No-Tolerance Approach To Fourth Worked Wonders
A friend saw a paradox in news reports about Coeur d’Alene’s Fourth of July celebration. On one hand, local papers reported that the holiday was peaceful. (It was, refreshingly so.) On the other hand, more adults were arrested 86 total this year than during the disastrous 1996 celebration, when young gangsters and drunks overran the waterfront and 58 people were booked. The answer to this riddle is simple. Coeur d’Alene police, with a major assist from the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department and the Idaho State Police, took a no-tolerance approach to drinking, illegal fireworks and shenanigans. Spoilsports were whisked away before they caused trouble. As a result, the holiday crowd enjoyed another parade and possibly the best Coeur d’Alene Jaycees’ fireworks show ever. In fact, I enjoyed myself so much I didn’t even mind when a neighbor sicked the cops on me for shooting off fireworks in my driveway after midnight. The responding officer was polite and my antsy pooch, Cosmo, was much relieved.
Feud ruins longtime fun in the sun
The Coeur d’Alene lakeside feud between the Osthellers and the Joneses is a sad one. Here, you have two longtime neighbors who have helped each other unlodge docks and put in a water line. Unfortunately, their friendship dissolved when the Joneses built a deck that extends about 10 feet onto their neighbor’s property. Apparently, a corner of the Joneses’ kitchen has jutted across the property line for years. Now, the Joneses are trying to claim squatter’s rights to more. Haphazard surveys of yesteryear created the dispute. And the inability of four friends to communicate has fanned it. A Kootenai County building inspector pegged this one best: “The sad part is you have two neighbors that are at each other over 10 feet of deck area, and these people have lived with each other for 30 or 40 years.”
‘Die Hard’ actor whines harder
Actor Bruce Willis continues to be a nuisance. Last year, he spearheaded an initiative effort to overturn Idaho’s practical nuclear waste pact with the feds. Now, Willis has pulled ads for his four Sun Valley businesses from The Wood River Journal for allegedly invading his privacy. Seems the weekly mentioned Willis once in a story about privately owned vacation cabins on national forest land. And it publish a photo of his cabin (without mentioning who owned it). News Editor Wayne Adair figured the story was about “private homes on public land, not movie stars on public land.” But all Willis saw was his name - and red. The Journal’s First Amendment exercise could cost it $18,000. Here’s hoping it costs Willis’ companies, too.
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