Remember the Press headline yesterday about a Parking Garage for the County? Commissioner Dan Green (pictured) told me they issued this press release to clarify their intent. The Press reporter apparently didn’t tell the full story. Here’s what the County just sent us:
Kootenai County Commissioners
W. TODD TONDEE
DANIEL H. GREEN
JAI K. NELSON
Ph: (208) 446-1600
Email: kcbocc@kcgov.us
Press Release
Date: March 21, 2012
Re: Clarification of Facilities Master Plan Article
The Board of County Commissioners has received several calls regarding an article in the Cd’A Press on Tuesday regarding the development of our Facilities Master Plan. There appears to be some confusion as to the development of the Plan and the eventual implementation of the Plan.
The Plan is a work in progress. The Board is working with NAC Architecture and the plan is only about 50% complete. The plan’s emphasis is to streamline our operations and consolidate County facilities as much as possible. Currently, county facilities are very fractured in nature. For example, we have court rooms in four separate locations with two of those locations being off the main campus. The manpower required to service these sites is a substantial drain on county resources.
Once the Facilities Master Plan is completed the Board will present the plan to the public and explore multiple funding options. These options may include, but are not limited to, existing county fund balances, grants, local option taxes, a facilities bond and/or cost sharing with the City of Cd’A which could include urban renewal funds.
The City of Cd’A has expressed an interest in partnering to develop a shared use parking facility to address parking issues near Independence Point and Memorial Field. Discussions with the City have only addressed a shared parking facility.
The Master Plan includes two primary projects at this point, a new Justice Building and a parking garage in order to address current overcrowding and additional cars due to the proposed new building. A parking garage must be built first if we are to proceed. Preliminary cost estimates for the parking garage and the Justice Building are in excess of $27 million. The County would need to float a bond to build both facilities or use the local option tax if this became available. Either a bond or a local option tax would require a vote of the public.
We apologize for any confusion. There is still a great deal of work to be done and numerous options to be explored before any implementation of the Facilities Master Plan can begin.
I wonder how long it will take the Press to put out the complete story? Don’t hold your breath. You got it first.
Comment by Ancientemplar — March 21, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
Keep an eye on the online clock. The old line media is rather bureaucratic.
Comment by Ancientemplar — March 21, 2012 @ 2:25 pm
How much time? How about never?
Comment by Joe Six-Pack — March 21, 2012 @ 8:00 pm
Must be beer time! I just ventured over to the ‘other’ side and noted that John A posted this comment:
“This proves once again that legislators care more for special business interests than they do their constituents. How sad.”
Seriously, John A, you feel you can make this comment about the legislature, while being a staunch supporter of the ‘Gang of 4’ and their refusal to permit a public vote on McEuen by their constituents? I think your posts on this site should be:
This proves once again that the Cda City Council cares more for special business interests than they do their constituents. How Sad.
I also, momentarily, thought about stating: This proves once again that LCDC cares more for special business interests than they do their constituents. How sad. HOWEVER, I remebered that LCDC doesn’t have any constituents. Thus I guess the statement would have to be: This proves once again that LCDC cares only for special interests.
Comment by Joe Six-Pack — March 21, 2012 @ 8:12 pm
Clarrification or lack of information as presented to the Press?
Comment by old dog — March 21, 2012 @ 8:13 pm
Ancientemplar,
You have correctly and accurately recognized part of the problem: The BOCC assumed the local/regional news media would cover this meeting accurately and completely. After reading the Press news/views/skews article yesterday, I submitted a public records request to the BOCC for a copy of the audio recording of the meeting. I received it about 1 p.m. today. The press release shown above is far more consistent with the material on the audio recording than what was in the Press.
Still, the BOCC has failed to understand that it is unwise to rely exclusively on our local/regional news/views/skews media to disseminate information accurately or completely. The BOCC and other public officials need to go out directly to the public, not in some contrived and controlled “forum” with an in-the-bag moderator and screened questions like NIC put on, but in honest give-and-take community meetings on the issue under discussion. Sharon Culbreth, Representative Kathy Sims, Mary Souza, and Frank Orzell have provided these kinds of open, unscripted discussions on urban renewal abuses in Coeur d’Alene. In this particular case, the discussion would have been on District Court expansion and all that entails.
Comment by Bill — March 21, 2012 @ 8:18 pm
Bill,
Thanks for confirming the BOCC point of view. It is still fraught with issues and their failure to understand either the short term media disaster or the longer term questions of good government are frustrating.
Getting the public involved can lead to great ideas, like moving many of the traffic intensive operations to the fair grounds where parking will never be an issue. Good government isn’t always easy, but open government should be.
Comment by justinian — March 22, 2012 @ 6:34 am
Justinian,
After listening to the audio recording of the meeting, my impression is the BOCC knows it needs to do something but it doesn’t know exactly what or quite how to get there. The BOCC seemed to be hoping the City and LCDC might take a more active role. I did not get the impression that the City represented by W. Gabriel and Tymesen and the LCDC represented by Berns were ready to commit to anything other than to continue discussing the project with the BOCC. They made reasonable observations and asked appropriate questions of the BOCC. Although Elder from the LCDC was at the meeting, my opinion is that he contributed little or nothing of substance to the effort.
Comment by Bill — March 22, 2012 @ 7:52 am
I wonder when Wendy was going to clue in the City Council, or if she did and they just haven’t been vocal about this? Is Wendy charged with “selling” LCDC as a City service?
Comment by Pariah — March 22, 2012 @ 8:17 am
Pariah,
My understanding is that at Tuesday night’s Coeur d’Alene City Council meeting, she acknowledged she should have kept the Council better informed. The meeting audio really didn’t make it sound as if the City or LCDC has as yet any deep involvement other than to listen and talk. You could certainly conclude reasonably that the City steers prospective projects to the LCDC to be funded at least in part by the First Unregulated Bank of Idaho much like a real estate agent steers prospective buyers to his favorite lender.
Comment by Bill — March 22, 2012 @ 8:29 am
Thanks Bill. Can you post the audio?
Comment by Pariah — March 22, 2012 @ 9:11 am
Pariah,
I’ve loaned the CD to some people, but when I get it back, I’ll have to look at the file size. It’s a .wav file, and since the meeting was about 40 minutes long, its size may exceed our upload file size limit.
Comment by Bill — March 22, 2012 @ 12:17 pm
I received a response from Dan Green. He says that Jai Nelson’s dad, RG Nelson, is now in his 80s and has not worked for several years. RG apparently never worked for the planning firm contracted, he has only worked with them at times over the years.
Dan didn’t directly address the other issues raised by Old Dog, but Dan did admit the commissioners made a mistake and should have been more clear with the public about the planning process.
Comment by mary — March 22, 2012 @ 7:08 pm
Interesting response, considering R.G. Nelson is currently listed as a “Principle Architect” for RAC Architecture on their website. His bio (copywrite, 2012) says nothing about him not working for the firm or being retired. He even has a contact link (via RAC) website. He must have some value to the firm, maybe its just roping clients in. This being an election year, Green’s repsponse is no real surprise.
Comment by old dog — March 23, 2012 @ 6:54 am
Oops – its NAC Architecture
Comment by old dog — March 23, 2012 @ 7:11 am
Mary and old dog,
Here is a link to the R.G. Nelson info on the NAC Architecture website.
Was this contract with NAC Architecture in place before Jai Nelson announced her candidacy for County Commissioner?
Comment by Bill — March 23, 2012 @ 8:31 am
Thanks Old Dog, your info is helpful. The fact that RG Nelson’s name is on the list of principals for NAC is certainly enough to trigger the need for a disclosure from Commissioner Jai Nelson, in my opinion, even if her dad is not currently active in the firm.
Why is the need for disclosure so hard for public officials to understand? It doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t continue your planning, it means you have to let people know there’s a close business connection that may or may not be inappropriate for the project. It looks far worse not to disclose and then have it brought up later…like now.
Comment by mary — March 23, 2012 @ 10:04 am