Idaho comments cause a stink in Georgia • Idaho Falls Airport to get an upgrade • The hot debate in Bonner County: a work-release center • Falls' Mayor to call on local businesses to go green • Remembering Ruby Ridge

Idaho comments cause a stink in Georgia

A comment made about Idaho by Gwinnett County, Georgia, Schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks has some parents calling for his ouster.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll recall the comment linked to last Friday in which Wilbanks said, "Do they have any blacks in Idaho? They don't have many."

Black and white Georgia parents were offended by the statement made by the nation's longest-serving superintendent.

While the NAACP and parents get on Wilbanks case and colleagues jump to his defense, the Idaho Newsreader wonders — what about an apology to Idahoans, Alvin?

Read more on the controversy from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site here.

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Idaho Falls Airport to get an upgrade

All of the passenger airlines at the Idaho Falls Airport except Horizon will stop service from September 2nd to the end of the month because the airport will be shutting down the main runway to rebuild it.

According to LocalNews8, the eastern Idaho ABC affiliate, that will leave the airport with only a shorter runway for flights, and most of the airliners are too big to land on it.

It will cost nine million dollars to replace and re-surface 9,000 feet of runway. The federal government will pay 95 percent of the cost.

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The hot debate in Bonner County: a work-release center

The Bonner County Daily Bee reports that the need for a work-release center in the county "continues to be hotly debated in the court of law and public opinion."

"Nationally, there is a downturn in using these types of work-release facilities because they're so expensive to run," Daryl Wheeler, Bonner County's Republican nominee for sheriff, said last week.

The story says rising housing costs and tightening budgets are causing governments to embrace reduced jail use as a sentencing option.

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Falls' Mayor to call on local businesses to go green

The Post-Register reports that Idaho Falls' mayor today will call on local businesses to follow City Hall's lead and conserve energy.

Mayor Jared Fuhriman is expected to unveil lighting improvements made at the 78-year-old City Hall building.

Those improvements — installation of fluorescent bulbs and motion sensors, among others — will result in 62,774 kilowatt-hour savings per year.

The city will recoup the project's $13,189.56 total cost, covered by Bonneville Power Administration rebates and credits, in two years.

Read more at the Post-Register's Web site. (Subscription required)

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Remembering Ruby Ridge

On this day in Idaho history in 1992, fugitive neo-Nazi leader Randall Weaver opened fire on U.S. marshals from inside his Idaho mountaintop home in Ruby Ridge.

His wife and teenage son and a deputy marshal died during the 11-day standoff.

See more on this day in history here.