Making A Difference: An Occasional Series Profiling North Idaho’S Community Leaders Madame Mayor Tawnda Bromley Fills In Wherever Rathdrum Needs Her

John Brown Elementary had no full-time nurse in 1978, so school secretary Tawnda Bromley trained as an EMT.

“I really felt it was necessary,” she says.

Bromley trained as a reserve police officer a few years later because Rathdrum’s police department had no women in uniform.

“It was a small department and a lot of times they’d need a woman,” she says. She discovered the void while she volunteered there summers as a secretary.

So, when Rathdrum needed a mayor six years ago because residents recalled the one in office, Bromley stayed true to character and accepted the job.

Last fall, she easily won re-election to her second term.

“She’s one of the best mayors we’ve ever had,” says Alvina Wolheter, a town resident for 47 years. “She speaks her mind and that’s the only way to be.”

Under Bromley’s quiet leadership, Rathdrum has added a new City Hall, expanded its police force, finished a city park, persuaded a doctor to open the town’s first medical office and begun a town revitalization project.

A skate park is in the works and a gas-fired power plant is moving in, promising to fatten Rathdrum’s tax base.

“She’s doing an outstanding job,” says Debbie Waddell, a lifetime town resident and former City Council member.

“She’s honest, hardworking, definitely dedicated to the betterment of this town.”

Bromley, 52, didn’t arrive in Rathdrum 30 years ago with politics on her mind. She was a young wife and mother headed north to escape the scrub country around Oregon’s Columbia Gorge, where she was raised.

She wanted distance from her family. She’d accused her father of abuse, and irrevocably divided herself from her parents, younger brother and two younger sisters.

Bromley and husband Greg first landed in Bonners Ferry — “As far north as we could get without going to Canada,” she says. But the tiny timber town was too isolated for them.

They drifted south to Hayden Lake, where their landlord told them to quit wasting money on rent and buy a home. They could afford Rathdrum, population 740.

Bromley plunged into politics a few years later when Rathdrum’s City Council considered disbanding its tiny police force to contract with Kootenai County for protection.

She opposed the switch. She worked in the town’s drug store and occasionally caught young shoplifters. Police Chief Harlan Fritzsche impressed her when he picked up a boy caught with stolen goods.

“He called the boy’s parents and told them he was bringing home their child. Then, he handcuffed him, pretended to write a report and took him home,” Bromley says. “To me, that meant we had a police department interested in the community.”

Her vocal opposition to disbanding the city police attracted media attention. Bromley found herself declaring her support for a city department on the television news.

“Everyone saw it. I was embarrassed to be in the spotlight,” she says. “I never saw myself a champion of anything.”

Her tenacity caught opponents off guard. Her rocky childhood had sculpted her into a reserved adult loathe to create a public spectacle. She carried herself with a quiet dignity that suggested deep thoughts and wise actions. Her carefully starched hair and conservative dress added to the image.

When she spoke, people listened. Rathdrum kept its police department.

Bromley took the secretarial job at John Brown Elementary in 1978 so she could stay home the same hours as her son, Ty. During summers, she dispatched for the Post Falls police and volunteered with Rathdrum’s.

She put her EMT training to work on the Rathdrum ambulance. Every position rooted her more deeply to town.

When a City Council position opened in 1988, Bromley decided to run for it.

“I pride myself in my honesty, in being forthright and open-minded,” she says. “I thought it was important to give something back because I lived there.”

Finishing the new Stub Meyer Park was her first job. The project took most of her time and energy, so much so that she often felt overwhelmingly tired.

Doctors diagnosed her in 1990 with fibromyalgia, a condition that causes pain and fatigue in muscles, tendons and ligaments.

She quit the Lakeland School District that year to work in the Kootenai County assessor’s office, and elected not to run for a second council term.

“I needed time off,” she says.

The slower pace didn’t agree with her. In 1993, Bromley suffered a heart attack. The chest pains hit at work. Her EMT training alerted her to find a doctor immediately.

Doctors discovered a hereditary condition. Her body makes cholesterol. Her quick response prevented damage.

“The experience didn’t change me,” she says. “The only thing that came to mind was, `Oh, my husband and my child.’ “

She began swimming a few miles every week to keep her body in the best shape possible.

Her health was just stabilizing as Rathdrum’s crumbled. In 1994, residents recalled Mayor John Heitstuman and Council President Debbie Waddell. Waddell asked Bromley to consider replacing her.

“We’d made a lot of progress and I knew she would continue it,” Waddell says. “She’s a woman who knows the needs of our town.”

Bromley returned to the council in September 1994 and was appointed mayor four months later.

She learned from the city’s falling out with its council. When the city faced big changes, Bromley surveyed residents for their opinions. It didn’t always help.

Public hearings over the building of the Cogentrix Energy power plant turned mean when an emotional opponent accused Bromley of not loving her son.

She did love her son and that wasn’t the issue, Bromley replied without raising her voice. Then she took her wounded feelings home.

“She handles herself amazingly well in some uncomfortable positions,” Waddell says. “She’s very professional, calm and cool.”

Bromley says her childhood strengthened her.

“I could be unstable. I chose not to be,” she says.

The mayor’s job sometimes overwhelms her. She’s often the only representative of Rathdrum people meet and she wants to impress them.

She rises before 6 a.m. every morning to spend 45 minutes at City Hall before going to work for the county. Rathdrum’s population is up to 4,000 now, with housing subdivisions sprouting all over and a second major supermarket going up.

The city needs Bromley’s quiet leadership more than ever now.

“I like working with her. She’s always been a friend,” says Police Chief Bob Moore, who’s worked for Rathdrum since 1976. “She’s a positive force for the city, always trying to improve things.

“It’d be hard to find better.”