Erica Curless

Kootenai County Commission Chairman Gus Johnson got another challenger Friday when Independent Tom Macy entered the race just before the filing deadline. Macy ran against Johnson in 2002 as a Libertarian.

Coeur d'Alene Sen. John Goedde is no longer worried that his re-election campaign will pit him against the state teachers union, because his Democratic opponent dropped out of the race Wednesday. Goedde recently told the Idaho Education Association that if Democrat Jerry Lee, a Post Falls High School government teacher and union member, challenged him in the November election it would become a battle between schoolteachers and Goedde, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Post Falls City Councilman Todd Tondee is running for the Kootenai County Board of County Commissioners, touting his small-business background, open mind and ability to ask questions and get answers. Leaning against the counter Tuesday at his Big Cheese Pizza shop in Post Falls, Tondee said it's time for a change, and that's why he's running against Commission Chairman Gus Johnson in the May Republican primary.

Five signatures or $40 will get your name on the May ballot as a county candidate. Starting today, candidates for county and state offices have two weeks to declare their candidacy. The deadline is March 17 at 5 p.m.

Post Falls needs to decide how it wants to look and act before it becomes a sprawling suburb like Spokane Valley, say city planners pushing for a new way to manage the town's growing population. The Post Falls City Council will decide Tuesday whether to adopt the action plan that focuses on creating neighborhoods that have commercial centers and walking trails and encourage people to live in the area where they work.

Coeur d'Alene may draw a literal line in the sand this summer to show people which part of Sanders Beach is open to the public. The city needs to know the exact location of the invisible high water mark, declared by a judge in September, to enforce trespass laws and other rules for public parks, such as dogs on leashes and no alcohol.

After a year of simmering, plans for a new town across from Silverwood Theme Park are getting warmer. The first step toward building the largest housing development in Kootenai County is to change the county's land-use map to allow urban development in an area reserved for rural use and timberland.

How Kootenai County looks in 20 years largely depends on what residents tell planning officials in the months ahead. The county has begun to update its comprehensive plan – the foundation of all land-use decisions. With the population expected to swell to 250,000 – a 128,000 increase from today – the plan is a blueprint for where those people should live and what areas should remain rural.

After Wal-Mart breezed into Post Falls to much fanfare from residents and city officials, the world's largest retailer is having a much tougher time penetrating Hayden. For four years the company has tried to get approval for a supercenter at the corner of state Highway 95 and Honeysuckle Avenue.

Idahoans aren't ready for a big shake-up on how campaigns are financed, but that's not stopping a handful of lawmakers from trying to inject the idea into people's minds in hopes of it eventually catching on. In what is becoming an annual tradition at the Idaho Legislature, Republican leadership recently quashed an effort to uproot how elections are funded in legislative and statewide races. The bill, which would have created a public election fund by putting a 10 percent surcharge on all civil fines, died because it couldn't get a hearing.

BOISE – The House passed eight property tax bills Friday, including a measure to give relief to every homeowner in Idaho by reducing how much property tax revenue goes to schools. The state would bump up the sales tax by a half-percent to replace the $125 million in property taxes that no longer would go to schools for operation and maintenance costs.

BOISE – The House is ready to vote on the first round of property tax bills, after a tax committee churned out two measures to reduce the amount of the tax going to Idaho schools and replace the difference with a half-penny sales tax increase. Since Monday, the House has postponed a vote on expanding a tax break for low-income senior citizens and increasing the homeowner's exemption.

BOISE – A House tax committee regrouped Monday and proposed increasing the sales tax by a half-cent, which would allow the state to reduce by $125 million the amount of property taxes used to fund schools. Combined, the two bills would allow the extra sales tax to make up the property tax loss for schools – money that goes to pay maintenance and operation costs. Schools still would get about half of the $244 million in property taxes they currently receive.

An anti-tax man is trying to sink Tuesday's election in Bonner County that would create a new taxing district to pay for a recreation center. Larry Spencer, who votes in Kootenai County but was raised in Bonner County and still owns 5 acres there, is a self-described property tax opponent who spent more than $5,000 sending mailings to every registered voter within the boundaries of the Lake Pend Oreille School District.

Kootenai County needs a big place to have big events – especially with the area's erratic weather – and the Fair Board thinks the fairgrounds is just the ticket. The board, which oversees the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo, along with the 80-acre grounds off Government Way, wants to add an events center that could seat between 5,000 and 8,000 people for year-round events. Similar to the Spokane Arena, an events center would attract concerts, monster truck rallies, basketball tournaments and trade shows. And the fairgrounds would remain home to the fair, which the board is quick to protect as a fundamental community gathering steeped in tradition.

Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson doesn't want the inevitable jail expansions that will come with the area's growing population to slowly eat up the county fairgrounds land next door to the jail in north Coeur d'Alene. His long-term vision, perhaps within eight years, is to build a jail for sentenced inmates on county property next to the landfill near Fighting Creek. There's enough acreage to establish a work farm – a place where inmates could till the soil and grow food for themselves. The inmates also could work at the landfill, sorting garbage and recyclables.

The Silver Valley is on the verge of economic revival, but nobody is sure how a recent building moratorium could affect the building boom. Proposals for condos, hotels and homes are a welcome sign after years of exodus stemming from closed mines and soaring poverty levels for those who stayed in the historic valley that was once one of the world's richest silver producers.

Republican Norm Semanko came home to Kootenai County on Monday to kick off his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, telling supporters his politics emulate those of Ronald Reagan. He added that it's been more than 50 years since Idaho had a congressional representative from the Panhandle.