Regional news
CdA annexation complete
The annexation of Duane Hagadone’s 273 acres into the Coeur d’Alene city limits is complete.
The Coeur d’Alene City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to annex the property, including the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course and Silver Beach Marina.
Councilmen Ron Edinger and Al Hassell voted against the annexation. Council President Dixie Reid was absent. None of the council members or the mayor made any comments.
Hagadone plans to build a new golf-course hotel along with luxury apartments and townhouses along the shoreline. The proposal ignited controversy with many residents who wanted the council to use the opportunity to ensure that popular Sanders Beach is forever open to the public.
Tuesday’s vote was just to formalize the annexation. The council voted in March to annex the property and then directed staff and Hagadone representatives to hash out an annexation agreement outlining conditions both parties must meet. Residents wanted the Sanders Beach condition included in the annexation agreement.
In April, the council approved the agreement over the objections of hundreds of residents. The agreement waived $150,000 in annexation fees and didn’t mention preserving access to Sanders Beach.
Route connects Seltice, Highway 53
Post Falls
Starting today drivers have a new route that connects state Highway 53 and Seltice Way that is anticipated to eventually get more traffic than state Highway 41.
After more than 20 years of planning, Pleasantview Road finally goes north and connects with Highway 53. The Post Falls Highway District is having a 10 a.m. ceremony celebrating the grand opening of 2.5-mile Pleasantview Road extension.
The new road, paid for with state and federal dollars, will give drivers an alternative north-south route.
“It will be the tie for Canadians and everyone from the north to come down and hit (Interstate 90),” said Bob Wilbur, a highway district commissioner who has been working on the since about 1985.
The ribbon cutting is at the Seltice Way and Pleasant View Road intersection.
For more information, call 765-3717.
Indians try to keep orca from pen
Gold River, British Columbia A day after a pair of Indian canoes led him out to sea, Luna, the overly friendly orca, briefly followed a Canadian fisheries department boat on Thursday, raising hopes that a plan to reunite him with his family could begin.
But the killer whale eventually broke away from the inflatable boat, probably to look for food, said Marilyn Joyce, marine mammal coordinator for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Scientists hope to capture the 5-year-old whale and eventually reunite him with his U.S. family, L-Pod. After Luna swam away from the fisheries boat, officials said that effort would not begin Thursday.
Indians here in remote Nootka Sound, some of whom believe the whale is the reincarnation of a tribal chief, want him to remain here in the inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Videotape shot earlier Thursday showed Luna plowing along behind the inflatable fisheries boat, headed toward a floating net pen. In hot pursuit were members of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht tribe, paddling canoes and singing to try to lure Luna toward them and away from the pen.
“Our singers are very willing to sing as long as it takes, they’ll just have to sing louder,” Mike Maquinna, grand chief of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht, said Thursday.