[

In his two-bits worth opinion piece in this morning’s skewspaper, developer John Stone tried to defend his proposal to use public money from North Idaho College and Coeur d’Alene’s urban renewal agency (LCDC) to build an event center some distance from the College campus.

In support of his “vision” (where have we heard that term before?), Stone promised, “We can assure you that the final design will be up to Riverstone standards, will be complimentary to its surroundings, and will become something that the community can point to with great pride.”  (more…)

Councilman Deanna Goodlander

Well, once again Coeur d’Alene City Councilman and urban renewal agency (LCDC) Commissioner Deanna Goodlander has assumed the position of posturing for the sake of posturing.

In this morning’s skewspaper article headlined Out of bounds?, Goodlander once again feigns concern that her being a city councilman and an urban renewal agency commissioner might be some sort of conflict in deciding about the proposed joint venture event center between the LCDC and North Idaho College.

The issue is not a conflict of interest; the issue is incompatibility of office.  Almost a year ago OpenCdA explained that in our post titled Undivided Loyalty.  As we explained in that post, the offices of City Councilman and Urban Renewal Commissioner are incompatible, but it simply doesn’t matter.  Why not?  Because when it wrote the urban renewal law, Idaho’s Legislature said it didn’t matter.  Will it ever?  Yep.  When a municipality sues or is sued by its urban renewal agency and there are one or more city councilmen on the city’s urban renewal commission,  then it will matter.  That’s what was explained in our August 2012 post.  Until the Legislature fixes the law it carelessly wrote, the incompatibility of office will continue.

We’ve lived here since 2000, but until this year we’ve never seen a mayoral campaign boat parade on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Here’s a link to the Mary for Mayor Campaign’s YouTube titled Mary’s Boat Parade on Sunday, July 21.   It’s just a skosh over three minutes.

We suspect the credit roll will be simple:  Photographer:  Rick.  Sound Mix:  Rick.  Editing:  Rick.  Producer:  Rick.  Director:  Rick.  Catering:  Pot luck.

Nice job on the video.  Will there be another parade later in the summer?

According to this morning’s editorial in the local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press Editorial Board  is “… stunned that NIC would step so far outside its educational mission as a community college – and beyond the 17-acre corridor it purchased five years ago at a cost of $10 million – to prioritize this ill-conceived project and push it into hyperdrive.”

All d’Press needs to do is look at the names of the officers of the North Idaho College Foundation, Inc., and compare that to the names of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees.  Then do a little research about who on those lists would financially benefit from the proposed pole barn event center’s siting near land and motels.

The d’Press Editorial Board is “stunned?”  Really?

If Barack Hussein Obama can “win” the Nobel Peace Prize, surely Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Sean Murphy will win a Pulitzer Prize in Photography for this photo taken during the capture of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.   But for the red laser dot between Tsarnaev’s eyebrows, it would be just another arrest documentation photo.  The dot makes it prize-worthy journalism.

…the New York Times writers and editors use the wrong words.

From this article in today’s New York Times:

” ‘I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it — if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations,’ the president said”

“Diffuse?”  No, try “defuse.”  Unless el Jefe really did mean he wants to spread  or distribute potential altercations.

OpenCdA took several hundred photos of the Coeur d’Alene Independence Day parade.   Our July 6 post titled Subtlety in CdA’s Independence Day Parade included a photo of two nationally-prominent personalities, Bill Whittle and Burt Rutan, riding Segway PTs.

But the parade’s theme also wanted to focus attention on local American Heroes, the people who often go unrecognized but who are heroes because they are committed to making our community work day after day.   Maybe because we have become so used to seeing smiling faces of people we don’t know on stationary and mobile billboards, we may not have looked closely enough at the faces on the sides of parade entry #66, the “Mary Souza for Mayor” truck.  Here are photos of both sides of the truck (mouse click on the photos to enlarge them on your computer screen).   Yep.  Every person in those photos is a local resident, not a model from a distant advertising agency’s stock photo bin.  Do you recognize your neighbors?

Keep an eye out for the truck in the weeks to come.  It will be back…

(mouse click on image to enlarge)

One does not normally expect to experience subtlety in an Independence Day parade, but it was there in the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce’s “American Heroes” parade on July 4, 2013.

Take a close look at the picture.  The two distinguished gentlemen were each riding a Segway Personal Transporter. They were on the leading edge of Coeur d’Alene mayoral candidate Mary Souza‘s supporters marching in the parade.  It is subtle but appropriate that a Segway would symbolically lead a movement to segue Coeur d’Alene into an era of genuine progress and trust.

There’s more.

For those who didn’t notice, the two distinguished gentlemen on the Segway PTs are Bill Whittle and Burt Rutan.

Bill Whittle is a nationally recognized conservative political and motivational speaker.   He is a writer, pilot, and television editor who lives and works in Los Angeles.

Burt Rutan is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Scaled Composites, a way-out-in-front-of-the-leading-edge aerospace and specialty composites development company located in Mojave, California.  He designed the legendary Voyager 76, the first aircraft to circle the world non-stop, without refueling.  He now lives here in north Idaho.