Ken Olsen

City employees and department heads were rushed into staff meetings Thursday for a warning about a critical report due out any day from a local business lobbying group. Concerned Businesses of North Idaho is preparing a detailed analysis of city spending that apparently includes the charge that city employees are far better paid than the average wage earner in North Idaho. The study also is expected to say city employees earn far more than their counterparts in other communities in Idaho.

Walt Minnick wants 10 debates with Larry Craig, but Idaho's incumbent U.S. senator says he's too busy. Besides, there is a debate airing on Idaho Public Television Sept. 29 and that gives everybody the opportunity to see the two men exchange words, the Craig campaign said.

Jim Hammond is expected to trade the mayor's hat for the city administrator's hat this evening after a special meeting of the City Council. The council meets at 5 p.m. to vote on hiring Hammond and then on selecting a replacement mayor. Hammond, long active in Post Falls city affairs, is expected to be confirmed easily.

Ken Kohli was Mr. Timber. And so it was natural that each of the more than 300 people who attended his eulogy Monday received a white pine seedling - drawn from a brown, waxed cardboard box with the markings of Potlatch Corp. - "to plant some quiet place in the woods in Idaho."

Larry Craig and Walt Minnick act as if they couldn't possibly raise enough money in their fight for U.S. Senate. "We are facing a very serious challenger" with great personal wealth, said Mike Tracy, spokesman for the Craig campaign. "He's got a lot of wealthy people from out-of-state giving him money."

Idaho may not be allowed to enforce federal air pollution laws unless it dumps or overhauls a controversial state law that gives confessing polluters immunity from criminal and civil prosecution. The Environmental Protection Agency has raised several concerns with the state's environmental audit law. Congress ordered states to take over enforcement of clean air laws during the last rewrite of the Clean Air Act, provided that the EPA set enforcement standards.

Portions of new federal clean water legislation are in danger of being significantly weakened, in part by Idaho Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, environmental groups allege in an advertising campaign that kicks off in Boise today. The salvo is being fired by the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Information Center. It says that Kempthorne's office has spent $2,300 to buy bottled water while expecting the public to drink tap water that isn't sure to be pure under the proposed new law.

1. Crowd teaser. Molly B'Damm, played by Heather Snow of Spokane, begins to undress while the men fill her tub with specks of gold in front of the Bordello Museum in Wallace. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review 2. Saloon pianist Patrick O'Rourke, played by Gregory Jered of Spokane, sprinkles gold dust on Molly B'Damm.<

By this fall, book lovers hope to be raising more than $2 million to build the city a new public library. They say there is a crushing need for more space that will worsen if Coeur d'Alene's population doubles as expected over the next 20 years. "If we see Coeur d'Alene growing to 50,000 people, it's going to be even more inadequate in providing for future populations," said Rick Maxey, treasurer of the Coeur d'Alene Public Library Foundation.

Boise Cascade Corp.'s plans to spray herbicides on nearly 600 acres of its timberland in northeastern Washington is drawing the ire of people near Lane Mountain. They say it's contradictory for a company that heavily advertises its environmental sensitivity to fire up helicopters to dump chemicals on brush fields. The residents also are angry because they say they weren't notified of the plans to spray.

The Idaho Supreme Court is being asked to reconsider a June ruling that prohibits citizen appeals of all state timber sales. That case centered on Priest Lake timber sales, challenged by the Selkirk Priest Basin Association. The state high court rejected arguments that a timber sale of 7.4 million board feet on Bugle Ridge would increase erosion, degrade water, and hurt grizzly bears and other wildlife. More significantly, the Idaho Supreme Court rejected arguments that it's unconstitutional for the state to require that people post a bond in order to file suit over a timber sale. State law requires that the bond cover 10 percent of the value of the timber sale being challenged.

Loggers have to leave better trees, stay farther from streams and keep equipment off steep slopes under new, tougher logging rules on state and private land. The new standards, the most sweeping changes to the state's logging laws since they first were passed in the mid-1970s, came into play July 1. The changes grew out of studies in 1992 and 1993 that considered whether the Idaho Forest Practices Act was keeping water clean, soil intact and the air breathable.

At its regular meeting tonight, the City Council is expected to approve the location for an ambitious playground project near City Beach. The Parks Department is recommending the Fort Sherman Playground Park be built in place of the existing park. Proponents originally had wanted to build the extensive playground in the southeastern portion of City Park.

For the second time in a week, door-to-door entrepreneurs are canvassing the city, offering to paint home addresses on curbs for a fee. Last week, two juveniles were caught stenciling addresses on Bristol Avenue curbs without a city permit. In some cases, the youths had painted the wrong address numbers on the curbs.

Miles and miles of Inland Northwest forest roads that are supposed to be closed to protect wildlife and watersheds are wide open to pickups and poachers. That claim - made recently by a Montana group called the Predator Project - isn't entirely denied by the U.S. Forest Service. The group also claims there are several miles of Forest Service roads in North Idaho, Eastern Washington and Western Montana that the agency doesn't know exist or doesn't acknowledge.

Bear hunting is splitting the head of state and the head of his household. Idaho Gov. Phil Batt announced Thursday he will vote against a statewide initiative banning certain types of black bear hunting. But his wife, Jacque Batt, "a woman of great wisdom who is not anti-hunting, will vote for the measure," the governor said. "She thinks the bears need a sporting chance," said Batt. "That's not a bad argument. We will split our vote."

Less than two weeks after an Idaho group dropped efforts to put an anti-gay rights initiative on the ballot, North Idaho's U.S. representative is pushing federal legislation to ban same-sex marriages. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Friday on the bill, labeled the "Defense of Marriage Act," and cosponsored by Rep. Helen Chenoweth. The proposed law defines marriage as only a union between a man and a woman.

Two prime firewood cutting areas open to the public Friday. One is on the west side of the Coeur d'Alene River Road, near Enaville. The other is in the Fernan Saddle area.

The prospects of water-use restrictions were doused last week as Coeur d'Alene got a problem-ridden well back on line just in time for hotter weather. That means, barring another well malfunction and a long stretch of hot weather, watering cutbacks won't happen this summer.

Getting caught taking that three-wheeled motorcycle through the wrong meadow or shooting off fireworks in Smokey's back yard is going to cost more in Idaho. The state's federal court district just released a new list of fines for minor infractions in national forests in Idaho. In most cases, it means breaking the law is going to cost more.

Woodsmen, spare those tamarack. Scientists are warning that the sudden browning of these trees throughout the Inland Northwest is not a sign they are dead.

The City Council should not have allowed Jacobson Tree Service to keep its expanding business in a residential zone, Mayor Al Hassell said in a rare disagreement with city lawmakers. The council voted 4-2 Tuesday evening to give the tree service a special-use permit that allows it to have non-family employees come to Jacobson's North 23rd Street home. That was the final hurdle Jacobson needed to clear to keep operating from his back lot - one of the city's most restrictive residential zones - as he has for a decade.

More than 150 million board feet of timber sales in the Inland Northwest could be delayed, modified or stopped by new salvage logging rules. That could bring bad news to the region's sawmills, whose owners had been counting on salvage logging to boost log supplies.

When the tree-trimming service next door does business, Ida Hawkins says the noise is overwhelming. So for the second time in four months, the City Council also is going to hear about it. Hawkins, with attorney in tow, is expected to appear tonight to protest a special use permit that would allow up to four employees of Jacobson's Tree Service to work at the home-based business on North 23rd Street.