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CDAPress coverage of Kootenai Health’s transition from community hospital to a 501(c)(3) hasn’t been bad. But if you blinked you missed it. The process culminated at lightning speed. One has to wonder, did the ever burning dumpster fire at NIC, here, here, here, and here, AND here, and, yet again, here, influence the rapid nature of the decision? After the most expensive election for NIC trustee candidates, the community has spoken. And the results appear disastrous as a brand new warning from the college’s accreditation body. 

The option for Community District Hospitals to transition to non-profits became legal July 1, 2022. Rumors of a Kootenai Health sale swirled and were addressed November 16th. Board members met Wednesday, December 6th. An information session was held Thursday, December 8th. December 13th the Board approved the transition with a 6-1 vote. Lightning speed and opportune timing. 

The stated benefits of the transition are clear and seem reasonable.

Kootenai Health’s white paper exploring the transition is here. If we can learn anything from the NIC debacle, let’s leave some decisions to the pros.

Ironwood Drive Medicine Man Pharmacy becomes a coffee shop

Travis White, who graduated from culinary school and has over 20 years in food service experience, moved to the CdA area from Seattle where he worked as the executive chef at Hotel Sorrento. The coffee shop will function as a drive-through until additional staff can be hired and trained.

Travis White

Brian Jorgensen, founder of Medicine Man Pharmacy and landlord to the incoming coffee shop, endorsed the new use of the former pharmacy in an emotional statement. He described his new tenant’s recent volunteer work feeding the people in Ukraine and seeing bombs from the hotel room. Jorgensen was so moved by the gesture he forgave two months rent helping facilitate the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

The special-use permit was approved. Watch for cars to line up, soon, outside of 1114 W Ironwood Drive.

The CdA News offers a public service announcement: Empty shelves at the food pantry! Food drive going on now!

Darrell Rickard, Community Action Food Bank director, says daily donations are collected from a variety of stores requiring two trucks. Community donations end up on these shelves prior to distribution. An increased need for assistance results in empty shelves as early as 2pm. Imagine if your cupboards emptied every day, sometimes by 2 pm.

Darrell Rickard, Community Action Food Bank director, orders whatever is available quarterly through a government food program. These flats of chili will be divided among 25 area food banks.

Food Drive Starts Today

From October 15, until October 22, a food drive is going on in Coeur d’Alene. Watch for Red plastic bags on your porch and place any of the following donations: “All nonperishables, toiletries, baby diapers, and wipes.”

Sponsors include the CdA Fire Department and local wards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Red plastic bags will be placed outside residences and will be picked up October 22nd between 8 am and noon.

Or, drop off donations Saturday, October 22, from 12 pm to 1 pm at: 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

2801 N 4th St, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83815

Let’s fill the shelves!

In a move many voters find questionable, Candlelight Pastor Paul Van Noy invited three NIC Trustee candidates to the stage during Sunday worship services this week. He asked them to state why they were running, endorsed them, and urged his congregation to vote for them.

Diana Sheridan stated, while holding back tears, “I’m running because they are coming for our kids at all levels and we need to be in charge.” 

Ron Hartman stated he was running “to bring family Christian values back into the college.” He also mentioned academics, transparency, and community ending his statement as follows: “Those that disrespect our flag have never been handed a folded one.”

Mike Waggoner, who acknowledged he attends Candlelight Fellowship, stated that God inspired him to run for the trustee position. He also claimed the “opposition” is using a budget of $70,000 to $100,000 to “spread lies and stay in control.” He noted the “conservative Christian candidates” each have a $7,000 budget and could use more donations if parishioners felt inclined to support their cause.

Pastor Paul then prayed over the candidates.

These three candidates were notably absent from NIC’s forum. A source reported that, “When asked, one of the candidates said they weren’t going because they believed it would not be a level playing field.”

The pastor stated that his church would pray for any candidates regardless of endorsement.

Gaming is something that many people do in lots of places. But what’s the best console? Which should you get? I’m here to answer these questions. We’ll be comparing three major consoles, the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Specs:

Let’s start with the PS5, which is $499.99. With 825 GB of storage and 16 GB of RAM you can fit quite a few games on it, and run them well. The Xbox Series X is very much like the PS5, costing 499.99 and having 16 GB of RAM. One difference is that the Xbox has 1 TB of space, which is 175 GB more than the PS5. The Nintendo Switch on the other hand, has a very small 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. Two things to mention though, you CAN upgrade the Switch’s storage with an SD card and you can switch between handheld mode, or TV mode.

Games:

Games are a different matter. Each of these consoles have the popular game Minecraft, along with some shooter games. The Switch, unlike the others, has many multiplayer games including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart and some more. The PS5 and Xbox both have very similar games with a few exclusives to both. 

Conclusion:

Deciding which console to get may be very hard. They each have very fun, interesting games, and are made to play what they play. But whichever console you choose to get it will be worth it. So, get out there and get one!

-O.P.

Editorial

The chamber of commerce held an impromptu? NIC trustee candidate forum. Half of the candidates didn’t leave their basements, or, at least, didn’t show up. This may work in their favor. 

Candidates focused on the dysfunctional board and placed blame solely on [Banducci and McKenzie] while forgoing tarnishing trustee emeritus Christie Wood. They were asked how they will work with the current president of the college but not the sitting board members, who happen to be the only elected trustees. Tarie Zimmerman, Brad Corkill, and Pete Broschet coalesced around a central theme that the board must change. 

Zimmerman mentioned that no board should undermine or work against the president and he will take the college in the direction he wants. She also stated that declining enrollment is due to “bad board governance.” 

Brad Corkill, whose background is in lumber and owns a mill, wants to see the college in a healthier place in five years. He also hopes to see a dental hygiene program come to fruition. Insert face-slap emoji. NIC’s first class of dental hygiene students will graduate in a few months, two years after the official start of the program. Mr. Corkill later said that he approves of the school’s curriculum and policies. Not impressive.

Pete Broschet seemed to read several responses from previously prepared notes. However, he seemed to understand the issues. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he has a record on which to run. Based on my initial exposure to the three candidates tonight Broschet is the only one we would consider endorsing. 

We reached out to the KCRCC to learn about why their endorsed candidates did not attend. Perhaps they followed Mark Twain’s advice, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.” Unfortunately the other candidates were not so lucky; however, they get credit for showing up.

Chamber of Commerce NIC Trustee Forum Winners: The moderator and maybe the absentees

Mayor Jim Hammond, strikingly portrayed in this Rubik’s Cube mosaic, has the constant pressure that comes with being the mayor of the great city of Coeur d’Alene. He is pressured by others but always has to make the decisions he deems to be correct. In any position of leadership there are hard decisions to be made that can sometimes displease the general public. It is a constant balancing act between pleasing the public and doing what is best for the city. Earlier this year Jim Hammond contemplated a change allowing only citizens residing within the city limits can participate in the public comment. Sometimes time was wasted because the city can’t do much about what is outside city limits. Before citizens could make a case against the idea he removed it from the agenda. Since then we have endured a few unruly or comical perhaps disrespectful public comments at city council meetings. Some lament the past few sessions of public comment as unproductive because of this. However, most of the general public appreciates that public comment has remained open and does not require verbalization of one’s physical address. -NP

-NP

On Monday, October 3rd, the CdA School Board will vote on implementing the Sources of Strength program for grades K-5. The program is touted as “A best practice youth suicide prevention project designed to harness the power of peer social networks to change unhealthy norms and culture, ultimately preventing suicide, bullying, and substance abuse.” Implementation was previously considered by a committee which generated many pros and cons, recorded here. Ultimately, the group requested the issue come before the School Board for a final vote. The Board will consider this item at 5 pm on October 3rd at the Midtown Center Meeting Room, 1505 N. 5th Street, Coeur d’Alene.

Conrad Woodall, a local parent with a Master’s in forensic psychology, recently participated on Ed Bejarana’s Idaho Speaks podcast. His daughter Ella accompanied him and shared her experiences with the Sources of Strength program and teen use/abuse of social media platforms. Conrad and Ella oppose the program citing their experience that bullying and harassment have continued, sometimes originating from peer leaders at schools with the Sources of Strength curriculum. The interview in its entirety is here. Conrad Woodall suggests the program will not have the desired impact on teen suicide. He would like to see enhanced training of primary care providers including assessment of suicidality and referral to mental health specialists.

Repost from apnews.com January 30, 2019

NEW YORK (AP) — The steady loss of local newspapers and journalists across the country contributes to the nation’s political polarization, a new study has found.

With fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature, according to research published in the Journal of Communication.

The result is much less “split ticket” voting, or people whose ballot includes votes for people of different parties. In 1992, 37 percent of states with Senate races elected a senator from a different party than the presidential candidate the state supported. In 2016, for the first time in a century, no state did that, the study found.

“The voting behavior was more polarized, less likely to include split ticket voting, if a newspaper had died in the community,” said Johanna Dunaway, a communications professor at Texas A&M University, who conducted the research with colleagues from Colorado State and Louisiana State universities.

Researchers reached that conclusion by comparing voting data from 66 communities where newspapers have closed in the past two decades to 77 areas where local newspapers continue to operate, she said.

“We have this loss of engagement at the local level,” she said.

The struggling news industry has seen some 1,800 newspapers shut down since 2004, the vast majority of them community weeklies, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the contraction. Many larger daily newspapers that have remained open have effectively become ghosts, with much smaller staffs that are unable to offer the breadth of coverage they once did. About 7,100 newspapers remain.

Researchers are only beginning to measure the public impact of such losses. Among the other findings is less voter participation among news-deprived citizens in “off-year” elections where local offices are decided, Abernathy said. Another study suggested a link to increased government spending in communities where “watchdog” journalists have disappeared, she said.

Dunaway said voters in communities without newspapers are more likely to be influenced by national labels — if they like Republicans like President Donald Trump, for example, that approval will probably extend to Republicans lower on the ballot.

The diminished news sources also alter politicians’ strategies, Dunaway said.

“They have to rely on party ‘brand names’ and are less about ‘how I can do best for my district,’” she said.

https://apnews.com/ecf440606c824f9d9671f2fb22a2ffce

VR CdA closes shop and heads to Boise

Virtual Reality CDA and Abi’s Ice Cream closed their downtown operations. Since VRCDA left the area four months ago the location remains vacant.

Although apparently everyone loved Abi’s Ice Cream and you could even help make it, if lucky enough, new tenants are making a gutsy move by turning it into a sausage shop. It is unknown if we will want to see how the sausage is made.

 Two local favorites leave CdA!? What Gives?!

Abi’s owner “decided to retire” even after seeing “+20% gains year over year since opening in 2016.” Note to investors: Do not get bearish on downtown CdA.

Background: August 16, 2021, the Rotary Club presented their redesign of a small city park on Sherman Ave to the Park and Rec commission. Christie Wood, city council member up for re-election, initially denied approval because no bathroom was added by the benefactors who donated $275,000 to the project. Christie Wood wanted the group to go back to the drawing board to install a bathroom even though the issue had been thoroughly discussed and donors refused. We reported it here. Rotary was not happy with the request and stated that the delay would put a kink in the project. 

Impact: The delay resulted in an increased cost to taxpayers. In May 2022, Rotary requested and received up to $100,000 from ignite cda, the city’s urban renewal agency. The estimated total increase in cost was $176,000. Concrete costs were 35% higher than last fall. As Councilmember Wood is up for re-election in November, rotarians will likely think twice before endorsing or voting for her. Four months behind schedule, the park is nearly finished without a bathroom.

Needless delay and the impact on video here.

A 2+ acre property located at 2810 N. 17th Street is zoned R-12 and feasibly allows for 14-16 duplexes. However, the longtime resident and owner of CdA Paving, Todd Kaufman wanted to create a Planned Unit Development of 24 “twin homes” that would be geared toward owner-occupancy. After several hours of dissenting public comment, the Planning Commission denied the application. Commissioner Ingalls stated the request did not meet the criteria of compatibility with adjacent lots. Kaufman’s representative stated he would like to meet with neighbors to find an acceptable solution.

Proponents argue that this proposal aligns with the city’s newly revamped comprehensive plan. Worry exists that infill housing will be hard to create if the public continues to oppose similar projects.