Making A Difference: An Occasional Series Profiling North Idaho’S Community Leaders Community Oriented Colleen Allison Says Moving To Coeur D’Alene Is The Best Thing To Happen To Her; Many People Agree

Colleen Allison was 68 when she became a fugitive from her home state.

Montana’s loss was Idaho’s gain.

The former mayor of Columbia Falls, Mont., took refuge in Coeur d’Alene in 1995 and wasted no time blessing her new home with her talents.

She took charge of coordinating the Panhandle Kiwanis Club’s huge community playground-building project in City Park. She accepted chairmanship of Kootenai County’s citizens’ committee on the jail.

And she filled the Kootenai County courthouse’s need for an extra receptionist during property tax-complaint season.

“She knows how to deal with people,” says Richard Seward, a member of the jail committee. “She has a knack for recognizing the problem, separating the chaff from the wheat and getting right to the point.”

Allison hardly fits the fugitive role. At 72, her hair is gray, her cheeks are pink and her manner is contagiously hearty. She laughs loudly from deep inside and her eyes shine with an enviable vitality.

“I thought I’d live out my days in Columbia Falls,” she says, with just a hint of wistfulness. “But being here is the best thing that’s happened to me.”

Her parents reared her to take part in her community and push for change in an orderly fashion.

“It soaked in,” Colleen says. “Wherever I am I feel a responsibility for local government.”

She landed in Columbia Falls in 1955 after her husband signed on with the ARCO aluminum plant. In 1975, she won her first seat on the City Council.

The health of the aluminum plant, which employed 62 percent of the town’s 3,200 people, was fading then.

Allison searched for a way to save her town as the plant’s closure loomed. Her efforts were appreciated by the townspeople. In 1980, she was elected mayor by write-in votes.

“ARCO told me right after I took office that in two months it would either sell the plant or close it,” she says. “The community really came together to save it.”

The town’s support led to the plant’s purchase and a union agreement to accept lower wages in exchange for a share of the profits.

The town thrived through most of the 1980s. Then, the plant owner quit sharing profits. The union sued and Allison lost a bid for re-election.

As the fight dragged on, the plant’s owner asked her to mediate unofficially. That’s when her troubles began.

She agreed to help in order to restore peace to her town. But someone mistakenly assumed she had power over the plant owner.

“One night, I came home from a council meeting and I was attacked, pushed against the garage,” she says. Her husband had died and she was living alone by then.

Scrawled on her garage were the words “Don’t save the plant.”

Police never found her attackers. The plant owner assigned four security guards to protect her.

“It was weird,” Allison says. “I’d go to coffee and here they were with me. They were four delightful young men, took very good care of me.”

The guards prevented more attacks, but couldn’t stop the threatening letters. The writers expected Allison to convince the plant owner to pay $155 million in shared profits to workers.

After six months under protection, Allison reduced her security to one man. Shortly after he left her on her first day alone, her attackers returned to her house.

They started to kidnap her, but dropped her in her rock garden after her house alarm went off. Allison moved in with her son in Coeur d’Alene not long after.

Six months later, her attackers found her in Coeur d’Alene and warned that she’d suffer the consequences if she didn’t make the plant owner pay the workers. She told them the courts were their only hope.

A week later, the plant owner offered to settle for $1 million and the union accepted.

Allison has lived peacefully in Coeur d’Alene since.

“I put everything in storage. I planned to go back,” she says.

Her temporary job at the courthouse evolved into a permanent position as receptionist for the county’s administrators.

Her obvious leadership skills led to chairmanship of the citizens’ committee on the jail. She insisted on serving on her own time to preclude any question of conflict of interest.

The committee of about 15 people studied the county’s need for more jail space and general problems with the criminal justice system.

Last spring, the group recommended the county build minimum security housing and use the existing jail for maximum security.

Their concerns with the criminal justice system will go to the Legislature.

Allison is no alarmist, but experience has stamped her with a personal interest in community safety.

“We need as a society to deal with some things, whether we want to or not,” she says. “I want to walk into my yard and be perfectly safe.”