Parks Director Doug Eastwood gave one of the best presentations of the evening at the Coeur d'Alene City Council special meeting to discuss McEuen Field changes last night. He pointed out that visionists encountered stiff opposition originally to the North Idaho Centennial Trail, the Kroc Center, and even the Coeur d'Alene Library. Time has proven those capital improvements to be wildly popular and successful. I remember reporting on meetings where Pinevilla residents and the industrial section of Seltice Way (IFI, Central Premix, et al) fought valiantly against the trail concept. Pinevilla residents predicted undesireable bicyclists would rove through their communities looking for things to steal and homes to burglarized. Opposition was so fierce that then Commissioner Frank Henderson proposed naming the Spokane River as a symbolic trail link between Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene and forgetting about an actual trail. Today's paved trail between the two communities provides mute testimony re: the lack of vision of Henderson and others. Also, who can forget the still anonymous individuals who signed a letter asking the Citizens United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., to try to stop the Kroc Center? About 25 to 35% of this community always seems to be against things. Unfortunately, given the economics, the rabble rousers of that group have been able to whip up worried residents to oppose almost anything progressive, from the Education Corridor to changes at McEuen Field. I'm willing to say now that the naysayers against the education corridor and upgraded McEuen Field will be proven as wrong as IFI/Pinevilla/Henderson were in the past -- DFO.