‘Right Plan’ Yours To Develop, Folks

You can go crazy trying to analyze why the Coeur d’Alene community center proposal won only 39 percent of an advisory vote Tuesday.

After all, Councilmen Ron Edinger and Chris Copstead, who both supported the center, easily won re-election, winding up one-two in the voting for three seats. Meanwhile, Peggy Sawicki, a quality, well-financed candidate who was lukewarm at best to the community center plan, finished fourth in an eight-way race.

Certainly, no idea in recent memory - including the two Lake Coeur d’Alene hydroplane votes - has had such an array of opposition lined up against it: Concerned Businesses of North Idaho, Kootenai County Property Owners Association, Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, the health clubs and even the Davis Donut owner who pontificates regularly on his outdoor signboard.

Maybe it was just a case of the right idea at the wrong time. Coeur d’Alene residents aren’t chintzy. In the last decade, they’ve served the town’s children well by approving a bond and plant facilities levies to reconstruct Coeur d’Alene High and build Lake City High, Woodland Middle School, a Dalton Gardens Elementary multipurpose room and three new elementaries. With taxes going up, maybe the center was one project too far - at this time.

However, three things are certain after viewing Tuesday’s results: Most Coeur d’Alene residents see a need for some kind of a community center. The opposition forces who said repeatedly that they’d support a scaled-down version of community activist Sue Thilo’s plan now need to put their money where their mouths are. Although feelings are raw now, it’s time for the two sides to come together to devise a plan that will help the kids.

Frankly, it’ll be hard to find a better plan overall than the one put forward by the community activists. But it might be feasible to build the key element of the plan at one of the local high schools in cooperation with the Coeur d’Alene School District: an indoor swimming pool. Currently, the school district and the city work in tandem to build extra gyms whenever a new school is built. Why can’t that cooperation be extended to a pool?

Yes, a community center is still needed to complete the Coeur d’Alene’s impressive parks and recreation system. But we don’t see that happening any time soon after the resounding defeat Tuesday. Remember: Despite all the posturing and rhetoric by opponents after the 1985 defeat of the $3.2 million community center bond, the issue quietly faded away - until this fall. Coeur d’Alene can’t wait another 14 years to address the need - need, not want - for an indoor pool that can serve swimmers of all ages.

The onus now is on the health clubs and business allies who shot down an top-notch plan dreamed up by Coeur d’Alene’s grass roots.