County chairman to run for re-election

Kootenai County commission Chairman Gus Johnson announced his bid for re-election Tuesday, touting his common sense, experience and ability as a team player.

“This election comes down to what I feel are the needed attributes to be commissioner,” Johnson told the 30 people gathered in the foyer of the County Administration Building.

Johnson, 51, has been on the commission for five years and is a former Post Falls mayor and city councilman.

Post Falls Councilman Todd Tondee is running against Johnson in the May 23 Republican primary.

Johnson, a member of Real Life Ministries, said God is the reason he has had the opportunity to serve the county. “I give him all the praise.”

Public safety is Johnson’s No. 1 priority, and he said he will ensure that tax dollars are used to support services essential to quality of life.

He listed paying for the jail expansion with the half-cent local option sales tax and partnerships with local cities and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe as accomplishments.

Johnson is opposed to changing the structure of county government to include a county administrator. He said the county already tried that idea and that it made the commission less accountable to the public.

– Erica Curless

Car wash coin thief caught on videos

The Post Falls Police Department posted five videos on its Web site showing the theft of coins from vacuum cleaner boxes at two Post Falls car washes and another in Coeur d’Alene.

The footage from early Friday shows a person prying open the coin box and taking change. The burglar was driving a dark-colored – possibly maroon – four-door sedan with gray bumpers and Kootenai County license plates that appear to begin with K25, police said.

Police describe the burglar as having a medium build, wearing a tan jacket, dark baseball cap and light jeans.

In one of the videos, the burglar is smoking a cigarette.

To view the videos, click on the “press” page at www.postfallspolice.com.

Anyone with information is asked to call (208) 773-3517 or leave an anonymous tip using the department’s Web site.

– Taryn Brodwater

Man sought after leaving crashed car

Coeur d’Alene police are looking for a man who crashed his car Tuesday morning and left the scene.

Police responded to 15th Street at the Interstate 90 offramp just before noon and found a red 1988 Acura with severe damage and four flat tires, according to a news release.

The release said it appeared the car had come off the interstate, missed a turn onto 15th, hit a guy wire to a utility pole, then driven over a cement slab.

Earlier, a Coeur d’Alene police officer had attempted to pull over the car on Mullan Trail Road because the license plates were expired, but the driver fled. The officer did not pursue because it was a minor traffic stop, Sgt. Christie Wood said.

When officers were at the scene of the accident, a driver called 911 and said he had picked up a man at the I-90 underpass at 15th Street and given him a ride to the area of Fifth Street and Montana Avenue. The caller said the man told him he had “been involved in a drug deal gone bad, and his friend had been shot in the leg.”

The man left in an older gray Chevy truck, the caller said.

Anyone with information on the driver of the red Acura is asked to call the Coeur d’Alene Police Department tip line at (208) 769-2296.

– Taryn Brodwater