Chairman urges unity in Kootenai County

Less than 24 hours after becoming Kootenai County Commission chairman, Rick Currie urged county employees and residents Tuesday to unite and get over the mistrust that has left the community fragmented.

In his first State of the County address, before about 250 people at the Coeur d’Alene Area Chamber of Commerce’s Upbeat Breakfast, Currie said rapid growth has caused distrust. Longtime Kootenai County residents distrust new residents and newcomers distrust natives, he said.

“None of us are working together for the common good,” Currie said. “We are quickly losing our sense of community, the one thing that distinguishes us from so many other places.”

Everyone must unite and work together for the county to meet its fullest potential, Currie said, and that means honest and open communication and integrity.

“Trust is the glue that will bind us all together,” Currie said.

To help foster communication, Currie announced that the new commission will start having periodic town hall meetings. The first will be Feb. 13 in Spirit Lake. Others will follow across the county.

Currie was elected chairman Monday after new commissioners Rich Piazza and Todd Tondee were sworn into office. Piazza beat out Commissioner Katie Brodie while Tondee ousted Chairman Gus Johnson in the May Republican primary.

After the speech, Currie said it was important to expose the distrust issue, which he doesn’t characterize as a suspicion aimed at county government. Instead, he said, it’s wariness of the unknown that comes with rapid growth.

“We have to label it and get it out in the open,” he said in a later interview.

This isn’t the first mention of trust at a local public meeting lately. Saying Kootenai County is plagued with rampant distrust, planning consultants recently recommended that the commission extinguish the problem immediately.

The consultants, from Colorado-based KezziahWatkins, said the problem is more serious than they have experienced in any other community where they have worked.

The commission hired the consultants to help get the public involved in the rewrite of the county’s growth plan. In December, the consultants presented the commission with a report based on comments from county residents.

Like many areas in the West, Kootenai County is experiencing rapid growth – a 55 percent population increase between 1990 and 2004. That’s putting pressure on existing neighborhoods and rural areas and has sparked residents to organize and protest plans for many new developments.

Currie said the commission and the county’s planning and building department listened to people’s fears. Using public input, the county will write a new comprehensive plan that reflects the “desires, goals and concerns” of residents, he said.

David Larsen, a retired schoolteacher who recently ran for the Idaho House, said it was good for Currie to acknowledge the distrust problem, which isn’t always so openly discussed.

Unity and trust are possible, Currie said, and the community proved that after it banded together to support Shasta Groene after she was kidnapped following the murder of her mother and brother in 2005 by Joseph Duncan.

Besides calling for harmony, Currie presented a list of county accomplishments and goals:

•In 2006, the commission opted not to take a 3 percent increase in property taxes allowed each year by Idaho law. That saved taxpayers $889,000. Taxpayers also saved $1.1 million because the county took only 54 percent of available property tax revenue from new growth.

•Currie praised the county prosecutor’s office and public defender’s office for reaching a plea agreement in the Duncan case. Duncan pleaded guilty in October to murdering three people.

•Safety is a top priority, and the county will look for public support this year to help ease crowding at the jail. Currie didn’t reveal specifics.

•The county recently reached a deal with the city of Coeur d’Alene to extend sewer service to the fairgrounds along Government Way. Currie said that means the county can build restrooms in the Jacklin Building and make better use of the fairgrounds year-round.

•In 2006, the county created a Veterans Affairs Committee to give the commission input into local veteran issues. Currie is working with other elected officials to establish a veterans cemetery in North Idaho.

•More people are recycling in Kootenai County, and construction will begin this spring on a second transfer station west of Post Falls off Pleasant View Road.

•In 2006, the county processed more than 2,000 applications for county assistance. Currie said the county and state Catastrophic Fund paid more than $3 million in medical care for indigent and uninsured residents – an unfunded mandate that hurts the county’s budget. Currie said the commission will look for ways to handle these rising costs but gave no specifics.