Is it fair and accurate to characterize Coeur d’Alene’s McEuen Park parking garage as the Son of  River Park Square (RPS) in Spokane?

I believe so.

They were both funded by using as much public money as possible for projects which would primarily benefit a few developers and businesspeople.  They both depended heavily on key local government officials being fully controlled by the developers.  And they both have depended heavily on the developers’ abilities to carefully control and manipulate the information the public received about each project.

Adequate parking, properly sited and designed, can add measurable value to a downtown business area.  Aside from whatever revenues are generated by parking fees and fines, customer and client access to convenient and safe parking can increase the foot traffic to and through businesses and recreation areas.  Well-sited and designed parking is an enhancement that benefits businesses, customers, and visitors alike.

Unfortunately, poor siting that only benefits a few can result in the public’s money (taxes and fees) being spent to unjustly enrich a few high-rollers while leaving many smaller and less influential businesspeople out in the cold.  That appears to be exactly what has happened when Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem and some of her cronies agreed to site the McEuen Park parking garage on Front Avenue.   The Mayor and her cronies have apparently decided who will benefit most from the new structure. They decided who will win and who will lose.  Needless to say, the Mayor with her property on Sherman Avenue and her cronies will be among the designated winners.

The siting of the McEuen Park parking garage was and still is contentious.  None of the paid consultants hired over the years by the City to evaluate downtown parking had recommended putting that parking structure south of Sherman Avenue.  They had recommended additional parking but north of Sherman.  The reasons are fairly obvious:  Traffic departing from major crowded events involving Sherman Avenue will be severely impeded if it has to cross Sherman Avenue leaving downtown.  Parking structures on Lakeside, one block north of Sherman, would have been pretty much equally convenient to all the businesses on and north of Front Avenue.  All would have benefited.

So when the City of Coeur d’Alene’s specific intentions to site a parking structure south of Sherman Avenue leaked out in the fall-winter of 2008, a few citizens quickly deduced that just as Spokane’s RPS project was created to use public money to enrich the Cowles business interests, the McEuen Park garage site was picked to deliver the greatest financial benefit to some key public officials and developers in Coeur d’Alene.  In particular, the City chose to turn Front Avenue into a parking structure to benefit certain businesses and land owners on the south side of Sherman Avenue and on Front.  Mary Souza identified the major beneficiaries in her OpenCdA posts titled Watch Out, McEuen Field! as well as Who Owns Near McEuen?.

Those of us who had followed Spokane’s RPS project believed that the clearest evidence of direct personal benefit to certain key people would come from the design and construction plans for the McEuen Park parking garage.  We urged the two newly-elected city councilmen, Dan Gookin and Steve Adams, to look to the plans for evidence of tunnels and skywalks (above ground sheltered walkways) that will provide direct connection between businesses and the parking structure.

It turns out we were both wrong and right.

The original plans, at least the ones shown to the public, did not show any provision for tunnels or skywalks to places owned or operated by those who would benefit from easy, sheltered access.  That’s where we were wrong — assuming the publicly accessible plans would reflect what was to be.  We also erroneously assumed that information critical to making informed decisions would not be intentionally withheld from Councilmen Gookin and Adams.

But we were absolutely right about the tunnels.  Take a look at the  May 28, 2013, agenda for the City of Coeur d’Alene General Services Committee:

Pay particular attention to Item 4.  Easement Agreement with Blackridge Properties, LLC for Front Avenue Pedestrian Tunnel.  Here is a link to the Staff Report and Easement Agreement in the Committee packet for that item.  There is some information OpenCdA readers need to have to better understand the significance of this rather blah agenda item.

First, “Blackridge Properties, LLC” is not further identified in the General Services meeting packet.  In fact, a search of the Idaho Secretary of State’s business entity database reflects no company named “Blackridge Properties, LLC” *.  However, there is one named Black Ridge Properties, LLC.  Here is the information Black Ridge Properties, LLC filed with the Idaho Secretary of State in its 2012 annual report.  The owner of 401 Front Avenue, Black Ridge Properties, LLC, lists Stephen F. Meyer and Charles R. Nipp as members.  Nipp is the former long-time member and chairman of the Lake City Development Corporation – LCDC, the City’s urban renewal agency that has dumped several million dollars of public money into the McEuen Park project.

Second, Coeur d’Alene City Council President/Councilman Mike Kennedy is the President of Intermax Networks, a DBA for Newmax LLC managed by Stephen F. Meyer, one of the members of Black Ridge Properties, LLC.  Kennedy is the Chairman of the City’s General Services Committee serving with Councilmen Steve Adams and Loren Edinger.  It is almost certain that regardless of what transpires in the General Services Committee meeting, the proposed Easement Agreement will be sent to the full City Council for approval.

Given that City Council President/Councilman Mike Kennedy’s income is heavily dependent on one of the principals in Black Ridge Properties, LLC, one would expect Kennedy to recuse himself from participating in deliberation and voting on the Easement Agreement.  Don’t be so sure.

The proposed Easement Agreement represents that Kennedy’s boss at Black Ridge Properties, LLC is going to pay for the tunnel, so the cost to the City should supposedly be zero.  Any benefit to Black Ridge Properties, LLC will theoretically be incidental, so it can at least appear that Kennedy has no conflict of interest.  Never mind that because of the parking garage site selection, Kennedy’s boss will for a pittance have a short and comfortable tunnel connection to the parking garage for his 401 Front Avenue property, a garage paid for with public money.  Wasn’t it fortuitous that the City Council approved putting the McEuen Parking structure where it would be readily and easily available for cheap tunnel access to land owned by Council President/Councilman Kennedy’s boss?

But why does the bank branch on Black Ridge Properties, LLC’s 401 Front Avenue land need a tunnel?  The bank branch probably doesn’t doesn’t, but the Parkside-like high-rise rumored to be planned for that site would sure benefit from one, particularly if the first few floors turn out to be retail businesses and professional services.  And wouldn’t a sky walk from the rumored new high rise to Mayor Bloem’s building in the same block but fronting on Sherman Avenue be a convenient indoor connection to the McEuen Park parking garage?

Expect more of these types of requests for tunnels to come in to the Council.  Rumor has it that the Hagadone Corporation plans to go vertical with another tower above where the Plaza Shops sits.  How far is that from the McEuen Park parking garage?  Just a short tunnel and another Easement Agreement away.

In Spokane the Cowles family owns and operates The Spokesman-Review newspaper.  That gave them near absolute control over what information the public received about RPS and when it received it.  Fortunately, however, three enterprising writers with competence and integrity told the whole story of River Park Square in their online magazine CamasMagazine.com and were professionally recognized for their effort.  (Teaser:  Read the CamasMagazine.com selections about Michael Ormsby who has since become the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington.  Then read OpenCdA’s March 2009 post titled Michael Ormsby – The Coeur d’Alene Connection.)

In Coeur d’Alene the Hagadone Corporation owns and operates the Coeur d’Alene Press skewspaper.  With only an AM robo-radio station that has no independent news reporting, we have to get our local broadcast news from Spokane stations whose depth of reporting on north Idaho issues is measured with a nanometer scale.   That gives the Haga-Corp and the City government through its Propagandist in Chief nearly complete control over the content and timing of the information the public receives about the McEuen Park project.    Since “timely” and “complete” are not exactly watchwords at the  Coeur d’Alene Press and since the Hagadone Corporation’s downtown businesses will benefit mightily by the siting of the McEuen Park parking garage, don’t expect a flurry of CamasMagazine.com-like investigative journalism from the Press.

What will happen when the proposed Easement Agreement between the City and Black Ridge Properties, LLC comes before City Council, possibly the first Council meeting in June?  It’s almost certain to be approved, and once that happens, more will follow.

There are some lessons to be learned from this experience.

First, if Coeur d’Alene voters elect Bloem-Kennedy-Goodlander-McEvers clones in the November 2013 City election, the practices and abuses of the last few years will continue.  Make no mistake about it.  There are clones already being groomed on the several City commissions and committees.   Indeed, for years it has been very clear that many of Bloem’s committee and commission appointments have been selected more because of political loyalty than their knowledge and commitment to conscientious and diligent community service.  Think of them as rubber stamps in training.  With few exceptions, those who declined to be rubber stamps were removed or simply not reappointed.

Second, neither the Coeur d’Alene Press nor The Spokesman-Review can be counted on to deliver timely, factual, complete information to interested citizens in north Idaho.   Reread the CamasMagazine.com articles if you have any doubt of that.  Both the Hagadone Corporation and the Cowles family have very significant business interests in northern Idaho, so it benefits them to have friendly and controllable people in local offices.

Third, in Idaho from the capital to the courthouses to city halls, money talks and sadly, integrity often walks.   Honest candidates and appointees for public office as well as those honest officials already in office will be attacked and ridiculed.  That’s certainly true in Kootenai County and Coeur d’Alene.

Idaho is a lawless state.  It is not that Idaho doesn’t have laws, it’s that many existing laws are outdated, mostly toothless, and too often selectively enforced.  Pathetically,  many of Idaho’s “Citizen Legislators” have shown no inclination to change that.

It’s been said that if Satan decided to resurrect gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and return them to Las Vegas to reclaim their criminal empire, they’d simply laugh and say, “Why would we want to go back to Vegas?  Send us to Idaho!”

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* The Kootenai County Assessor’s parcel search does show that 401 E. Front Avenue, Coeur d’Alene, ID is owned by “Blackridge Properties LLC” at an owner address of 2100 Northwest Blvd #350, Coeur d’Alene.  The Secretary of State’s business entity listing for “Black Ridge Properties, LLC” lists its mailing address as Black Ridge Properties, LLC, Stephen Meyer, 2100 Northwest Boulevard, Suite 350, Coeur d’Alene.

(Illustration Credit:  To see more Milt Priggee, go to http://www.miltpriggee.com)