Tom Taggart (RE: Latest Souza mailer): This is a case of someone repeating something long enough that others begin to believe it. In the first place, having a vibrant downtown is essential to the overall health of any city. In the mid 80's I owned a cafe downtown and one evening at dinnertime my partner put a chair in the middle of Sherman and sat down. It was 15 minutes before he had to move. Try that today and see how many seconds before you need to move.. Downtown has been transformed and that is a good thing. Contrary to the naysayers, the majority of people enjoying downtown and the parks and the library are not rich elitists, they are families and ordinary working people. The same will be true when the new park opens. I live in a neighborhood close to downtown and I WISH our sidewalks and street lights were have as good as many northern subdivisions. The reason many neighborhoods in the north have parks, trails, good lighting and roads is because the city required developers to meet standards that required those things. There are over 100 acres of city parks north of I-90 and 80 of those acres are in parks dedicated while Sandy was mayor. The new city police department was located in a central location. I think if I lived in the north of the city I would rather have a centrally located police department, than a library.

Question: Tom brings up a great point. 2 fire substations are centrally located in Coeur d'Alene, as is the Police Department. Also, much of the park expansion has taken place in the central and northern parts of Coeur d'Alene (not counting the huge McEuen Field makeover). Do you really think that the Bloem administration has ignored the rest of Coeur d'Alene, as Mary claims?