Panhandle property owners are facing the possibility that North Idaho College will increase their property taxes to help come up with the $10 million purchase price of former mill property for a long-discussed education corridor.

That’s not the only reason that an opportunity to acquire the former DeArmond Mill site is under assault in Coeur d’Alene, but it’s a significant one. Significant, but not compelling – especially not when compared with the benefits the concept offers to a growing community that needs expanded and more diversified education opportunities.

NIC leaders have proposed a combination of dipping into the college’s operating budget and reserves and laying claim to property taxes the school is entitled to collect but hasn’t been taking. “Foregone taxes,” they call that potential fund source.

Typically, critics see this as a money grab rather than crediting NIC officials for the fiscal forbearance they have been showing. If anything, the board’s record of restraint is evidence of the merits they see in the opportunity to secure a 17-acre parcel that they had their eyes on but didn’t expect to become available as soon as it did.

“We don’t have months or years to wait,” NIC Trustee Mic Armon said earlier this month. True enough. Now, Armon and his board colleagues need to follow through by adopting the plan when they vote Wednesday.

As envisioned, the property would connect the NIC campus in the Fortgrounds neighborhood to the University of Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Campus at Harbor Center.

NIC President Priscilla Bell has pointed out that an adequate higher education presence contributes to the region’s long-term economic vitality. It would afford NIC an opportunity to enlarge its offerings – both academic programs and the vocational curriculum that is important to local businesses desperate for a trained work force.

Earlier this year, when Coeur d’Alene ranked as Forbes Magazine’s 21st best small city for business and careers, the publication refrained from scoring it even higher because of concerns about educational attainment.

“Having room to expand the campus and increase opportunities to partner with other institutions would make for a better-educated work force in a changing economy,” Bell said last week during a well-attended public forum on the issue.

She’s right, and the ample encouragement that has come from such credible sources as Mayor Sandi Bloem, the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce and the Lake City Development Corporation is a strong affirmation. Even the NIC student association – whose members would see higher tuition to help pay for the acquisition – has endorsed the idea.

The NIC trustees have shown responsibility and discipline in holding property taxes down in the past. Their decision to tap that resource now underscores how important the education corridor is.