The agenda for the June 3, 2014, Coeur d’Alene City Council meeting notes the Council will be asked to approve “…the funding and authorization of staff to negotiate a lease agreement with Eastlake, LLC. and expenses for an East Sherman Police Sub-station.”  The staff report (at online Council packet pages 40/61-42/61) presented to the City’s General Services Committee lists the address as 1424 E. Sherman Avenue in the body of the report.

According to the Secretary of State’s website, there is no “Eastlake, LLC.”  However, the website does list “East Lake, L.L.C.” with a business address of 1424 Sherman Avenue, Ste. 300, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814.  Here is more information about East Lake, L.L.C. from the Secretary of State’s website.

Long-time readers may recall that in April 2008 OpenCdA raised strong objections to the City’s ill-conceived and wasteful Public Safety Substation in the Park.  Some of those objections came from the unwillingness or inability of then-Chief Wayne Longo and Captain Steve Childers to provide satisfactory answers to some fairly basic questions we thought Council should ask so it could determine if the proposal could successfully achieve the Mayor and Council’s objectives for public safety.

We think those questions and others still need to be asked by Council and answered by the present project’s proponents.  (more…)

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle newspaper is reporting today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the Rochester City School District and some of its contractors in a bid-rigging and kickback scheme.  Some of the underlying details of the alleged frauds committed are outlined in the D&C article.

OpenCdA has put up several posts describing the basis for and workings of Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission looking into the extensive corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.

It will be interesting to follow developments in the FBI’s investigation of the Rochester, New York, school district’s contracting practices.  School districts may be especially vulnerable to the type of fraud alleged in Rochester, because quite often their administrators and patrons just cannot imagine that their community’s predators in the construction industry would take advantage of their gullibility and vulnerability.

Of course to crooks, a dollar is a dollar.  While not all in the construction industry are crooks, some are, and school district boards have a duty to the district’s patrons to safeguard the money entrusted to them.  Board members must remember that their duty is to the district’s patrons and students, not to local industry.

The Coeur d’Alene Press is reporting that there are 17 applicants who want to fill the First District Magistrate Judge position to be vacated by retiring Judge Penny Friedlander.  The article identifies the applicants.

The process for filling a magistrate judge vacancy is prescribed in Idaho Code, Title 1, Chapter 22.  Because Judge Friedlander is retiring, her replacement will be appointed by the District Magistrates Commission of the First Judicial District pursuant to Idaho Code § 1-2205.  A magistrate thus appointed must stand for election in the first election after serving for 18 months in the position.  The process for retention or nonretention of a magistrate by election is specified in Idaho Code § 1-2220.

Here are the current members of the District Magistrates Commission of the First Judicial District.

Today Acting Inspector General for the Department of Veterans Affairs Richard J. Griffin issued an interim report entitled Review of Patient Wait Times, Scheduling Practices, and Alleged Patient Deaths at the Phoenix Health Care System.

The 35-page report is an interim report, however to ensure all veterans receive appropriate care, the IG submitted four recommendations to the VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to be implemented immediately.

The final report will address the sufficiency of Secretary Shinseki’s implementation of the recommendations.

In its online article headlined Conflicts handcuff taxpayers posted  May 25, 2014, the Coeur d’Alene Press made a big fuss about the costs incurred by Kootenai County which hired private conflict attorneys to represent indigent clients after its own Public Defender’s Office attorneys had declared conflicts.

It occurs to OpenCdA that the Press ought to make a similar and perhaps even more exhaustive examination of the use of conflict attorneys by the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney.   In most instances those conflict attorneys will come from the prosecuting attorney’s office in another county. For example, Kootenai County may refer cases to Bonner or Nez Perce Counties for charging decisions and prosecution.

We’d suggest reporting but not focusing exclusively on any additional costs incurred by Kootenai County with such referrals.  Rather, we’d suggest looking at the reasons the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was unwilling or unable to conduct the statutorily prescribed functions for which the office was created and the Prosecuting Attorney elected.

Being elected officials, prosecutors are sometimes tempted to cherry-pick the cases they choose to prosecute in order to enhance their conviction record during the next campaign.  Having a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours relationship with prosecutors in other counties benefits both prosecutors since the voters from County X don’t get to vote for or against the prosecutor from County Y or County Z.  And too, if County X’s prosecutor has valid ethical conflicts, then the voters from County X need to know that.  Too many hand-offs to other county attorneys may suggest to voters that County X’s Prosecutor might be better suited for private practice rather than public service.

It’s just a thought.

Shocking Results?

After the Republican Primary last Tuesday, the newspapers and online blogs have been trying desperately to explain how several new people won legislative spots, unseating some big name incumbents, while other highly targeted incumbents managed to win with comfortable margins.  The media reported that some folks are “shocked” at the outcome of the election! (more…)

Should Idaho’s capital city Boise change its name to Clowntown?  If so,  Idaho’s Governor Clement L. Otter may have earned the opportunity to be its first mayor under the new name.

According to the Idaho Statesman, Otter  insisted that candidates Walt Bayes and Harley Brown be allowed to participate in the Republican gubernatorial primary election candidates  debate with him and his principal challenger, state Senator Russ Fulcher.

By many accounts, the result was a debacle rather than a debate.

The debate (or whatever it was) was presented by the Idaho Press Club, the League of Women Voters, and Idaho Public Television.  The presenters had established a debate format and rules which the participants presumably agreed to follow.  Though it might not have been obvious from the participation in the debate, the presenters had also established criteria for choosing the candidates who would be invited to participate.  But as the Idaho Statesman implied in its article linked above and as candidate Fulcher alleged specifically in a statement posted on his campaign website after the debate, the presenters may have disregarded the eligibility criteria when they allowed one or both of candidates Bayes and Brown to participate.

OpenCdA has sent inquiries to both the Fulcher campaign and to Idaho Public Television (IPT).

Of IPT, we asked:

In a statement on his campaign website, gubernatorial candidate Sen. Russ Fulcher stated, “Although they did not meet the debate’s qualifying criteria, governor Otter demanded inclusion of two perennial candidates, Walt Bayes and Harley Brown, as a contingency of his participation in the only debate he would agree to.”

1.  Did candidate Bayes and candidate Brown meet each of the “Criteria for choosing candidates in the Idaho Debates” as those were stated at http://idahoptv.org/elections/2014/rules.cfm?

2.  If either or both candidates Bayes and Brown did not meet each of the “Criteria …,” then why was the noncompliant candidate(s) allowed to participate in the gubernatorial debate?   Was Governor Otter’s participation in the debate contingent on an invitation to participate being extended to either or both candidates Bayes and Brown?

3.  If the decision was made to invite and allow participation by either candidates Bayes and Brown and if that decision was made contrary to the “Criteria…,” please identify by name and organizational affiliation the person(s) consulted in the decision and the person(s) who made the decision.

Of Sen. Fulcher’s campaign, we asked:

Idaho Public Television’s website listed the “Criteria for choosing candidates in the Idaho Debates.”  Which of these criteria did each of the two candidates Bayes and Brown not meet?  Since the debate was presented by the Idaho Press Club, the League of Women Voters, and Idaho Public Television, who at each of these organizations agreed to waive those requirements?

Their responses, if any, will be an addendum to this post.

Long-time readers of OpenCdA may recognize the photo to the left.  It accompanied our April 21, 2009, post entitled Closed for Your Protection?.  It’s a photo of the City of Coeur d’Alene’s police substation that sits in City Park just behind the North Idaho Museum.

There was another photo, a more recent one, of Coeur d’Alene’s police substation in the news yesterday.  Taxpayers in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County who read the companion article from yesterday’s Spokesman-Review headlined WSU to look into CdA peeing complaint and today’s Coeur d’Alene Press article headlined Drinking and disturbing will observe in yesterday’s photo that the police substation was still closed for your protection.

Given the theme of yesterday’s photo, it’s ironic that in April 2008 we ran a five-part series of posts entitled Toilet Not Included. There were other companion posts as well, and all had the same theme:  This alleged public safety building in the park was a gigantic boondoggle, a waste of money intended to allow the City of Coeur d’Alene to put public money in the pockets of some of its favorite contractors.  (more…)