OpenCDA

September 24, 2015

Will Port of Hope Move to Post Falls?

Filed under: Probable Cause — Tags: , , — Bill @ 7:20 am

portofhomeOpenCdA has received word that northern Idaho’s Port of Hope, Inc., currently in Coeur d’Alene, has applied for a special use permit to establish a federal residential re-entry center in Post Falls.  We believe this will result in the closure of the Coeur d’Alene facility which has been in operation since 1998.

OpenCdA fully understands the Port of Hope’s apparent desire to leave Coeur d’Alene.  The shameful efforts by members of the City of Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission with help from employees of School District 271 to run Port of Hope out of town in 2013 were documented in this series of OpenCdA posts.   Thankfully, the Coeur d’Alene City Council resoundingly rejected those efforts in its meeting on October 1, 2013.

We hope that the members of the Post Falls Planning & Zoning Commission will look at our posts linked above.   These posts revealed how hysteria and deception can drive a completely unsupported decision in a planning commission hearing.  Our hope is that however the Post Falls Planning & Zoning Commission rules on Port of Hope’s application, the Commissioners’ votes will be based entirely on their objective evaluation of the relevant evidence presented during the hearing.

2 Comments

  1. ERROR CORRECTION: In my original post, I imprecisely stated, “We believe this will result in the closure of the Coeur d’Alene facility which has been in operation since 1991.” While Port of Hope first opened in northern Idaho in 1991, it did not apply for and receive the federal Bureau of Prisons contract to be an RRC until 1998.” The date has been corrected in the post.

    Friday morning’s Coeur d’Alene Press skews paper reported the proposed move.

    The first two comments appended to the online story (the first at 5:07 a.m. and the second at 5:42 a.m. were similar to the uninformed, hysterical reactions from some Coeur d’Alene Planning Commissioners in 2013.

    Typical of its “report only part of the story” journalism, the skews paper article said, “Two years ago, the city of Coeur d’Alene discovered that Port of Hope was operating its residential reentry program out of its treatment center location without the proper permits.” That is accurate but incomplete.

    The rest of the story, the part reporter Selle and editor Patrick did not include, is that prior to applying for the federal contract in 1998 and then again during each five-year renewal application period thereafter, Port of Hope had supplied not only the City’s Mayor and Police Chief(s) but the County Commissioners and County Sheriff with the documents which, if the City’s Mayor and Police Chief(s) had paid attention to them, revealed the information which should have triggered the City’s notification to Port of Hope that a special use permit would be required. During the July 9, 2013, Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission hearing, the City’s representative stated the City had been unable to locate the letters which contained that information. Oddly enough, OpenCdA had no trouble locating copies of them and included links to four of them in our September 18, 2013 post entitled Subverting Port of Hope.

    Comment by Bill — September 25, 2015 @ 7:00 am

  2. I continue to find it curious that the city would cite Port of Hope for not applying for a special use permit yet continue to turn a blind eye when it comes to the many non-compliant group homes operating throughout the city. Arbitrary enforcement comes to my mind.

    Both hearings still leave me questioning the actions of the city from their initial demand of a special use permit to the so-called missing letters to the incomplete staff report to the absence of police testimony to the hearings (and the way in which they were conducted.)

    Comment by Susie Snedaker — September 27, 2015 @ 7:33 am

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