrote: “These latest cases are about what level of tax Hart has to pay. It has nothing do with any others’ liability, this time it’s personal. Time to pay up.”
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS Boise parking meters get smart ANDREW CRISP Boise has quietly unveiled its next generation of parking meters. Fifty-eight new meters are expected to be in place in the coming weeks. The first ones have quietly appeared on Bannock Street, between Eighth Street and Capitol Boulevard. More are expected in Boise’s BODO district. “I think they’re pretty spiffy looking,” said Rob Centeno as he exited his SUV. “Wait, is there a 20-minute button?” Centeno scanned the digital face of the “modern meter,” as the city is calling them, looking for the button that gives a free 20 minutes of parking time. “As long as there’s a 20-minute button, I’m good,” said Centeno. A senior gentleman named Spencer Wood, however, struggled to find the button, giving up to duck inside the post office. WWW. B OISEWEEKLY.C O M
“I’m done with that,” he said. “I can’t figure this out.” The meters to be installed in BODO will be somewhat different. Parking spaces will be numbered and motorists will pay a central machine that serves multiple spaces. “We’ve got these machines from May to June, maybe a bit into July,” said Max Clark, Capital City Development Corporation’s parking and facilities director. “We’ll collect data on ease of use
and what people think of them.” Some of the new meters (approximately 10 percent) will be accompanied by street sensors, designed to detect the presence of a vehicle. “[The sensors] won’t have a camera to detect when a car has come or gone,” said Clark. But they will know the vehicle’s length of stay and keep button-happy residents from ducking out to repeatedly press the 20-minute button. The meters run on solar power. “Our meter enforcement shuts off at 6 o’clock, so you can shut them off and actually save the batteries,” said Craig Croner with Boise’s Administrative Services Division. The technology also offers an option to pay by cellphone. “If you subscribe to the service, you will get a prompt on your cellphone, and you can pay for an extra hour,” said Clark.
Ambitiously set in the huge space of the former Play it Again Sports at 8001 W. Fairview Ave., Ed Alghizi’s hookah bar, Happy Land, is struggling. “They don’t come,” said Alghizi. “A couple people, maybe.” Alghizi and his partner, Lami Abdulridha, were cited for permitting patrons to puff within the building and to smoke cigarettes themselves in a back room. Additionally, they were charged with allowing a 17-year-old to enter the building, something Alghizi blamed on his doorman, who was also charged. “When the police officer come, they say, ‘Talk to the city,’” said Alghizi. “Why are you working for the city if you don’t know [the law]?” Alghizi said he was met with confusion from Boise City Hall employees and lack of response from the City Attorney’s Office. “This Boise law, they don’t give you a chance,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.” However, BPD spokeswoman Lynn Hightower said Alghizi and Abdulridha were even given a hard copy of the law by Ralph Blount of the City Attorney’s Office. “Officers went to every business that would be affected before the smoking ban went into place. Ninety-nine point nine percent of business owners and staff, they get it; they’re in compliance,” said Hightower. Tobacconists, such as cigar shops, avoid the ban by keeping seating limited, making tobacco 95 percent of their business and offering no live music. According to the law, seating for more than a handful of people and the inclusion of live music—a hookah staple—means no indoor smoke. Alghizi said he opened the club not more than a month after the bill passed. He acknowledged the lousy timing. The middle-aged Iraqi father of two speaks English well, a skill he uses to offset his partner, who doesn’t speak English well. Together, the two opened Happy Land, which has a posted occupancy, written in magic marker above the door, of 140. “They’re taking my culture away from me,” said Alghizi. “What kind of freedom is that? I came to this country for that freedom. I don’t see that freedom.” However, Alghizi admits he wouldn’t go back home to Iraq, though he misses it “very much.” His 18-year-old brother was recently killed fighting in the country. “You want to move forward, but somebody slap you all the way back,” he said. Alghizi said he feels like he was “kept down” by the law, and will struggle to keep his doors open for the remainder of his three-year lease. —Andrew Crisp
BOISEweekly | APRIL 11–17, 2012 | 9