Potlatch Point Land Swap Decision Delayed Potential Trade Sparks Petitions From Residents Who Want Land To Remain Public

A controversial land trade between the Hagadone Corp. and the Idaho Department of Transportation has been delayed until November.

The Transportation Department staff and Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation should spend the interim figuring out if the Potlatch Point property should become part of the Centennial Trail, the Transportation Board voted 3-2 Friday.

The two dissenting board members - Leon Smith Jr. and John Combo - wanted to delay trading the surplus highway right of way for a year to give the public a chance to propose uses for the land.

Transportation staff also had recommended the board not make a decision on trading away the piece of ground for 12 months.

The one-third-acre piece of land sits between the Centennial Trail and Hagadone Corp.’s golf course, near the Potlatch Hill overpass on Lake Coeur d’Alene Drive. Hagadone Corp. has offered to trade a possible gravel pit site for the land, but more than 450 area residents signed petitions to the Transportation Board, encouraging them to keep the ground public.

But other board members, led by Monte McClure, said it’s time to get rid of the land.

“Let’s put it back on the tax rolls,” McClure said. “If it was a very important piece of property, it would have been put with the trail to begin with.”

John McHugh, the Coeur d’Alene area representative on the Transportation Board, abstained after citing a conflict of interest involving the Hagadone Corp. But he also encouraged trading the property for a gravel pit.

“This has drug on long enough,” McHugh said.

Idaho Parks and Recreation initially expressed interest in the property. But earlier this month, director Yvonne Ferrell wrote a letter saying that if a buffer was built on the ground, her department no longer wanted it.

Transportation Board Chairman Charles Winder encouraged the public to make their voices heard if they want the parcel.

A member of the audience, Bill Wolf, asked how that was best accomplished. Letters and phone calls help, Winder said.

“But I think the best way to get involved is on a community basis to see how that might be preserved in public hands or for public use,” Winder said.

John Barlow, of the Hagadone Corp., declined to comment on the board’s decision. The board did agree to trade his company another piece of right of way along Lake Coeur d’Alene Drive for a gravel pit south of the city.

People who have been pushing the board to give the land to Parks and Recreation were disappointed by the board’s decision. Parks and Recreation “doesn’t give a hoot what the public thinks - they saw the petitions,” Ralph Tate said. “That’s why people begin to mistrust the government.”

Paul Anderson also said he felt stung. The property will become part of a Hagadone condominium complex, Anderson predicted.

“They will be scarring, again, the public view, with a chunk of concrete,” Anderson said. “And we will be stuck with it for 100 years.”