Otter reassures tribe on mission park

Gov. Butch Otter has no plans to close the Old Mission State Park in North Idaho, and he has apologized to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe on behalf of the state official who said otherwise in January.

In a letter Monday to tribal Chairman Chief Allan, Otter said any decision to close the park that is the site of the 155-year-old Cataldo Mission would have to be made by the Idaho Parks and Recreation Board, and that hasn’t happened.

“The board – not the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation director – has the decision-making authority for the closure of parks,” Otter wrote.

The governor’s letter appears to have silenced for now the hue and cry raised in North Idaho in response to director Robert Meinen’s statement that funding for the park would end July 1 as a result of Otter’s proposed $9 million cut in Parks and Recreation funding from the state’s general fund.

The Associated Press reported in January that the tribe was asked to help fund operation of the park, which sits on tribal land.

“If they can’t because of financial considerations, then we would mothball it and preserve it,” Meinen told the AP at the time.

The tribe, which has built a new $3.8 million visitors center at the site, was upset to read Meinen’s remarks in the media, Allan said in a March 5 letter to Otter. In 2002, he said, the state entered into a memorandum of agreement regarding ownership and management of the park that the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation seems to have disregarded.

“The state made a 25-year commitment to operate the park and should have consulted with the tribe before making such a momentous decision,” Allan wrote.

The mission and park and are culturally and historically signifant.

“It is the area where Coeur d’Alene people first met the missionaries as was prophesized by Circling Raven,” tribal spokesman Marc Stewart said. Circling Raven was the great chief who bade his people to embrace the “Black Robes,” as the Jesuits were called.

The Coeur d’Alenes weren’t the only ones upset by Meinen’s remark. On Jan. 15, less than two weeks before his death, North Idaho businessman Harry Magnuson wrote Otter to express his “profound disappointment and protest” over the decision to eliminate state funding of the park.

In his letter to Allan, Otter wrote that Meinen was merely responding to a reporter’s question about budget cuts with “possible scenarios that might be employed,” including closure of the Old Mission State Park.

“Director Meinen has since apologized to me for those comments and I, on his behalf, apologize to you for those comments,” Otter wrote the chairman.

Yet on March 9, one week before Otter’s letter to the tribe, Meinen continued his assertion in a letter to Magnuson’s son, John Magnuson, that closing the park was the wisest course of action based on “ownership of the land, number of visitors per year, income earned and threats to resource protection.”

On Thursday, a spokesman for the governor said Otter does not share Meinen’s perspective.

“The governor felt strongly that even though we asked the Department of Parks and Recreation to share in reductions, there are other ways to reach budget goals without closing the park,” said John Hanian.

Stewart said the tribe was optimistic, based on Otter’s response, that the Old Mission State Park would be spared when the Idaho Parks and Recreation board meets May 12-14 in Boise.