Idaho Falls Parks & Recreation to unveil survey results tonight

The Idaho Falls Parks & Recreation Department will roll out the results of their communitywide RECreate IF survey at a public meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at The Waterfront at Snake River Landing.

“This is important to our community because it gives us information that will help us craft RECreate IF, which is our strategic plan and our comprehensive master plan," said Interim Parks & Recreation Director P.J. Holm. "Together those plans will help us determine what, where and how to build for the future of Idaho Falls Parks & Recreation facilities.”

The survey was mailed to Idaho Falls community members in April, and garnered hundreds of community responses.  It was also available for people to take online, to provide their input and suggestions.

“The mailed surveys had a really great response, well beyond what we’d hoped, that will provide us with statistically valid data for our plans,” Holm said. “The online component was also important, as it gives us more of a qualitative understanding of the how the community feels. Both those pieces together give us a pretty complete view of the direction we should be heading.”

The meeting is open to the public. Results from the survey, and information about RECreate IF will also be posted on the department’s webpage, located at www.idahofallsidaho.gov and at www.ifparkplans.com.

Fall River Electric Co-op annual meeting set for Saturday

Fall River Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting for owner-members, featuring the theme “People, Power, Purpose,” is set for Saturday in Ashton and will highlight another outstanding year of achievements.

First established in 1938 by farm families around the Ashton area, the cooperative now boasts over 14,000 members and more than 17,000 meters that receive power transmitted over 2,300 miles of lines. Fall River’s service area includes all of Teton Valley, Island Park, West Yellowstone and rural portions of Fremont, Madison and Jefferson counties. It is one of only three electric cooperatives in eastern Idaho.

The annual meeting is free to all customers that receive power from Fall River Electric. The day will start with a free breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and a beverage, to be served from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. inside North Fremont High School in Ashton. In celebration of the co-
op’s excellent year, the first 500 members attending will receive a free ceramic knife set with peeler. Attending members may also enter a drawing for a $1,000 energy credit as well as thousands of dollars in other prizes.

As a family event, Fall River’s annual meeting will feature kids’ activities including bucket truck rides, bounce houses, face painting and rides in the Fall River Propane train. Nearly two dozen vendor booths offering information and free prizes will be featured, too. Vendors include an RV dealer, financial and health care providers and local agencies. Smokey Bear will also be in attendance, courtesy of the Ashton district office of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

For the first time ever, Fall River will provide a free Medicare seminar, conducted by representatives of the Ballard Insurance agency.

During the annual business meeting, which starts at 10 a.m., owner-members will be finalizing the election of three board of director members from a field of ten candidates as well as a couple of proposed bylaw changes Members will also receive a financial report. In addition to the board election, Anita Decker, former executive director of the Northwest Public Power Administration will be a guest speaker during the business meeting.

New property management company offers help with rentals

Blue Pine Property Management has opened at 1820 E. 17th Street, Suite 135, specializing in managing residential real estate in Idaho Falls and surrounding areas.

"The community is growing quickly and the rental market is very strong," said Tyson Luthy, who started the company in April after more than seven years in the property management business. "We have developed a very owner-friendly management system that includes a 'vacancy guarantee' and 'pet guarantee' at no additional cost. These guarantees protect a property owner against potential vacancies or pet damages."

Blue Pine also owns rental properties in Idaho Falls. "We can relate to the concerns that property owners sometimes have," he said. "We believe that good management is the key to minimizing risk in real estate, and our experience and knowledge of the local market has allowed us to consistently help investors grow their portfolios and reach their financial goals."

The company offers flexible terms and a month-to-month management agreement that can be cancelled at any time. "We stand behind our work and don't want anybody to stay with us just because they are stuck in a contract," Luthy said.

For more information, visit the company's website, www.bluepinepm.com, call (208) 243-9492 or email info@bluepinepm.com.

Who remembers the age of the switchboard?

Switchboard operators in New York City, courtesy of the New York Daily News photo archive.

Raise your hand if you can remember when your phone number began with JAckson. Hmmm ... not many of you, are there?

Hard to as it may be to believe, but there was a day when the prefix to every number began with a word, its first two letters capitalized. Idaho Falls was JA, for JAckson. "JAckson 3-7393" may sound like a Wilson Pickett song (dating myself again), but it's actually the number I had for more than 30 years.

According to the Telephone EXchange Name Project, Blackfoot was SUnset, Rexburg was either ELmwood or ELwood and Rigby was SHerwood. There is a database where you can go to look up any town or city in the U.S.A. This makes me so glad we have the Internet.

Here's the cherry on top: A chart of Ma Bell's officially recommended exchange names. According to it, my smart phone number, 821-1285, should begin with one of the following: TAlbot, TAlmadge, TAylor, VAlley or VAndyke. I think Taylor rolls off the tongue best, e.g. "Hey man, call me at TAylor 1-1285." Of course, now you have to dial the area code first, another sign our world is in decline.

The past has so much to give us that's fun and fascinating. Could we marry the conveniences of the present with everything from the past that makes us smile? Or does the past make us smile because it's the past? In 50 years, maybe people will think of selfies as fondly as I do of my old phone number, OLympia 5-9822. I doubt it, but who knows? I don't expect to be around to find out.

INL Resilience Optimization Center established to help federal agencies, private industry

With impacts from natural disasters and human-caused incidents on the rise, resiliency — the ability to withstand impacts and rapidly recover from different degrees of disruption — has become a top priority.

With impacts from natural disasters and human-caused incidents on the rise, resiliency – the ability to withstand impacts and rapidly recover from different degrees of disruption – has become a top priority in the first two decades of the 21st century. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disaster declarations between 2005 and 2014 rose 35 percent compared to the previous decade, costing $106 billion in federal assistance. Cyberattacks — more than half of which are preventable — cost an estimated $400 billion annually worldwide.

Now Idaho National Laboratory has established the INL Resilience Optimization Center (IROC) as an innovation center for system resilience and risk management. The center draws from INL’s extensive track record as a world leader in critical infrastructure systems analysis and security, as well as its unique, large-scale test ranges.

“Our national defense, economic prosperity and quality of life have long depended on critical infrastructures such as energy, water, transportation and telecommunications,” said IROC director Ron Fisher. “The rapid proliferation of telecommunications and computer systems all connected to each other has created new dimensions of vulnerability and risk to every organization. INL has been focusing on this in unique ways for a long time, and the IROC is INL’s commitment to offer resilience solutions to the nation.”

The IROC can organize multidisciplinary teams and lab-wide lifeline-infrastructure capabilities that are scalable to any asset, system or network, regardless of function or geography. Its experts also can analyze the resilience impacts posed by cyber-physical relationships and infrastructure dependencies and interdependencies.

In short, the IROC is a highly collaborative center that employs tools and resources from across the federal government, along with commercially available resources. By leveraging existing expertise, tools, test infrastructures and other partner capabilities, the IROC can comprehensively analyze the state of stakeholder resilience and provide optimized solutions that will yield observable results.

Forming a plan to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures requires owners/operators to determine the ability of the system to withstand specific threats and then return to normal operations following degradation. Thus, a resilience methodology requires comprehensive consideration of all parts of critical infrastructure systems—from threats to consequences. The methodology must generate reproducible results that can support decision-making in risk management, disaster response and business continuity.

With the ability to provide personal attention to individual challenges posed by resilience gaps, the IROC can optimize a broad range of solutions to fit distinctive situations for federal agencies and private companies.

For more information, visit https://resilience.inl.gov or email resilience@inl.gov.