safety and growth in Treasure Valley

Boise, ID (CBS2) — This election season, there are many issues vital to people here in the Treasure Valley.Today we continue our "Open Mic" segment, giving you a voice on those issues.

I spent an afternoon at Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park in Meridian asking people a simple question: "What's the most important local issue to you?"

Connie Radford, Middleton resident, said "What I've noticed is we've lost our compassion and patience with each other. We have so many accidents on the road coming into Middleton. We have a lot of teenagers that have been involved in accidents. I would just like to see people slow down and bet courteous. Let's care about each other, watch out for each other and watch out for our youth, so that we can cut these accidents down."

Tannis Abbott of Nampa shares a similar view, saying "Probably safety of children and just being able to be out here and not worry and just be that the community is able to have that safety. Watching out for each other and the police interaction which they have done quite well -- but I think a lot of it has to do with community and watching out for each other."

Traffic and safety were both the most important issues for Ethel Warner of Emmett. Warner stated, "I think most of the people in Emmett right now are extremely frustrated and concerned about Highway 16 and all of the traffic and the safety. It's very unsafe to go up Highway 16 right now - we have so many gravel trucks - the highway needs to be widened; we need more law enforcement out there. Some aren't driving the speed limit and going way over it. Lots of broken windshields. It's very frustrating."

Geza Engel of Eagle is impressed with the way local communities have been able to manage their growth. He remarked, "So the growth I think is good for the economy, it's good for investors, growth is good for business, so I commend the way Meridian - it's beauty - and Eagle - it's beauty - is managed." He went on to say, "So I'm very happy to be seeing that the money that everybody's paying into taxes is highly visible."

The most important local issue for Nampa resident, Rhodonna Roberts, are detours out on the roads. She states, "A lot of the road closures have been every day, it seems like there is a road that's closed that we don't know about, and so we get lots of detours... Construction is important, but it's really been a problem getting around. Everyone that comes to see us says there were detours everywhere."

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