Gary Ingram posted this info yesterday under Monday’s Open Session, but it is new and seems worthy of our discussion:

Word on the street and on the door of the Riverstone Auction Office is that the auction has been canceled. No sales = no tax increment. Let’s discuss the ramifications for LCDC and the city’s plans for downtown redevelopment using Riverstone TIF.

Comment by Gary Ingram — July 30, 2009 @ 9:36 pm

Dan Gookin posted this information under another thread but it deserves a spot of its own.  Here’s the report from the Idaho Freedom Foundation:

City refuses to disclose public info regarding employees

Idaho Freedom Foundation Executive Director Wayne Hoffman today criticized Coeur d’Alene city officials for refusing to disclose the full identities of its employees. IFF is a non-profit, non-partisan group which is in the process of developing a government transparency website. On Monday, IFF requested the city provide the names, titles, departments and rates of pay for each city employee. City Human Resources Director Pam MacDonald responded on Tuesday with a list of employees, but the first names of the employees were withheld.

“First names will not be provided because that would indicate gender. This is exempt from disclosure under Idaho Code 9-340C(1),” MacDonald wrote in an email to IFF after the organization requested the complete data.

That statute says employee names are a matter of public record. The law also says a public employee or applicant’s gender is exempt from disclosure under the public records law. So far, the city of Coeur d’Alene is the only entity in the state to use gender identification as a means to hide public information.  (more…)

Last Friday morning,  Kathy Sims sent an email to CdA City Clerk, Susan Weathers, asking several questions about the upcoming local elections.  Susan Weathers is in charge of the local elections and all candidates and political groups are required to register with Susan.

In little more than ONE HOUR, Kathy’s email was up on the Spokane paper’s gossip blog, where they proceeded to make fun of her questions and ridicule her on a personal level.

Is there no expectation of confidentiality or professionalism in our City Hall?

In our already topsy-turvy world,  this morning’s CdA Press heralded yet another mind bending headline.  I can’t link to the article because it is not online, but I will try to give you the basics here.

The article is titled “LCDC expects higher budget“, by Tom Hasslinger, and reports that LCDC expects $5.1 million in property tax revenues this year.    Remember this is money that comes from property taxes and does NOT go to the city or county…..it goes to the unelected board of LCDC to spend on “deterioration and blight”.  The rest of us pay more to make up the difference.

So, when all other public agencies are cutting budgets, and private businesses are laying off thousands of local folks, LCDC is expecting an INCREASE in the money they skim off of the property taxes from every single building in the whole downtown, Riverstone, Mill River, NW Blvd area.   (more…)