Corps will discuss review of flooding

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hosting a public meeting in Bonners Ferry on Nov. 6 to share information from its internal review of events surrounding June flooding of the Kootenai River.

The flood caused localized damage to crops. Local officials and residents criticized the Corps of Engineers, saying the flood could have been prevented through wiser operations of the upstream Libby Dam. The agency has since conducted a review of events leading up to the flood and is using this review to help improve dam operations, according to a statement issued by the agency.

The meeting will take place from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Kootenai River Inn, 7169 Plaza St., in Bonners Ferry.

– James Hagengruber

NIC board hopefuls will attend Q&A

Candidates for the only open North Idaho College Board of Trustees position this election will answer questions from citizens at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Lake Coeur d’Alene room of NIC’s Edminster Student Union building.

Five candidates are running for the six-year term to replace current board vice chairman Denny Hague, who is not seeking reelection.

Real estate agent Bill Brooks, civil engineer Jim Coleman, educator Dennis Conners, marriage counselor and ordained minister Ron Vieselmeyer and European-American rights advocate Stan Hess are running for the position.

Candidates will have four minutes to give an opening statement, then will take questions from the audience, with each candidate having one minute to respond.

Meghann M. Cuniff

Woman ticketed for bringing gun to school

A Post Falls woman, who said she was fleeing a domestic dispute at home, was ticketed Friday after bringing a loaded gun into her children’s school.

Kim Anton went to Mullan Trail Elementary just before 9:30 a.m. and told school employees she was looking for a safe place to stay, Post Falls police said. Anton then told school staff about the gun, which was in her purse, and handed it over “for safekeeping.”

Post Falls police Lt. Scot Haug said the school locked up the gun until police arrived. He said there was no immediate danger to any children at the school.

Anton admitted to being under the influence of methamphetamine, Haug said, and police took her children into protective custody.

– Taryn Brodwater

NIC students protest treatment of faculty

A group of North Idaho College students marched through campus Friday morning in protest of what they say is the NIC administration’s mistreatment of the teaching faculty.

NIC student Kathleen Kelley, 21, said instructors’ wages have been far below the competition for a long time and haven’t improved, while NIC President Michael Burke enjoys pay raises and other additional perks.

“We’re supposed to be in a budget crisis and they’re cutting classes, but Dr. Burke has his office remodeled over the summer? That just seems like a bad situation,” Kelley said.

NIC spokesman Kent Propst said faculty salaries are an issue at the college but that saying Burke is enjoying unwarranted pay increases and having his office remodeled is simply inaccurate.

Burke got the same raise everyone else at the college did this year – 1.25 percent. And the building Burke’s office is housed in did have significant work done this summer, Propst said, but it was maintenance-driven, not cosmetic.

“Terming it a remodel of his office is wildly inaccurate,” Propst said, adding that the office looks the same as it did before the work was completed.

The money for the building work came from the state’s permanent building fund, he said, not the NIC budget.

“It’s not like we could have used that money for compensation,” Propst said.

About 20 students participated in the protest, organized by the campus activist group Students for Progressive Change. Kelley said she plans to attend Wednesday’s meeting of the NIC Board of Trustees to see if anyone has paid attention to their concerns.

– Meghann M. Cuniff