With an endorsement from retiring City Council member Jim Tibbs, David Litster, has further established himself as the anti-establishment candidate in what is becoming Boise's most interesting council race.

A longtime police officer who briefly served as police chief, Tibbs has been something of a contrarian voice during his four years on the council.

Boise City Hall has bungled the streetcar issue so badly that it has handed a nice fat opening to an anti-establishment candidate.

David Litster, an opponent of the $65 million streetcar project, wants to launch a petition drive to put the question on the Nov. 3 city ballot.

He says the city clerk's office has told him he will need bout 6,500 signatures from registered voters in order to get the question on the ballot. "I say to the city: 'Before you saddle us with a ridiculous trolley, get our permission.'"

As part of my legwork for Friday's editorial on Boise City Hall's streetcar public outreach contract, I posed a list of questions to Adam Park, Mayor Dave Bieter's spokesman.

Because Park's answers are pretty detailed — and because of the controversy surrounding the streetcar contract — I thought it would be useful to post the questions and Park's responses in full:

1. Considering the city's well-documented budget challenges, how does the city justify the $90,000 expenditure on a public relations contract?

Everyone knows there's no "I" in "team."

There is, however, an "I" in "egocentric."

Commissioner Sara Baker shut down Wednesday's Ada County Highway District meeting by throwing a tantrum worthy of a second-tier reality show. Baker's problem: Her name doesn't appear on a plaque at the new East ParkCenter Bridge, opened in September.

Baker, sworn in in January, demanded to know why her name was omitted. "This is exactly what Stalin did during his reign. He purged history. He changed history. And this is not something that is appropriate in the United States."

Nowadays, members of Congress are in a big hurry to try to slow themselves down.

And while one can certainly question the motives, in a pitched political climate, I don't question the stated objective. If voters have more time to review what Congress is doing, that's a good thing.

Sure, I could try to predict next month's city elections. But it's time to take a quick hiatus from politics, however briefly:

I reserve the right to change my league championship series and World Series picks, if and when my division series picks get blown up:

American League Division Series

On Thursday's Statesman Opinion page, Cecil Andrus touted Monsanto's proposed Blackfoot Bridge Mine project. The mine would preserve more than 700 jobs near Soda Springs, provide phosphate ore for Monsanto's Roundup herbicide — and, in Andrus' words, "establish an innovative, forward-looking level of stewardship that sets the environmental bar higher for future projects."

Journalism and politics are itinerant worlds — particularly in Idaho. Paths cross over and over. Titles change. People don't change much.

Chuck Oxley was always smart and opinionated, good-natured and sharp-witted. It didn't matter whether he was a fellow newspaper editor, a candidate for state Legislature or a spokesman for the Idaho Democratic Party — and I got to know Chuck in all of these roles. At his core, he was always the same person.

In two recent editorials, I have written that public schools sustained a 7.7 percent budget cut in 2009-10.

And that's true of Idaho general fund dollars — which are traditionally the coin of the realm when politicos talk about state budget trends. The 2009-10 general fund appropriation for K-12 was just over $1.3 billion, down from $1.42 billion a year ago.

That doesn't tell the whole story, says the state Education Department. The state put $60.6 million of federal economic stimulus money into the 2009-10 budget, which puts the cut at 3.2 percent.

One month into the school year, universities are being forced to scramble to absorb a 6 percent "holdback" in state funding.

The University of Idaho will have to find $5 million in cuts from its general fund and $1.5 million from its agricultural and extension service. In a letter to faculty and staff Friday, new U of I President Duane Nellis pledged to develop a "mid-year budget plan" to manage operating expenses, capital outlay, vacancies and salaries and benefits.