CdA community arena to include NHL-size rink
A year from now, ice arena activities will return to North Idaho.
Kootenai Youth Recreation Organization plans to construct the KYRO Community Arena at 3525 Seltice Way. The building will replace the one destroyed by heavy snow two winters ago. The four-acre parcel once was home to Y-J Foods.
The 40,000-square-foot facility will include a 200-by-85-foot (NHL-size) rink, seating for more than 500 people, rooms for special events, a heated lobby and locker rooms. The parking lot will have level access to the rink and to the Centennial Trail.
About 250 youths ages 5 to 18 will participate in two hockey clubs, and it will be the home arena for the Coeur d’Alene Lakers Junior A team. The arena will host practices, matches, tournaments and camps as well as school P.E. classes and church groups.
Lessons and figure skating will be provided by two clubs. More than 220 people are expected to enroll in classes, including parent-tot groups. Other activities include adult hockey and broomball.
A nonprofit organization, KYRO’s president is Vince Hughes, a computer programmer and cattle rancher who came to Post Falls from Polson, Mont., in 1992. KYRO will have about 10 employees.
Call (208) 765-4423 or visit www.kyro.org.
Nils Rosdahl
Sheriff praised
Like an orchestra after a discordant warm-up, Spokane Valley’s police contract players began hitting the same notes at last week’s City Council meeting.
“Go figure,” Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said afterward, smiling.
He found some good things in a $126,500 consulting report from the International City/County Management Association that had his blood boiling a couple of weeks ago.
The city contracts with the Sheriff’s Office for police service, but city-county relations have been strained.
On Tuesday, though, consultants lavished praise on the sheriff’s Spokane Valley operation, and City Council members patted everyone on the back.
About 100 people packed the council chamber for the politically sensitive report, including county Commissioners Bonnie Mager and Mark Richard.
Richard has exchanged bitter words with Mayor Rich Munson over city-county contract disputes, but both commissioners remained silent Tuesday.
City officials concluded in 2007 that the county was charging too much under the police contract and subsequently stopped paying a portion of the bill.
The dispute remains active although the city has now paid the amount it owed.
When county commissioners announced in December that they would cancel the city’s contract for snow-plowing, city officials feared the police contract might be next. An already planned police study was expanded to include the possibility of forming an independent department.
Council members said they just wanted to be prepared and have been at pains to assure a restive public that they plan to stick with the sheriff. Based on testimony at public meetings, residents like the service.
“Now that we have Plan B in place, we can make Plan A a lot better,” Munson said Tuesday.
“I think you summed it up nicely when you said you have a fine law enforcement operation here,” consulting team leader Leonard Matarese told Munson. “We didn’t find any red flag.”
John Craig