Chalking up election winners, losers

In the aftermath of the municipal elections in North Idaho on Tuesday, Huckleberries has prepared a list of winners and losers:

Winners: Dixie Reid (the retiring councilwoman who was attacked in a nasty YouTube video earlier in the year by City Hall foes and got the last laugh by cheerleading two incumbents and John Bruning to victory); Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem (who keeps her City Council intact for two more years of progressive government); Kerri Thoreson (who won a seat on the Post Falls City Council to follow in the political footsteps of her father, the late County Commissioner Ron Rankin); Gretchen Hellar (the human-rights supporter who unseated incumbent Sandpoint Mayor Ray Miller to follow in the footsteps of her mother, the colorful, late Coeur d’Alene Councilwoman Lois Land-Albrecht); and Post Falls residents (who voted to tear down the current city hall when the new one opens and won’t be wasting $1.2 million in renovation costs).

Losers: Coeur d’Alene kingmaker Duane Hagadone (who aligned himself with an anti-City Hall ticket through his newspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press); Mary Souza (who regularly ripped City Hall and urban renewal efforts in her Coeur d’Alene Press guest column and now could lose her position on the Coeur d’Alene P&Z commission); and Kathy Sims and Tom Macy (two activists behind a last-minute flier attacking City Council incumbents and urban renewal who could face legal problems involving the state campaign finance law).

Hard to say: Libertarian-turned-Republican Dan Gookin (who led the failed yearlong campaign against City Hall but could emerge as the leader of the status quo opposition or fade away in a series of future election defeats).