Edinger: Council Needs To Tone Down

Item: Personal politics: Coeur d’Alene City Council members look to put personality conflicts, testy meetings behind them /Tom Hasslinger, Coeur d’Alene Press

More Info: The longest tenured city councilman said he has never served on a council where arguing has been so commonplace. Disagreements in politics are par for the course, Councilman Ron Edinger said, but never has he served on a council where personality clashes and personal digs have occurred so frequently. “I think that sometimes it gets a little carried away,” Edinger said Friday, a day after an at-times testy council workshop on Thursday in what has been a month full of testy city meetings. “Personal things get involved, and I think that’s wrong.”

DFO: I can’t blame the majority of the council for being testy toward Councilmen Dan Gookin and Steve Adams, who rode into office by trashing the City Hall and the McEuen Field project — and then sat back arms crossed while allies of theirs led a recall effort. Is the majority of the council suppose to grin and bear it when Adams throws a monkey wrench into a well-devised plan to pay for a sewer expansion because he’s received some sort of divine insight into the Idaho Constitution? Civility is nice. But I also want elected officials to challenge colleagues when they are doing — or have done — something that the public should know about.

Question: Do you agree with Edinger that City Council members need to be more civil to one another?