Molly Messick was StateImpact Idaho's broadcast reporter until May 2013. Prior to joining StateImpact and Boise State Public Radio, she was a reporter and host for Wyoming Public Radio. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
One North Idaho town — Potlatch — is honing its pitch to attract the gun industry and jobs. Local economic development official BJ Swanson is key to the effort. Not long ago, Swanson drove through an overgrown patch of ground on the outskirts of Potlatch, population 800. It’s a humble spot, but in it she sees the town’s future and its past.
Micron Technology CEO Mark Durcan spoke to a full house at the City Club of Boise today.
It was an opportunity to hear the new head of one of Boise’s most influential companies and largest employers discuss its market position and future.
Durcan stressed Micron’s strength in a notoriously volatile industry, and explained the strategic importance of acquiring bankrupt Japanese memory chip maker Elpida. That deal should be finalized by this spring, he said, pending the approval of Elpida’s creditors and antitrust approval from several countries.
It was Durcan’s answer to a question about education that drew the most significant response from the audience. Continue Reading →
Sayer says he's "not proud" of the financial difficulties he faced years before his appointment.
Idaho Commerce Department Director Jeff Sayer filed for personal bankruptcy in 2003, less than a decade before Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter appointed him to his current job. That’s according to an Idaho Statesman report this weekend.
Director Sayer’s bankruptcy was not public knowledge ahead of his appointment last fall, but it was known to Gov. Otter and a number of lawmakers, including at least one Democrat. Sayer today said he was deliberately forthcoming with those who vetted him for the Commerce Department’s top job. “Had I been an elected official, clearly it would have needed to be a public discussion,” he says. Continue Reading →
Workers prepare the main stage ahead of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.
Many prominent Idaho Republicans are packing their bags and heading to Tampa for the 2012 Republican National Convention.
The list of Idaho delegates includes Gov. C.L. “Butch” and Lori Otter, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, and multimillionaire Romney backers Frank and Belinda VanderSloot. The full list is available here.  Continue Reading →
Craig Nolte is a Regional Manager for Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, one of the event's sponsors.
A foreclosure counseling event in downtown Boise Wednesday offered a window into how homeowners are faring, years after Idaho’s foreclosure rate began to climb. The basic message was this: we’re not out of the woods yet.
In August 2011, Idaho’s foreclosure rate was the fifth highest in the nation, based on data from RealtyTrac. But the last twelve months brought positive change. Property values took a turn for the better, homebuilders reported rising demand, and the state’s foreclosure rate began to fall.
Still, the rate remains high, and that may not change soon. Gavin Gee heads the Idaho Department of Finance, one of the foreclosure workshop’s sponsors.
“Our economy, I think, overall is getting better, but we still have a lot of challenges in the general economy and the overall broader economy, and as long as we have those challenges, I think we’re still going to have foreclosure issues,” he says. Continue Reading →
Jim Tiede and Hans Hayden in Power County, in southeast Idaho.
Some of Idaho’s most fertile farm ground has been hit by the drought that’s crippling crops nationwide. Farmers who have deep wells and irrigation are faring well. Those who don’t aren’t. It’s one indication of the very different economics of dry-land and irrigated farming.
Farmer Hans Hayden says this spring wheat field is an almost total loss.
In Idaho’s arid, high desert, the drought has a mixed effect. There’s a big divide between farmers with deep wells and irrigation, and those without.
Hans Hayden is a rare find: a talkative farmer. He likes to explain things. But when it comes to the wheat he planted this spring, there’s not much to say. This field needed rain it didn’t get.
When Rockland voters went to the polls in May, 80 percent supported the school levy.
The Nampa School District has discovered a budget problem.
Last school year, due to an accounting error, it spent $2.8 million it didn’t have. Boise State Public Radio’sAdam Cotterell has the full story.
The given reason for the error is worth special note at StateImpact.
Superintendent Gary Larson tells Cotterell the miscalculation came about because the district’s finance team is understaffed. As state funding for districts fell in recent years, Larson says, he decided to leave some finance department positions unfilled.
“At the time it was a signal that we are in this together, the district office and the schools,” Larson says. “Well, as a result it impacted our finance department and I think we got too thin, and because we were thin I think we made these human errors.” Continue Reading →
Our recent story on Japanese homebuilding preferences and how they’ve helped one North Idaho sawmill led me to a guy named Roger Williams. He’s an architect based in Seattle, but he’s done a lot of work in Japan. He’s made dozens of trips there over the years.
I was trying to understand why there’s such a focus on wood quality in Japanese home construction. I wondered about the origins of that emphasis, and what it has meant for the Japanese housing market. Continue Reading →
Demand from overseas helped sustain small and rural timber towns as new home construction foundered.
Last week StateImpact told the story of Idaho Forest Group’s Laclede mill, which experienced its first shutdown in decades when the housing bubble burst, decimating lumber demand. The mill reopened thanks in large part to the company’s new focus on the export market.
The Wall Street Journal this week reports that the export market is helping to spur a similar turnaround in California timber towns, where timber revenues are on the rise. Continue Reading →
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