We’re All In This Together
The basketball game between North Idaho College and College of Eastern Utah in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday helped me put this hydroplane flap into perspective.
Before the game, Councilwoman Nancy Sue Wallace motioned me over and said, half seriously, “How would you like to trade places for a while?” In a week, the City Council will rule on the hydroplane issue, the hottest controversy to hit our waterfront in 10 years. I don’t envy her.
Moments later, a fan gave me a high-five after learning I oppose hydroplane racing - if the public is fenced away from the waterfront and thousands are allowed on Tubbs Hill.
At halftime, I enjoyed Pat McGaughey’s play-by-play commentary of a basketball scrimmage between two service clubs. McGaughey, Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce manager, has spearheaded the hydro push. I’ve been tough on him for doing so.
That’s when it hit me. Pat, Nancy Sue and I represent three factions in the hydroplane tug-of-war: the pros, cons and those caught in the middle. But on Saturday night, we all were on the same side, pulling for NIC to win and disappointed when the Cards did not.
In fact, we’re probably on the same side of many issues. All three of us have a high interest in our community and fight hard to influence its development. A good community fight is healthy - at times. It helps us decide what we value.
The key is to keep the attacks and counterattacks focused on issues and ideas - not on people. The issue isn’t progressives against no-growth-ers, as some have suggested. Or The Spokesman-Review vs. the Coeur d’Alene Press. It’s us against us. When the smoke settles (and I don’t think it will until long after Monday’s vote), we’ll still be in this community together.
And if the council votes for the hydroplanes, I probably will be writing plenty of commentary about a petition drive to put the issue on the November ballot. Or a recall effort.
Maybe Fuhrman was O.J.’s fall guy
A former O.J. Simpson trial juror called him a “snake.” And his name now is used as a verb for racial intolerance. Yet, Mark Fuhrman, former Los Angeles Police Department detective, has emerged squeaky clean from a public defender’s review of other cases Fuhrman had handled. Said public defender administrator Michael Clark: “Based on what I saw, I thought it would be unlikely that Fuhrman would have planted the glove” in the Simpson murder case. Maybe it’s time we put an end to those glove-planting jokes and let the guy get on with his life in Sandpoint.
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