Beach Access A Concern Sanders Beach Users Worry About Ripple Effect From Private Dock

Seven-year-old Christopher Bledsaw dared the waves of Lake Coeur d’Alene until they reached out and soaked him.

For him, Sanders Beach was too much fun to resist.

Christopher and his 11-year-old cousin, Mallory Lingo, played in the water Thursday. They skipped rocks from a beach that is privately owned, but has been used by the public for more than 100 years.

Marsha Tate watched her daughter and nephew play and acknowledged that landowners allow the public to use the beach. But “if they make it private,” she says, “they will be taking away part of history.”

The application for a 94-foot-long, 1,095-square-foot dock at the east end of Sanders Beach has residents worried that public use soon could change.

Local attorney Chuck Sheroke said the dock application by Jerry Jaeger, co-owner of Hagadone Hospitality Co., is a first step toward the beach becoming off-limits to public use.

The Coeur d’Alene City Council has sent a letter to the state objecting to Jaeger’s dock request, saying the dock would be too long and too close to a public swimming area. Regardless, Sheroke says the council hasn’t done enough to stop the erosion of public beach access.

“They have been asked to protect Sanders Beach and have done nothing because their loyalties lie with the landowners and not the public,” Sheroke said of City Council members.

The Idaho Department of Lands is expected to rule soon on Jaeger’s private dock application. Jaeger did not return phone calls last week. The dock will be connected to the three-story, 10,000-square-foot house Jaeger is building between the city-owned Jewett House and his company’s private golf course.

The Jaeger house will include a swimming pool, a governor’s suite, media room, covered deck, spa and an office, according to plans filed with the county.

Kootenai County Planning Director Cheri Howell said she recently denied Jaeger’s request to make “1” the address for his new home.

A 6-foot fence, topped with barbed wire, separates the house from the 500-foot stretch of beach that Hagadone Hospitality agreed to leave open for public use.

That agreement was reached with former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus in exchange for a lease allowing Hagadone Hospitality’s floating green to be built at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course.

Jaeger proposes to build the dock from a small section of beach between the fence and the golf course.

Nancy Stricklin, deputy city attorney, does not believe Jaeger’s dock would set a legal precedent for other Sanders Beach landowners to build boat docks.

Sheroke, the local attorney, disagrees.

“I’m not placing this blame on Mayor (Steve) Judy. But the City Council is unable and incapable of exercising leadership,” Sheroke said. “They have given this town away.”

Councilwoman Deanna Goodlander grew up swimming on Sanders Beach and ran for office 2-1/2 years ago with hopes of protecting public use.

“Personally, I wouldn’t want to see any docks on those beaches,” Goodlander said. “But when you sit on the City Council, you have to make sure everybody’s rights are protected.”

Goodlander does not want her legacy to include sitting on the council that allowed private boat docks to eliminate public swimming areas at Sanders and City beaches.

“Absolutely, it would be very disappointing,” she said. “We are fortunate that our forefathers did think to preserve as much as they did.”

Nona Kay Barclay and her husband, Dick, live in the house Alexander Barclay built - complete with underground sprinklers - in 1925 on the corner of 11th Street and Lakeshore Drive.

Like most homes along the beach, the Barclay property is split by the street, leaving a small parcel along the water, and a home across the street. The Barclays’ beach-side parcel is bordered by a wrought-iron fence that Alma Barclay saved from the demolition of the old Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane.

Years ago, Alma Barclay planted a strain of roses with small flowers and big thorns to keep people from climbing on the fence.

“I think if this were anywhere else on the lake, we would have had a dock a long time ago,” Nona Barclay said. “But we are the last people to stop people from using the beach.

The family has had the occasional run-in with late-night parties and groups leaving trash on the beach.

“We could never put patio furniture out there,” she said. “It would be gone. Some people think that is public property.”

Barclay questions why Jaeger’s dock request is moving through the state permitting process so smoothly when neighbors have fought long legal battles to do the same.

At least four people have filed for dock permits on Sanders Beach. However, the state has refused to rule on those permits until the Idaho Supreme Court rules on a similar request on City Beach by Don Dupont.

“I just feel that Jaeger has more money and influence,” Barclay said. “We haven’t tried to build a boat dock because it’s too much of a liability to have - especially so close to a public access area.”

Barclay would like the City Council to help solve the situation. “But I don’t think they are strong enough on deciding what’s public or private.”

Down the street, retired Dr. Ted Fox was pruning his marigolds in front of the house he purchased in 1946. He lives next door to Jack Simpson, who is in a legal battle over the fences he built to keep people off his section of beach.

“The public has been allowed to use my beach as long as they were careful to pick up after themselves,” Fox said. “Of course it’s private property. Until recently, people didn’t know that.”

Fox, 91, has picked up watermelon rinds, dirty diapers and other trash left on his section of beach.

“In the last five or 10 years, it’s been a lot better,” he said. “Being an old-timer, we had a gentleman’s agreement” to allow public use of the beach.

Red Halpern, who for 31 years served as Coeur d’Alene’s parks and recreation director, said he hopes that agreement continues.

“I would hate to see the whole beach go into a series of docks that will stick out and start bringing in the boats, the noise and Jet Skis,” Halpern said.

Shanna Nieffenegger, 21, relaxed last week in the bright afternoon sun on the same beach where she and her mother learned to swim.

“I’m grateful to the landowners who let us use the beach,” Nieffenegger said. “They do pay taxes on this property, but I grew up here.”

While describing the private property-public use battles as “craziness,” she suggested that the city compensate landowners in exchange for allowing the public to use the beach.

“When you have been coming down here all your life,” she said, “it’s hard for someone to take that away - even though it’s not yours.”

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