Idaho Voices

If you want to reduce after-school mischief or merely have a soft spot in your heart for kids, here’s a way you can help. A masquerade ball and silent auction, the main fundraising event of the year for the Boys & Girls Club of Kootenai County, will take place on Saturday at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. During two previous balls and from individual donors and a variety of smaller fundraisers and grants, the organization has raised $1.5 million toward its goal of $2.9 million. The money will be used to build and operate an 18,000-square-foot center in Post Falls for the hundreds of kids age 6 to 18 who take part in the club’s after-school and summer programs.

A late summer foray to Seattle is always an easy, pleasurable road trip, just a relatively quick drive through the channeled scablands and over the North Cascades. I recently took the timeless advice of The Village People and decided to “Go West” for a weekend reunion with some old friends and to enjoy the city’s unique shopping, dining and nightlife. Naturally, the much larger population and greater cultural diversity make for some dining and drinking adventures which simply don’t occur here in North Idaho. I hadn’t been in town more than an hour and my Seattle friend and I were already headed to 23rd and Jefferson for a much-needed fix of Ezell’s famous fried chicken.

BOISE – When Gov. Butch Otter divided state agencies into three groups for varying levels of budget cuts, some wondered why elected officials made the top “critical and constitutionally required services” group, while higher education was in the middle “essential services” group and water resources and environmental quality were in “other services.” The top group saw new mid-year budget cuts of 2.5 to 5 percent; the “essential” middle group, mostly 6 percent; and the “other” group, mostly 7.5 percent.

For 10-04-2009

I wasn’t the only one who spotted Thong Man hanging out on the north shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene recently. Post Falls Councilwoman Kerri Thoreson did, too. Kerri, who writes the OnLocation North Idaho and More Main Street blogs, snapped a photo. I posted it at Huckleberries Online. And the debate was on. Again.

Teachers in the Coeur d’Alene School District are seeing a drop in students in their classrooms as the flu season sets in. According to a press release on the district’s Web site, schools were seeing a 10 percent decrease at several Coeur d’Alene schools, as of last Monday. At Canfield Middle School, 80 out of 798 students were absent, according to the release. Lakes Middle School had an absentee rate of more than 10 percent, as did Woodland Middle School, Project CDA Alternative High School, Hayden Meadows Elementary School and Sorenson Elementary School. As of Sept. 25, seven out of the 17 Coeur d’Alene schools had one or more confirmed cases of H1N1, or swine flu.

COEUR D’ALENE – The Coeur d’Alene Eagles Lodge will host a food drive on Thursday at the Lodge, 209 E. Sherman Ave., from 4 to 8 p.m. Tom Sherry of KREM-2 will cover the event with live broadcasts at 5 and 6 p.m. Participants who bring four food items to donate, such as tuna fish, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, canned fruit or canned vegetables, will receive a free burger.

Today Charley Packard (Originals) – 6 p.m., Spuds Grill, 102 N. First, Sandpoint, (208) 265-4311.

An auspicious, 27,000-square-foot building has suddenly risen in the southeast corner of Hayden. The three-level place is alone on 1.5 acres in what was a field on Wayne Street – northeast of the Prairie Avenue-Government Way intersection. Its focus is professional with emphasis on the construction industries, such as architecture, engineering, surveying, etc. Thus two of the initial occupants will be two of the owners – G.D. (Gordon) Longwell Architects and (Jim) Coleman Engineering. The third owner is Cory Trapp, thus the name of LCT Office Building.

It’s hard to believe we were basking in 80-degree sunshine just a week ago. Though September ended on a cold note, the month overall was much warmer and drier than normal. The .49 inches of rain that fell in Spokane was .25 inches below normal for the month. Coeur d’Alene came out even drier, with only .45 inches of rainfall in a month that averages 1.58 inches. Though the current El Niño points to a warmer and drier than average October, we have definitely started the month on a cool, wet note. Average highs now are in the middle 60s and average lows have slipped into the upper 30s. Many areas have already experienced the first freeze of the season. Precipitation generally increases this month, with an average of 1.93 inches in Coeur d’Alene and 1.01 inches in Spokane.

Coeur d’Alene’s hottest R&B/funk/soul act is without a doubt Jesi B. and the All Rites. Led by singer Jesi Gaboury, the all-original quartet has been causing outbursts of spontaneous grooving among local audiences since forming in 2007. Over the past summer, they were a must-see highlight at several music festivals at O’Shay’s Irish Pub and successfully made some rumblings in the finicky Spokane scene as well. Their gig this coming Friday at the Coeur d’Alene Brewing Co., located at 2nd Street and Lakeside Avenue, should be entertainingly uproarious as ever.

To borrow a “Seinfeld” line, I thought we had a deal with the seagulls. We throw them crumbs from our lunch on the beach – and they don’t poop on us. OK, I haven’t kept my end of the bargain. I shoo the beggars away, as I did on Cannon Beach recently. It was one of those rare days on the Oregon Coast: shining sun, temperatures in the 80s, little wind, and a tide far out far enough to allow my wife, daughter and me to search tide pools near Haystack Rock. A tourist yelled at my daughter for simply pointing at an anemone, which apparently is endangered. The aggressive woman was soon forgotten when a town volunteer who has shown dogs in Coeur d’Alene volunteered to take our photo in front of Haystack Rock. That’s when the gulls got their revenge. Ere Jenny the Volunteer snapped the photo, a gull overhead scored a direct hit on my new Portland Trailblazers cap. Such was the accuracy of the gull that the dropping hit nothing else. My wife and daughter laughed. I simply washed the hat off in a tidal pool, careful not to disturb the anemones, tourists or other creatures prone to aggressive behavior. Incredible Shrinking Clerk reports success

Filings from Sept. 8-14. Chapter 7 (liquidation petitions)

Coeur d’Alene Michael Wytychak, 314 E. Garden Ave., commercial, accessibility improvements, valued at $18,500.