Welcome to Boise, turn your clock back 250 years... where there´s only one branch of government in Idaho, The Bobs: Gov Joe Bob, Senator Billy Bob, and Supreme Court Justice Suzy Bob. What an incestuous mess!
Strap yourself in. Boise´s Watergate is a political roller coaster. Someone stole $136 million in Public Education funds at University Place -- after tricking the taxpayers into "renting" a new Court House for $100 million. Whodunit? Was it Cryptic Partners or the Boise lawyers or Governor Kempthorne or Colonel Mustard in the Library with a Revolver?
If you think Boise´s Watergate can´t happen in your city, think again:
Florida´s Overland Express, FOX, pulled the plug when the estimate for its public-private Florida bullet train ballooned from $4 billion to $13 billion to $40 billion. (FOX was cited as one of Cryptic Partners´ qualifications to develop Boise´s Watergate.)
In Honolulu, Hawaii, 40% of the contractors working on the $1 billion BRT were under investigation, indicted, or convicted for money laundering to local politicians.
Sioux City, Iowa taxpayers financed a $35 million Theatre-Hotel Complex. Then, public-private developer Cryptic Partners -- who forgot to add the seats, drinking fountains and bathrooms -- defaulted on 67% of the Complex.
Seattle, Washington´s $2 billion light rail system was derailed when public-private estimates skyrocketed to over $8 billion.
A recent study, Megaprojects and Risks (Cambridge University Press), cited the leading cause of public-private failures: "lying" by public-private developers.
What they´re saying about Boise´s Watergate...
"Of course it was a fix. It's an incestuous mess." - Senator Stan Hawkins (R-Ucon), 18-year veteran legislator who voted NO on the University Place fiasco (source: Idaho Statesman)
"You are on the right track. But you need deeper background. I have it. I know where every skeleton is buried. But I need deepest cover. You cannot reveal anything about me, not even where or how or by what means you obtain info from me. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. You must protect this source even if a judge threatens to send you to jail for contempt." - Deepest Throat, anonymous source
"I was the odd-man out on the Ada County Commission during the new court house fiasco and opposed that absurdly obvious scheme to evade the Idaho Constitution´s prohibition on long-term indebtedness without a vote of the people." - Gary Glenn, Ada County Commissioner (1991-1997)
"Weighted, W-E-I-G-H-T-E-D." - Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthome, referring to his alleged rigging of the Idaho Water Center's bidding process with a secret 27 percent "co-location" factor (source, Idaho Statesman)
"Finally, somebody with the brains and guts enough to connect the dots between the
