Two North Idaho lawmakers want to create an aquifer protection district that would generate money to help protect the water source that serves more than 500,000 people in Kootenai and Spokane counties. Reps. Bob Nonini and Frank Henderson, both Post Falls Republicans, plan to propose a bill in the Idaho Legislature to create the district that would allow Kootenai County to collect an annual user fee from people who live over the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer or in an aquifer recharge area.
Some downtown property owners are worried that limiting the height and girth of buildings in Coeur d'Alene's core could ultimately hurt the economy by scaring away developers who fear more regulation. That was the message received Wednesday night during the first public presentation on the city's proposal to limit the height of buildings in downtown to preserve views of Tubbs Hill and Lake Coeur d'Alene while encouraging more urban living.
Coeur d'Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem said the city's biggest challenge is keeping its sense of place – what she calls the identity and feeling of community. Bloem weaved that idea throughout her annual State of the City speech to 300 people at the Coeur d'Alene Resort on Tuesday morning. Fresh from November's landslide re-election, Bloem told the audience that with Coeur d'Alene's rapid growth, it must preserve the very things that make it distinct.
Newly elected Mike Kennedy will take his seat on the Coeur d'Alene City Council in January without challenge after a complaint that he didn't live in the city limits was dropped. Instead, Lee Shellman, who was a campaign consultant for one of Kennedy's challengers, said he will ask the Idaho Legislature to clarify the legal definition of a resident.
For the second time, developers of a proposed housing subdivision on Coeur d'Alene's Best Hill have yanked the plan right before it was to go to a public hearing. Representatives of Halko LLC faxed the city a letter just before 5 p.m. Monday, asking to withdraw the project, which has sparked outcry from neighbors and locals who want to preserve the steep, tree-lined hillside at the end of Best Avenue. The proposal was scheduled for a public hearing before the city's planning commission tonight. The company did likewise in September, withdrawing its proposal just hours before the public hearing.
Post Falls Mayor Clay Larkin broke a tie vote Monday to include more land in an urban renewal district that will help pay for an interchange at Interstate 90 and Greensferry Road. "It's a multimillion dollar decision," Larkin said Tuesday.
Getting out the vote, raising money and campaigning are paramount if Kootenai County wants another shot at passing a measure to pay for a jail expansion, according to the recommendations of a citizens committee. And the county should start now, the Citizen Jail Expansion Advisory Committee wrote in a Nov. 30 letter to the Kootenai County Commission.
Whether the topic is discussing the height of downtown buildings or what programs the Kroc community center should have, Coeur d'Alene residents have their pick of meetings Dec. 14. Because both issues are on a fast track, the city was forced to conduct separate workshops on the same night.
Kootenai County residents are getting an early holiday present as the sales tax drops to 5 percent today. More than 6,000 businesses changed their cash registers this morning so they no longer charge customers an extra half-cent per dollar on goods ranging from groceries and clothes to cars and boats.
A controversial housing development on Coeur d'Alene's Best Hill is back with few changes and a public hearing set for December. Halko LLC recently submitted new plans for the 30-acre Nettleton Hills project that would include building 35 homes on the property at the end of Best Avenue.
Hayden residents are getting their chance to "stick it" to City Hall Wednesday – at least when it comes to planning about city streets and other transportation concerns. The city is holding an open house so people can comment on the town's transportation needs. Using sticky notes, residents will mark street problems, bad intersections and areas of concern on large city maps. The city will use this information in formulating a strategic transportation plan, which will work as a road map so streets can keep up with Hayden's skyrocketing growth.
Laptops, DVD players and digital cameras got Cami Dean out of bed and to the Ponderay Wal-Mart by 2:45 a.m. Her reward, in addition to saving hundreds of dollars, was snagging the front of the line along with her sister Tara Cook. Just minutes before the 5 a.m. opening, the sisters peered through the glass doors, watching employees scurry around to launch the biggest shopping day of the year.
Attempts to save large expanses of public open space on the Rathdrum Prairie are dead. By most accounts that means the remaining bluegrass fields and other farmland soon will be covered with homes and businesses ranging from retail mini-marts to light industrial parks.
A load of boards rocketed off a semitruck Tuesday along Interstate 90 near Coeur d'Alene, smashing two cars head-on, seriously injuring an Eastern Washington couple and delaying traffic for several hours. The truck driver, 42-year-old Randy A. Coffer of Charleston, Mo., was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated and possession of an open container of alcohol, the Idaho State Police reported Tuesday evening.
A small amount of rocky shoreline near the Blackwell Island pier sloughed into the water last week when a barge hit the bank while getting a load of landscaping dirt. Although by all accounts the damage was minimal – cleanup will consist of hand-shoveling the dirt out of the channel – the fleet manager sees it as a sign of the times where an everyday occurrence on the Coeur d'Alene waterfront causes government agencies to file violations.
Coeur d'Alene retailers now have to keep nonprescription cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter in an effort to reduce the manufacturing of illegal drugs. The Coeur d'Alene City Council unanimously passed the law Tuesday night, hoping it will spark other North Idaho cities and counties to do the same. Ultimately Coeur d'Alene officials want the Idaho Legislature to enact a state law regulating the sale of products that contain pseudoephedrine, which is the main ingredient in the illegal drug methamphetamine.
Rathdrum insurance agent Steve Nagel is battling city hall and his weapon of choice is pigs. Nagel plans to retaliate against Rathdrum and the Kootenai County Commission for denying a request to rezone property he owns at the edge of town for commercial use by instead putting hundreds of pigs on the 12-acre parcel along Highway 53.
Hayden isn't ready for Hayden Canyon and the stress the anticipated 1,800 homes and businesses would put on schools and the city's streets and sewer. With thundering cheers and claps from the audience, the Hayden Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended denial Monday of changing the city's newly revised comprehensive plan to allow five homes per acre on the 618 acres off Lancaster Road. The commission also unanimously recommended rejection of including the land in the city limits.
A hike into Hayden Canyon might help dispel misconceptions about a proposal that could expand Hayden's population by a third, developers say. Hayden TND is having an open house Saturday in which people can walk the 618 acres off Lancaster Road and get a sense of how the project would fit with the land that includes a rocky canyon. Project representatives will answer questions and explain the "new urbanism" concept that clusters a variety of styles of homes, leaves open space, encourages walking and has a well-defined community center. The idea is causing consternation with some neighbors and area residents.
The Kootenai County sales tax will drop to 5 percent starting Dec. 1 because voters Tuesday rejected continuing an extra half-cent charge to pay for a $50 million jail expansion. Yet the need for more cells, especially those to house and segregate the most high-risk inmates, hasn't disappeared just because locals didn't want to use the local-option sales tax to pay for the facility.
Wanting to give property owners more time to study a proposal for downtown building height limits, the Coeur d'Alene City Council called off Tuesday's public hearing just hours before it was to start. The council instead wants to have a December workshop where downtown property owners can ask questions of the consultants hired to come up with the proposal. No date has been set.
Coeur d'Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem easily won re-election Tuesday and Mike Kennedy became the only new member of the City Council, elbowing out two challengers. With 76 percent of the vote, Bloem glided into a second term against challenger Joseph Kunka, a political newcomer and marketing representative with the local security company Watson Agency.
Kootenai County voters Tuesday rejected using sales tax dollars to pay for a $50 million jail expansion, meaning the county will almost immediately start shipping inmates to out-of-county facilities to combat overcrowding. "We are maxed out there and people are sleeping on the floor," Commission Chairman Gus Johnson said. "We're going to have to find places to put them."
Local election officials are concerned that not many people will show up at the polls today even though there is a mayor's race in Coeur d'Alene along with a hotly-contested open council seat and a $50 million proposal to expand the Kootenai County jail. "It's been slower than I had anticipated," said Kootenai County Elections Supervisor Deedie Beard, basing her comments on the number of absentee voters. "I really thought we'd have a pretty good turnout."
