N. Idaho Basks In Economic Glow From Production Of ‘Dante’s Peak’

This is straight out of the movies.

Last spring, raging floodwaters nearly washed away Dan Hagman’s bar and RV park, nestled deep in a high river valley far up in the wilds of North Idaho.

The owner of Albert’s Place & The Otter Park, about a mile above Enaville on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River in the middle of nowhere, applied to the federal Small Business Administration for a $126,000 repair loan. He got turned down.

Then Hollywood came to the rescue.

Universal Studios paid Hagman to fix up his own place. Then it leased his property to erect a movie set. And now, the studio is preparing to blow up his place again.

Well, not all of it. Just parts. Like the brand new gas station the studio built on his land. “It looks so real,” sighs Hagman, who’s never had a gas station before and would love to keep this one.

“They have been shooting a river scene for three weeks,” he explained a few days ago. “They are going to have a car crossing the bridge, and they will blow it up in the computer,” says Hagman. “Other cars will wreck up, and still others will float down the river.”

And his new gas station will be blasted to smithereens. For real. But he’ll still have the rest of his business intact, which is a lot more than he would have without Universal.

Says the bedazzled business owner of his Hollywood benefactors, “They’ve been a real blessing.”

Other weird and wonderful economic tales continue to leak out of Wallace and vicinity since filming began on “Dante’s Peak,” a $95 million extravaganza about a volcano erupting.

Many residents are renting out their homes to movie makers for big bucks. Dr. Richard Vester, a Wallace optometrist, gave up his home to leading lady Linda Hamilton, and commutes 30 miles to his practice these days. Just where co-star Pierce Brosnan (Hollywood’s reigning 007) hangs his hat remains secret.

The film’s producers have been buying and renting up the town, erecting building shells all around, hiring helpers right and left.

“We’re seeing an awful lot more money around town these days,” says Wallace Chamber of Commerce director Nancy Hanks. “It’s a good life. I wish we could do it all the time.”

More than 1,000 extras have been employed. The studio estimates direct economic impact will top $5 million. But Idaho Department of Commerce film specialist Peg Christ thinks that very well may be just a drop in the bucket.

“If ‘Dante’s Peak’ turns out to be a box office smash,” says Christ, “and if that district markets itself as it should, North Idaho could see a sizable increase in tourism. People will come and wonder where the mountain is - the one that’s being created in a computer.”

Budget projections look promising

The Washington Research Council reports new budget projections by the state Office of Financial Management indicate that existing state spending practices should pose no money problems during the next couple of years.

Extrapolating the current spending pattern out for the duration of the next biennium, and adding annual inflation factors of 2.5 percent and 2.9 percent would bring the state well within projected revenues for the general fund.

However, expenditures would have to be cut back $89 million to comply with the spending limit imposed by Initiative 601. That would contribute to a biennium-ending surplus of more than half a billion dollars.

The non-partisan business-funded think tank’s researchers said lawmakers should seek ways to control health care costs for state employees, which continue to escalate.

Also, legislators must restudy the cost of public employee compensation - “including gains that may be realized through privatization and contracting out, and downsizing.”

In all, “the spring outlook should be good news for campaigning politicians as well as taxpayers,” said the research unit. “And the prospects for additional tax relief are bright.”

Updated Spokane atlas published

Hot off the press is a newly revised and updated edition of the “Spokane City/County Atlas.” This book is standard operating equipment for delivery truck drivers, cabbies, ambulance drivers, real estate agents, law officers and anyone else whose job depends on knowing every nook and cranny in Spokane.

It should be required reading for thousands of new transplants who need all the help they can get finding their way around.

The book’s 112 pages show in large detail every street in metropolitan Spokane and every rural road in Spokane and southeastern Stevens County. It also shows ZIP codes, hundred blocks, school information, section and township numbers.

The only such atlas of the area, it is published by Northwest Map Service of Spokane, 525 W. Sprague. It is available where maps are sold throughout Spokane. Retail price: $16.95.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review