Voters approve highway tax increase

Voters in the East Side Highway District agreed to give the ever-growing district more money Tuesday by approving a $1 million tax increase during the next two years.

Residents in the highway district also re-elected Commissioner Jimmie Dorsey to another term.

He was challenged by Derek Smith, of Harrison.

Results were not yet available in neighboring Shoshone County, where voters contemplated a $12 million bond to install a new water filtration system for the Central Shoshone County Water District that serves 2,700 homes and businesses in Kellogg, Smelterville and Osburn.

District Office Manager Cindy Elfsten said they could not release information until this afternoon.

The system would remove potentially harmful microbes that aren’t killed by the existing disinfectant system. For two years, water district residents have been advised by the state to boil drinking water.

If passed, the monthly user fee of $30 would increase to between $47 and $65.

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality ordered the water district to have a filtration system operating by January 2009.

If that doesn’t happen, the state could pursue enforcement and ultimately disapprove the water system, which would make it difficult for people to buy and sell homes in the district.

In the East Side Highway District, supporters didn’t push a permanent tax increase, saying voters had already indicated their objections to any long-term increase after unsuccessful measures in May and in 2006.

This time the district – which covers part of Coeur d’Alene and extends east to Cataldo and south to Harrison – asked voters to support paying $500,000 a year during the next two years.

The levy increase would allow the district to buy two graders, three dump trucks and an asphalt patcher.

It also would free up money in the budget to maintain the 141 miles of gravel roads and 97 miles of paved roads within the district.

Property owners in the district would pay an additional $24.83 per $100,000 of property value. They now pay about $33 per $100,000 of property value.

The two-year levy needed approval by a simple majority, not the two-thirds vote required for a permanent tax increase. In May, 55 percent of voters supported the permanent increase, short of the two-thirds approval needed.

Kootenai County residents in other local highway districts also cast ballots Tuesday for commissioners.

In the Lakes Highway District, Weston “Monty” Montgomery beat incumbent Commissioner Dean Primmer in Subdistrict 2, and John “Marv” Lekstrum defeated incumbent Commissioner Mark Soderling in Subdistrict 3.

In the Post Falls Highway District, incumbent Terry Werner defeated challenger Bob Helmick in Subdistrict 1. Board Chairman Lynn Humphreys ran unopposed.