Average Folks Need Representation, Too

The Fat Cat Party proved again this week it’s in almost total control of Kootenai County politics.

For the second time in five months, the FCP had its way on a controversial issue that had a strong grass-roots element. In November, the party used its money and media outlet to successfully unite opposition to a promising bid to finally build a Coeur d’Alene community center. Last week, with the masses overwhelmingly against them, party bluebloods turned to two men they helped elect to the county commissioners office almost six years ago.

Predictably, Commissioners Dick Panabaker and Dick Compton voted against 5,000 petitioners, two county hearing examiners and the Rathdrum aquifer to approve the Burlington Northern Santa Fe refueling depot near Hauser.

Now, with groups rallying today to oppose changes proposed for the public greenspace east of The Coeur d’Alene Resort, the Fat Cat Party is poised to strike again. Unless grass-roots groups like Friends of the Aquifer, the McEuen Preservation Alliance and the Center Project Foundation can form coalitions to elect candidates and help each other, they’ll continue to serve as road kill for Fat Cats.

Who are the Fat Cats? They’re an alliance of Kootenai County’s business elite, the economic wing of the county’s Republican Central Committee and the Hagadone Corp. They anonymously donate gobs of money to sympathetic candidates through Concerned Businesses of North Idaho, directed by Hagadone executive John Barlow. And Hagadone uses his Coeur d’Alene Press to back those candidates and Fat Cat causes.

The growing success of the Fat Cat Party shows there’s a need for a new political force in Kootenai County. A Quality of Life Party, if you will. The county needs a nonpartisan organization that takes a balanced approach to schools, development and the environment. One that can match the money bags and propaganda machine of the Fat Cats, using shoe leather and coalition building.

The potential for a Quality of Life Party exists in Kootenai County - among independents, superminority Democrats and common-sense conservatives who opposed the depot proposal.

Cultural conservatives might be ripe for a new party, too. They’re concerned about such quality of life issues as strip joints at State Line and access to pornography on the Internet at local libraries. At best, they’re tolerated by the country club Republicans on the Central Committee. Now, those country clubbers are trying to defeat the only county legislator identified with the religious right: state Rep. Jeff Alltus, R-Hayden Lake.

Two years ago, the Fat Cat Party supported Alltus against its archenemy, Democrat Larry Belmont. As director of the Panhandle Health District, Belmont had angered the Fat Cats by correctly deeming aquifer protection more important than helter-skelter development. He was a superb candidate. Alltus, on the other hand, was controversial - even before he shot one too many elk in 1998 during a hunting trip with his son. In 1996, Alltus got caught trying to pressure the state Division of Environmental Quality to approve a questionable septic plan for a Twin Lakes developer.

Alltus won easily.

Now, the Fat Cat Party is preparing to claim another plum: the Coeur d’Alene waterfront. Again, it has sympathizers in place to do its bidding. The City Council is packed with members who received financial backing from Concerned Businesses of North Idaho. In fact, Mayor Steve Judy owes his office to the political action committee he once served as executive director. In 1997, Concerned Businesses and Hagadone Corp. officials combined to donate $4,500 of the record $13,930 Judy spent to upset competent incumbent Al Hassell by 67 votes.

To his credit, Judy defied the Fat Cats last fall when he led the unsuccessful charge to build a community center. How he and the council respond to proposed changes to the waterfront (many of which, by the way, I support) is anyone’s guess. It’s a shame there aren’t a solid core of council members who can be counted on to represent Joe and Jane Average on such issues.

And maybe there’s a lesson here.

Maybe Kootenai County residents prefer to fight court battles every time they’re outraged by a poor planning decisions. Maybe Coeur d’Alene voters prefer to stage bitter advisory votes and recall efforts whenever their City Council considers waterfront changes.

The only way to beat the Fat Cats is to have the right officeholders in place when controversy arrives.