Keep Two, Oust Two In County Contests

Republican Commissioners Dick Compton and Dick Panabaker entered office at the Kootenai County Courthouse four years ago, promising efficiency and good service.

The two have delivered on that promise, with help from a good team of elected department heads. Now, Kootenai County voters have the chance to make a good situation better by re-electing two incumbents and replacing two others.

The Idaho Spokesman-Review believes the courthouse team will be strengthened by re-electing Panabaker and Democratic Clerk Dan English and by electing Democrat Rob Beck as a county commissioner and Republican Ray Lee as the assessor.

A former Hayden mayor, Panabaker has far more experience in local government than Independent challenger Mike Stine. Panabaker’s folksy style provides a good buffer to the hard-charging approaches of Compton and Commissioner Ron Rankin. Stine entered the race after a planning dispute with the commission and deserves credit for taking on the establishment and providing voters with a second choice.

Beck offers one thing the current board lacks: a vision for proactive planning.

If elected, he plans to call for a needed summit on Rathdrum Prairie issues. The former personnel director for the city of Coeur d’Alene understands lcoal government. He’s also a natural leader.

Republican Rankin has a mixed record.

Early on, he pushed a goofy official-English resolution, fought the minority recruitment practices of the Panhandle National Forests and joined fellow commissioners in strong-arming the Panhandle Health District on behalf of a friend who’d been hit with a mjaor pollution fine. But Rankin has served well as a budget watchdog and used his media savvy to settle a tax dispute with Crown Pacific.

Elsewhere, Lee is far more qualified for the assessor’s job than incumbent Marv Vandenberg, a political appointee. The commissioners realized that in 1996 when they tried to appoint Lee to the post following the death of Democratic Assessor Tom Moore.

That appointment was challenged in court by local Democrats and overturned. Lee was the county’s chief commercial appraiser for 13 years and has managed three different Arizona towns.

Vandenberg certainly has served Idaho well as a former chief of navigable waters for the Department of Lands and a centrist Democrat in the Idaho Legislature.

But his stint as a Boundary County assessor 30 years ago doesn’t match Lee’s administrative and hands-on appraisal experience.

Finally, English deserves full credit as county clerk for reaching out to register voters and posting campaign finance information on the Internet. Now, election-night results are available quickly on the county Web site. Also, he has a much stronger background in public service than Republican Anita Banta.

English served on the Coeur d’Alene City Council, the local school board and founded Anchor House, a home for juvenile offenders.

Banta, a legal assistant and a former office manager, has the credentials to handle the legal side of the clerk’s office. But that’s not enough in this race.