Congratulations to the varsity and junior varsity football teams for their commanding wins over the Buhl Indians in the first game of the season. Great Job! It is always good to start the season with a win!
Last Saturday, I went to our airport to watch the short take-off and landing competition that I wrote about last week. It was billed as the first of its kind. The goal was for the pilots to project their time to quickly take-off, slowly fly half way down the runway, and then touch down to land within a 100-foot space. The pilot with the closest actual time to the projection was the winner. The competition was set up to allow any pilot with any type of plane with any skill level to have a chance to win the contest. It didn’t matter how fast or slow, it was how well the pilot predicted their time.
What was interesting to me was to watch the different techniques to accomplish this purpose. Some would skim just above the runway while sideslipping the plane to lower their airspeed. Others would take off quickly, gain some height, and then glide down to land. There were all kinds of variation in between. The skill level of the pilots was amazing.
The entire event appeared to go off without a hitch. Jim Metzger, our airport manager, did a great job hosting the contest. Hopefully, this will become an annual event and a nice draw to Weiser. If it does, you will want to go see this next year.
In other news, some of you may have heard that Weiser has received money from the American Rescue Plan Act. According to an “Interim Final Rule” from the U.S. Treasury Office, local governments can have some discretion in spending these funds within four set purposes.
One of the purposes is for infrastructure; specifically for water, waste water, and broadband services. The thinking in City Hall at this time, subject to City Council approval of course, it that the best use of these funds will be for water and waste water infrastructure. This last spring, the City Council authorized a 5-year-master-facilities plan as part of our normal planning process. The results of this plan will be out sometime this fall. The thinking is to use this plan as a starting point to bring our water infrastructure up to speed to meet the City’s anticipated needs for the next 5 years.
The economic benefit would not be immediate. However, these improvements would otherwise have to be paid out in the future from funds received from your utility bills. Instead, using the ARPA funds in this way will allow the City to not raise rates in the foreseeable future because the infrastructure investment expense planned for the future would already be made. Using the funds in this manner goes along with the economic principle of using one-time income to pay for one-time expenses.
On the COVID front, the number of new cases continues to increase each week. In looking at projections from the District Health office, the prediction is that we are just seeing the beginning of a surge that is expected to be several times greater than what was experienced last winter.
Also, the District Health’s numbers are showing that the length of time a person is ill is lengthening. This coupled with the higher number of cases, indicates we may be in for a rough few months.
The numbers are also showing that vaccinated people are rarely experiencing the serious symptoms requiring hospitalization. So, again, if you have not been vaccinated, now is the time to do so. It is also not a bad idea to begin wearing masks and distancing again. The Delta variant is and is expected to continue to spread fast.
Well, that’s it for this week. Hope yours is wonderful and please stay safe out there!
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