Treasured Valley

Going smoke free, Nampa Rollerdrome, Macy’s, NCA, bring out the clubs and Neagle…

• Three Boise bars spend first weekend smoke free. The smoke may be out but a Boise bar owner says business was on fire this weekend.
• Still Open for Business. The Rollerdrome roller-skate rink is still open for business after 62 years. There were around 200 people there of all ages, Saturday. Every week it’s a party at the Nampa Rollerdrome.
• New development to keep Idahoans in Haiti, for now. The Haitian Justice Minister says the investigation into the new element, will dig deeper to see if Silsby and Coulter should stay in Haiti or be released.
• Painters take advantage of spring weather to capture local colors.

• Macy’s in Downtown Boise closes doors for the last time. The walls were stripped Sunday. Fixtures and equipment moved out the door at deeply discounted prices. The only retail items left were rugs and furs.
• U.S. unemployment holds, Idaho report delayed. The U.S. unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent in February as employers shed 36,000 jobs, fewer than expected. The figures suggested the job market is slowly healing but that significant hiring has yet to occur.
• Embattled Nampa charter school to meet with parents. The Idaho Public Charter School Commission voted Thursday to begin the lengthy process of revoking the academy’s charter because the school failed to produce financial documents on time.
• Warm Weather Brings Out The Clubs. The Treasure Valley boasts to be a place where you can hit the links year-round.
• Testimony begins in Boise re-sentencing trial for convicted rapist and killer Darrell Payne. Testimony began Friday in the re-sentencing hearing for convicted killer and rapist Darrell Payne — the man who terrorized Boise in the summer of 2000 when he raped and murdered Boise State student Samantha Maher and sexually assaulted two teen girls on the Greenbelt.
• Neagle pleads guilty, tells of abuse. In dramatic court testimony Friday as he admitted fatally shooting his father, Zachary Neagle, 15, said Jason Neagle had sexually abused him since he was 8 or 9 years old and he feared for his younger brother and sister.
• Judge denies motion to release Zachary Neagle on reduced bond.
• Pair charged with looting historic Idaho mine. A man and woman accused by federal prosecutors of looting a historic Idaho mine are set to stand trial in Boise’s U.S. District Court this week.
• Fuel Boise lights way for young professionals. Area leads groups left John West with a bad feeling. “There are a lot of them around here,” he said. “You go to the meetings, there’s lots of people and they base the success of the group on the leads they get, not on what they give.”
• Last round of school vaccine clinics hits Meridian. Starting this week a team of nurses with Central District Health will hold a h1n1 vaccine clinic at 30 elementary schools in the Meridian School District.
• Woman crashes car into tree on ParkCenter Boulevard. The westbound lanes of ParkCenter Boulevard were briefly shut down Friday afternoon after a vehicle ran off the road and hit a tree near River Run Drive.
• Cultivating a preference for Idaho. In last week’s blog I suggested that the Tea Party movement take on the cause of wresting control of our nation’s food supply from the forces of Big Government farm policy and return us to a more balanced and sustainable agricultural model. While admittedly taking a somewhat tongue-in-cheek approach to what I consider a very serious subject, I’d like to continue that discussion with a story of how “small government” can be a part of the solution to the imbalances in our food supply. This is the story of Idaho Preferred.
• Local agencies take hit at pump. With the price of gas rising well above $4 a gallon and no end in sight, public agencies in Gem County have been hit hard. Since budgets are currently being written for the next fiscal year, officials are scrambling to cut costs and find the money for their fuel budgets while having to anticipate how high prices may rise.
• Nampa teen, passenger hospitalized after crash. A single-vehicle rollover crash on Interstate 84 near the Kimberly exit sent two people to the hospital early Sunday, including the driver from Nampa.
• New Ideas for Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention in Idaho. Prevention can be accomplished – and families and communities have the power to make it happen. It’s a new way of thinking about child abuse and neglect prevention that calls on looking at the issue as a public health concern.