Kootenai County Hires Consultant

Kootenai County will pay former commissioner Glenn Jackson to seek grants and research ways to restructure county government.

The county’s three current commissioners signed G. R. Jackson & Associates, Jackson’s land-use planning and consulting firm, to a two-year contract Tuesday.

As payment, Jackson will collect 10 percent of any private or public grant money he helps the county obtain.

Jackson, who held office from 1980 to 1987, was chosen because he worked for several years with Spokane city and county on consolidation issues, county administrator Tom Taggart said.

“We thought his knowledge and experience would be helpful,” Taggart said.

The Legislature this year passed a law allowing counties to dramatically change the way they operate. County commissioners - who often complain that the current system is inefficient and promotes wasted time or money - have long pushed for the changes.

Those changes could include adding an elected administrator, increasing the number of commissioners, making commissioners part-time employees or replacing other elected officials - a sheriff or prosecutor, for example - with appointed professionals.

Commissioners are establishing a seven-person committee that will spend a year hammering out the pros and cons of each idea. Commissioners would like to put suggested changes on the November 1998 general election ballot.

Jackson will seek $85,000 to $100,000 in grants to cover research costs, and retain 10 percent of that as profit. He also will serve as an administrator and support-staff person for the committee and draft a report on their conclusions.

“I would research where this has been accomplished before, if it was a success, why it was a success,” Jackson said. “I’d see what the implications are of limiting the sheriff or the prosecutor or the clerk.”

In coming weeks, commissioners will appoint a small group to interview and pick community leaders for the committee. The all-Republican board did not want politics to dominate the choices.

“There’s no way to keep politics completely out, but they can start with a clean slate,” Taggart said.

The committee should be in place and ready to work this summer, he said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: PAYMENT Jackson will collect 10 percent of any private or public grant money he helps the county obtain.