The Nest on Lakeside. Five townhomes will cover half of the lot of the former J.C. White house which was recently transported to the base of Tubbs Hill to serve as the new North Idaho Museum. Property owner, Mark Launder, subdivided and sold the northern half of the lots to Allen Measom who is developing the the high end condos. Measom is a former CEO of Raptor Technologies, a software company based in Houston, TX. The builder is listed as Stancraft Construction whose logo is nearly identical to local conglomerate Stancraft Boat, Marine, and Aviation.
The five condos, rendered below, feature 3 beds, 5 baths, 3,500 Square Feet of high-end living commanding a $2,950,000. The southern half of the property remains under the ownership of Mark Launder. Previous statement by Launder indicate a similar project could take place on the Sherman Ave side of the property. This would take the property from <$1Million assessment with the J.C. White house to nearly $30 Million assessment for the tax rolls. Proponents of the project say that urban renewal played a huge part with revitalization of McEuen Park, the library, the Iceplant condos, and The Lake Apartments.
The heart of a city is her people. Inside the heart of the people: their faith. Three CdA churches replaced a movie theater, a car dealership, and a hardware store. Their leaders sat down to discuss all things faith and Coeur d’Alene–including getting out the vote. Enjoy this first clip where they weigh in on voting. Paul Van Noy from Candlelight Christian Fellowship, Raydeane and J.O. Owens from Heart of the City Church, and Aaron Richner from the Cause Church weigh in.
A 20 acre lot southwest of Interstate 90 will finally be developed.
Developers who have ties to Monogram Homes and will be allowed to build up to eight units per acre have offered $500 per lot to the CdA school district in an attempt to mitigate the development’s impact on schools. Representatives did not indicate how many lots would be used for duplexes but have the right to solely develop the See map for location.
As the city of Coeur d’Alene wraps up the annual “leaf-fest,” wherein street crews collect around 1,400 tons of leaves, some argue the task is unnecessary and even harmful to the environment. Check out Nathan’s report:
People raking their leaves is in fact not helpful because it is bad for the environment, ends up destroying key parts of ecosystems, and can affect the water supply that we all use daily. In the article, “Good news: You don’t need to rake your leaves; experts explain why” the author states, “Mizejewski explained that leaves and other organic matter sent to landfills can break down and form methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change” (Pitofsky 2). This shows that when people rake their leaves, bag them, and take them to the dump, it causes climate change. While getting rid of the leaves makes your lawn look nice, it ends up releasing methane and causing climate change, which is bad for the environment. Later, when discussing life on the lawn, the author states, “The layer of leaves on your lawn is ‘really important wildlife habitat,’ according to Mizejewski, forming ‘an entire ecosystem in and of itself.’” (Pitofsky 2). This clearly shows that anyone’s lawn is important to all critters and creatures. Why would people rake their leaves when it actually does harm? Raking leaves should be one of the last things people do as they really do it to have a nice looking lawn when it will be covered in snow in a few weeks. The author states “Leaves can also end up in streams and rivers where drains lead. That can affect the water quality and ‘sensitive species adapted to those waterways,’ according to Schlossberg” (Pitofsky 3). When there are huge piles of leaves they can be blown into rivers, streams, and lakes which could potentially harm the wildlife there. Raking your leaves takes more work and if you didn’t do it, it would help the environment, help small animals, and benefit the water supply.
Pitofsky, Marina. “Good News: You Don’t Need to Rake Your Leaves. Experts Explain Why.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 24 Oct. 2021,
Armored vehicle listed for sale by Lenco. This is one of three models the city may purchase.
Due to a 450% increase in CdA SWAT calls since 2014, the city council approved the purchase of a newly rebuilt armored vehicle similar to above for $183,000 discounted from a new model $380,000.
Year to date, the SWAT team has been called upon 18 times including one officer-involved shooting. Officers currently do not have armored vehicles. Chief White stated it will be used to “[rescue citizens trapped by gunfire, or safely evacuate them without exposing them to gunfire. It can delay officers needing to respond with gunfire.]” Councilmember Amy Evans asked how the police chief will ensure it is only used in protective measures. The Asset forfeiture fund will be cleaned out to fund most of the purchase with the balance coming from funds previously budgeted for a patrol car. The vehicle will get an updated black and white paint job to match the city’s fleet. The police department will still be able to purchase four patrol cars.
Dr. Carroll was right–at least about one thing. The hospitalization rate for <18-year-old-kids positive for Covid jumped to nearly 2%. Sincewe questioned the Press’ coverage of Dr. Carroll’s Rotary presentation, an additional 934 juveniles confirmed or suspected positive for SARS-CoV2 resulted in 18 hospitalizations among the same demographic. No reports of deaths or PICU transfers of these SARS-CoV2 patients have emerged. The increase of the average 1.1% hospitalization rate is attributed to the Delta variant.
As hospitalization rates of children increased the only local school with a mask mandate, Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy, dropped the masking requirement October 18, about four weeks after their board membercondemned the Press and Dr. Carroll for “[fanning flames of panic].” The charter school reports 20 cases so far this year among its population of 670 individuals. Coeur d’Alene public schools observed a 27% drop in total overall Covid cases over the last four weeks (10/11-11/7, chart 1) despite not requiring masks during the back-to-school Covid surge (chart 2). Masks work (chart 4). So, how do we explain this drop in cases? And, how does a community decide an acceptable risk and mitigation? Is this outcome acceptable? Would masking in schools have prevented eighteen children from hospitalization and hundreds of others from infection? Whether this outcome is satisfactory or not without masks, what about a vaccine mandate?
1. Coeur d’Alene School district schools2. Kootenai County confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ages <18
With the recent approval of Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5-11 the new school board will undoubtedly be deluged with demands for vaccine requirements from concerned parents. Natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity rates in the community should be considered along with novel therapeutics. Recently two new therapeutics emerged reporting an 89% reduction in hospitalization and death. Considering the community vaccine uptake–or lack thereof–should school boards or municipalities consider a vaccine mandate for kids or avoid a mandate and accept the risks of additional infections and hospitalizations? The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reports nearly 5,000 PHD children <18, less than one in three, have had at least one dose of the vaccine. Unfortunately the dashboard fails to allow further distinction of the data by county. One estimate for Kootenai County based on proportional vaccination uptake is 3,517 (based on Kootenai County comprising 71.3% of the PHD population). At least 3,431 Kootenai County kids have already had covid indicative of 3,517-8,000+ kids with some level of immunity. Judging by the overall vaccine uptake rate in the Panhandle health district a vaccine mandate will not be well received and yield poor compliance.
3. Panhandle Health District Vaccine data. Link: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/idaho.division.of.public.health/viz/COVID-19VaccineDataDashboard/LandingPage accessed 11/8/20214. Effectiveness of different mask types at capturing respiratory droplets. A value of 0 means that all droplets were captured, while a value of 1 means no reduction in droplets. From Fischer and others 2020: Low-cost measurement of facemask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech. Link
Kootenai County has posted the unofficial election results to their website which redirects here.
The Coeur d’Alene races turned out mostly how we predicted (5/7) with the exception of the school board. The largest surprise was the turnout which nearly doubled from 2019 for the city of CdA residents with over 10,000 votes cast. Below we break out school board and CdA city race analysis.
School Board
While our prediction was incorrect our endorsements apparently coincided with the voting populace. These races were very close and failed to resemble a decisive victory, reflecting the division in our community. Winners would be wise to proceed with moderate rather than polarizing actions.
City Council
Most CdA voters wanted someone other than Amy Evans but failed to coalesce around one of her two opponents. Kiki Miller narrowly beat Elaine Price by 49 votes, less than 0.5%. Woody McEvers enjoyed the largest margin in his likely last term serving by our interpretation of his comments that he was [considering not running again due to his age]. Jim Hammond arguably benefited from having two opponents but won with more than 50%.
We reached out to Elaine Price and Lindsey Swingrover to ascertain their intentions regarding a recount but did not immediately hear back. We will update the story if they respond.
Today is the day we let less than 11% of voters or about 2,700 people determine who makes decisions in our schools*, cities, and other local governing bodies.* While that doesn’t sound like democracy, Kootenai county voting data reveal less than 20% of Coeur d’Alene registered voters cast a ballot in 2019. The lack of state and national elections contributes to the lack of involvement. However, local and national controversies such as masking and mandates as well as tragedies such as the alleged Virginia rape and associated school board cover-up have piqued parent involvement and furor. It will be interesting to see if the vocal activism and protests turn out more votes than Coeur d’Alene’s 2019 total just over 5,300.
Below are our Coeur d’Alene election predictions not to be confused with ourendorsement:
*Please note that school board zones include rural areas that do not vote in city council elections. The precincts listed all are within Coeur d’Alene city limits.
Third term hopeful Lisa May is the most experienced, best-spoken and, perhaps, most highly educated candidate for CdA school board. We are grateful for the time, effort, and sacrifice she has given in the service of our community. While this makes her an obvious choice, public opinion reveals her apparent advantage may be her achilles heel. Local parents who wished to remain anonymous described her as obstinate and a better ruler than a representative while voicing disappointment in her lack of compromise and distrust of common sense during the pandemic. Lisa did not respond for comment.
For a board member who will hopefully work well with others we endorse third-generation CdA resident and parent with kids in 271 schools Allie Anderton for Zone 1.
Zone 5: Vote Rebecca Smith
While less vocal during her tenure on the school board, Rebecca has skillfully managed maintaining common sense while seeking to follow expert advice. We see no reason to unseat Rebecca Smith from her position and look forward to her continued advocacy for common sense solutions that put kids first. Rebecca Smith for Zone 5.
Zone 4: Vote Lesli Bjerke
Although we endorse Lesli Bjerke, our rationale is based on her opponent Lindsey Swingrover, who is, perhaps, the most impressive candidate of all trustee candidates. Her signs populate the vast majority of lawns with signs in Zone 4. She is passionate about our kids and schools. Her disposition is grippingly sincere. She has clearly fought for many causes close to her heart and arguably has the highest emotional intelligence among the entire field of candidates. She seemed to indicate that taking kids out of school last year was a mistake during the CdA Press candidate forum. She seems the perfect candidate but she has two problems.
First, her campaign literature is disingenuous in touting partisan connections alluding to ideals vastly disparate from what she tweets on Twitter. This leads us to her second problem, her social media presence where she describes Idaho as “broken,” “godforsaken,” calling our representative to congress a “monster” and referring to our new neighbors who call themselves political refugees as “extremists.” She went so far as describing our community as worse than when the Aryan Nations were here. These are frightful characterizations and should disqualify her from serving in a non-partisan position in desperate need of a unifyer. Barring her vitriolic tweets which surfaced we would have ignorantly endorsed her wholeheartedly. Screenshots of her tweets are here. Lindsey did not respond for comment or clarification regarding her tweets. Zone 4 Endorsement:Lesli Bjerke
Lisa May for CdA website offers no contact information to get in touch with the campaign or Lisa herself. That would be helpful for those of us who have never met nor corresponded with her. However, a donation option is available via paypal. In an attempt to reach out to Lisa we decided to make a donation. Apparently the minimum donation is $1.00. Whether that is set by the campaign itself or Paypal is unknown. As a scrappy start-up we donated $1 in hopes for an auto reply with an accompanying email address. Unfortunately it was only accompanied by a paypal email address and a surprising response from Lisa May.
Note from Lisa May For CdA Schools: “I’m guessing you were trying to make a point. We talked about it at the dinner table last night and reminded our kids that living by the “golden rule” is always better than striking out and being mean. I’m glad you could provide a learning opportunity.” (emphasis added)
To assume a $1 donation is evidence of someone “striking out and being mean” is a sad reflection of the division and hurt that has apparently seeped into our community. Clearly, Lisa has become defensive after possibly being targeted, insulted, scrutinized and questioned over the last two years. Citizens and parents need to be involved, campaign, discuss, speak up, and vote but we must avoid name-calling, insults, and threats. Her passive-aggressive response could have rightfully claimed the moral high ground by simply proclaiming to us and her kids at the dinner table: “Thank you. Every dollar counts!”
With local elections looming the Kootenai County Republicans have vetted candidates and published endorsements. Before jumping on the bandwagon consider the fairly recent turn over at NIC Board of Trustees and its impact. If you have 20 minutes you can watch a recent board meeting here. It is reminiscent of an SNL skit attempting to display a dysfunctional dystopia. Below is our take:
Watchthis clip as NIC former president is ignored in an open public meeting by Chair Banducci.
