This valuable and effective commission has won many awards including the 2016 Outstanding Evaluation Award from the American Evaluation Association. It promotes confidence and accountability in state government.

Some of our legislative leaders seem to be trying to pull a fast one by changing the OPE to a partisan entity though HB68. Don’t let this happen.We need this independent commission to continue working as a nonpartisan office doing the important work of evaluating state government programs to insure they are cost-efficient and effective.

Contact your state legislators and ask them to leave the Office of Performance Evaluations as it is. HB68 is a BAD idea for Idaho and Idahoans.

Kayla Dodson, Boise

50th anniversary of Operation Homecoming

I was extremely disappointed today, 12 Feb, the 50th anniversary of Operation Homecoming, to see nothing in your newspaper mentioning the release of our POWs by the North Vietnamese (unless you count the three pathetic lines in Today in History. You didn't even give the event the courtesy of being Today's Highlight in History. Three USAF C-141s flew from Clark AB, in the Philippines to Hanoi and brought out 120 American POWs, a few who had been there for eight years. I know it's been fifty years, but those 120 Americans deserve to be remembered for the sacrifices they made. I was a crew member on the first aircraft into Hanoi and I am appalled by the lack of tribute to these men.

John Shinoskie, Caldwell