It’s amazing how receiving more complete and accurate information can change one’s perspective on a local issue such as the Port of Hope’s application to the City of Coeur d’Alene for a special use permit to operate as a criminal transitional facility.
OpenCdA post on July 9 titled Valid Complaint, But Why Now? was prompted by an article in the preceding Sunday’s local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press. That article was headlined Rehab facility near Fernan Elementary criticized. Carelessly, incompetently, or intentionally the Press omitted some very relevant information from that Sunday article:
- Port of Hope’s special use permit application was triggered by its renewal application for a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) contract which designates the Port of Hope as a Residential Reentry Center (RRC) for federal (not state) prisoners.
- Port of Hope was awarded its first BoP contract as an RRC in 1998. It has reapplied and been awarded renewal contracts by the BoP every five years thereafter in 2003 and 2008. Part of each of its initial and five-year reapplication processes included written notification to the City of Coeur d’Alene.
- To win the initial contract and subsequent contracts, Port of Hope has been required to prepare and be in compliance with specific standards, typically described as the RRC’s Statement of Work.
- Periodically during the year the Port of Hope receives unannounced audit visits from the BoP to ensure compliance or recommend improvements to its RRC program. The general content and scope of the audit is described in this document.
The crux of the matter is that Port of Hope is and has been operating as a criminal transitional facility since 1998, but the City apparently had not paid attention and has not required Port of Hope to seek a special use permit for that operation until this year. A quick review of Port of Hope’s history in Coeur d’Alene may add perspective.
Port of Hope was established as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility at 218 N. 23rd Street in Coeur d’Alene in 1991. At that time the land was already zoned C-17 . City ordinance (Ord. §17.05.500) allowed it to operate by right as a rehabilitative facility without further permission from the City.
Just prior to 1998, Port of Hope sought to competitively bid for a contract with the BoP. That contract, subject to rebid at five year intervals, would require Port of Hope to provide lodging and supervision for federal felons to prepare them for eventual release from federal custody. Winning that bid would designate the Port of Hope as an RRC. Port of Hope was awarded its first five-year contract as an RRC in 1998. It subsequently sought and was reawarded similar contracts in 2003 and 2008.
For an overview of what the RRCs such as Port of Hope do, read the BoP’s Community Corrections FAQs.
In 2012 the Port of Hope began the process of again seeking renewal of the contract for another five years beginning in 2013. As Port of Hope’s witnesses testified at the July 9 P&Z Commission hearing, it followed all of the procedures required by the BoP, essentially the same procedures that had been required for its initial award in 1998 and then the subsequent awards since then. Those procedures included notifying the City of Coeur d’Alene as prescribed by the BoP.
This time, however, the documents supplied by Port of Hope were reviewed Deputy City Administrator Jon Ingalls who did pay attention. During his review, he correctly determined that the Port of Hope was and since 1998 probably had been in fact operating as a criminal transitional facility under its BoP contract. Ingalls’ analysis prompted the City to then notify Port of Hope that now it would have to seek a special use permit from the City if it wants to continue to provide the kind of services it has been providing since 1998 as an RRC.
Here is a copy of the City Planning Department’s Staff Report provided to the P&Z Commissioners so they could prepare for the hearing. During Tuesday’s hearing, Commissioners and some citizens raised concerns and questions about the federal felons being lodged at the Port of Hope RRC. But go to page 15 of the Staff Report. Notice anything missing? There are comments from various City departments which have an operational interest in Port of Hope, but there is no comment from the Coeur d’Alene Police Department! Why not? If the federal felons being lodged at Port of Hope have actually posed any threats to the community at large, the Police Department should have not only included details for the Staff Report, it should have had a command-level officer at the hearing to answer questions. Indeed, the Police Chief or one of his Captains should have anticipated questions that would have been raised by Commissioners during the hearing and should have been present during the hearing to respond to those and other questions.
From the sworn testimony that was presented at the hearing by the Port of Hope, testimony weakly disputed but not credibly refuted by the City, it appears to OpenCdA that the City of Coeur d’Alene knew or should have known that the Port of Hope has been lodging federal felons under close supervision at its facility since 1998. The applicant’s representatives testified under oath that the Mayor, the Police Department, and the Sheriff’s Department had been notified in writing at the time of initial application and then again during each five-year contract renewal application period. Moreover, the applicant’s representatives testified to numerous official contacts with the Fire Department for inspections to comply with BoP requirements and other City departments for other required permits (e.g, building permits for remodeling).
Port of Hope stated it believed that preceding years’ renewal process correspondence to the City provided the City with adequate information about the facility’s use under the BoP contracts. While it would have been helpful to the hearing Commissioners if the applicant’s representatives had presented copies of corroborating correspondence from previous years, correspondence which presumably should have triggered the City’s determination then that Port of Hope was operating a criminal transitional facility, the fact that this year’s correspondence did trigger that response from Deputy City Administrator Ingalls supports the Port of Hope’s position that it was not trying to hide its use from the City.
That the City should have been more diligent and more attentive in reviewing Port of Hope’s submissions sooner than this year is insufficient cause for penalizing Port of Hope by denying the requested special use permit. It is doubtful that the P&Z Commission could legally impose that penalty anyway. The complete absence of Police Department comments in the Staff Report and the Police Department’s absence at the hearing can and should be reasonably interpreted as the Department’s having no official objection to granting the special use permit. The City should grant the special use permit.
The City should be paying much closer attention to the State of Idaho’s criminal transitional facilities operated clandestinely with the blessing of the Idaho Department of Correction. These illegal boarding houses which lodge state parolees without any live-in or electronic supervision and with few if any of the safeguards required of Port of Hope by the federal BoP pose a far greater danger to the community than the Port of Hope.
Once again the competency of the inner staff of CDA is demonstrated, I know I am and I’m sure most people are getting very tired of “we didn’t know”, hopefully after the coming elections some of these problems can be addressed and corrected, now on to port of hope.
While watching the P&Zzzzz meeting there were some things said and issues that I thought troubling.
Saying “felons” although true, bypasses the fact that over a quarter of their inmates are registered sex offenders. The representatives from port of hope stated that most of the inmates have a tendency to remain in the area after release, they also implied that the inmates were local grown or at least from Idaho. A quick check on the ISP’s RSO site of the first four shown incarcerated at port of hope 1 was non compliant, what ever that means, at least 2 were crimes against minors, and 1 listed as a violate offender, of the four 1 was from WA, 1 was from OR and 1 From KS.
This leaves at least the impression that the port of hope people was not only not being 100% upfront but that they are importing sex offenders to live in CDA. There is also the problem of without a report from the CDA Police Dept. we don’t know if there has been a problem or not and seeing how the city works we cannot take for granted the police even knew of the meeting. Next why does the authorization of who can be admitted to a facility under the control of CDA go through the County Sheriff’s office and not the CDA Police and do they even communicate. If an inmate gets in trouble while away from the facility and unsupervised will the report reflect back to port of hope? The representatives did say they only had two or 12.5% sent back this year, how about the year before or the year before that? How many inmates (sexual offenders or not) just have walked away?
I realize port of hope can’t be blamed for the city not having their act together but looking at a potential decrease of income I don’t think the port people were completely forthcoming in their representation.
Comment by Mike Teague — July 16, 2013 @ 2:50 pm
A noncompliant RSO is one who has fled or at least no longer resides at his last address of registration or who has failed to check in as required.
The questions you’ve raised should also have been raised by the P&Z Commission, except they were clearly unprepared. It was up to the City staff to have better prepared the Commissioners so they could ask better questions and understand the answers. In order of comprehension and starting with the best, Luttropp and then Bowlby seemed to grasp the issue. Jordan — who knows? Messina — didn’t get it. Evans — absolutely clueless. Soumas — MIA/AWOL.
The CdAPD either didn’t know or didn’t care enough to show up. Shame on the CdAPD command staff.
I’d agree that the applicant’s representatives needed to be better prepared. They should have anticipated the kinds of questions they would get and should have come armed with far more ammunition than they needed — just in case.
The bottom line, though, is that I don’t believe the City has sufficient cause to deny the special use permit to Port of Hope. If the coppers had shown up at the hearing with valid evidence to show that the applicant had intentionally tried to deceive the City, then there might have been cause. But the cops didn’t even bother to show up, so we’re left with the sworn testimony of the applicants. Absent countervailing evidence to refute what the applicant has testified, about all the City could do would be to initiate a “nuisance” proceeding. Good luck with that after 14+ years of apparently clean, “under the radar” operation.
Comment by Bill — July 16, 2013 @ 3:16 pm
Once again Open CDA has lightly touched upon yet another tip of the iceberg related to City management; the Planning Department and Planning Commission’s lackadaisical, arbitrary, and capricious enforcement of their land use regulations.
Instead of revising code so that it is clear and enforceable or a reflection of what the City wants, or that staff and Commission members be accountable to adherence to development codes, the City would rather hire more consultants to prepare more Plans that do not regulate–but rather paint a pretty picture with blurred lines.
The Planning Commission is stacked with non-readers of code and a couple of washed-up, Chapter 11 Realtors that make most of the decisions and more often than not those decisions appear to be based on “Plans”, not regulations as is required by law. I have even seen them make decision based on LCDC Plans that have nothing to do with City Code. But no surprise since the Chairman of the City Planning Commission is also a board member of LCDC.
Back to point, big money in those federal contracts. Should be a great lawsuit to watch play-out.
Comment by Old Dog — July 22, 2013 @ 12:13 pm
Old Dog,
My opinion is that the City’s ordinances as well as individual policies and procedures are intentionally vague and ambiguous where they exist at all. That gives the City maximum flexibility to interpret them. The City’s gambling that no one will take the time or spend the money to pursue legal remedy. It doesn’t hurt that the City knows the court of original jurisdiction will the the First Judicial District which has some dead-ender district court judges whose rulings are as likely to be on the basis of political expedience as on the law. Hey, that calculation has worked for decades up here, so why change?
Comment by Bill — July 22, 2013 @ 12:30 pm
As a former Planning and Zoning Commissioner, I was also disappointed in the staff report that lacked what I thought to be vital information regarding the use and contained six pages of photographs but no police comments. The hearing was disappointing as well.
The Comprehensive Plan is intentionally vague. The city’s zoning ordinances which form the backbone for the Comp Plan have been woefully out of date for more than twelve years yet not one penny is dedicated for updating in the many past budgets or the 2014 budget.
The city is not interested in pro active code enforcement. Instead, a written complaint must be submitted before the issue is addressed.
The code enforcement officer, Bob Foster, does an admirable job addressing and resolving the many complaints he receives. I would add that property management businesses seem to care only about collecting fees and are not interested in following local zoning ordinances.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — July 27, 2013 @ 7:52 am
Susie
Thanks for those observations. Ambiguity in the zoning ordinances may be convenient for some in City Hall, but it has to make both application and enforcement difficult. Both of those may have bubbled to the surface with this Port of Hope (PoH) application for special use permit.
The applicant, PoH, may in fact have been providing the City with enough information during the preceding application and renewal processes so the City should have recognized before now that PoH was becoming a criminal transitional facility. But if the City employee(s) who reviewed the original application and subsequent renewal applications was unfamiliar with the City’s zoning ordinances or worse, was indifferent to or discouraged from enforcing them, then PoH could reasonably conclude the City concurred and approved.
It was pretty clear from the hearing that the Planning Commission members present were struggling to understand the application for the special use permit. (Commissioner Soumas was absent from that meeting, so he should not be allowed to participate in the August meeting’s continuing deliberations and voting on the PoH application.) I believe it was up to the City staff to provide the Commissioners with enough information to enable them to perform their duties.
I wish PoH’s representatives had come better prepared as well. During the hearing, the Fernan Elementary School Principal and you both expressed some concern about registered sex offenders (RSOs) living at PoH. On the Saturday after the meeting, I queried the Idaho State Police RSO registry online for the number of RSOs in a one-mile radius circle of Fernan Elementary School’s address. According to the ISP data, there were 39 RSOs registered at residences within that one-mile radius, and of those 39, 8 listed PoH as their “residence.” What we don’t know is how many of those 8 RSOs were there under state supervision (probation or parole) versus federal Bureau of Prisons custody.
This particular application by PoH ought to serve as a wakeup call to the Mayor and City Council that the City can no longer afford to neglect or ignore the scope and enforcement of the City codes, specifically the City’s zoning ordinances. Those ordinances represent a social contract between the City and its residents. They define the boundaries of compliance for present and future residents and business owners/operators. If the City won’t enforce the rules (ordinances) consistently and uniformly, if the City insists on continuing to enforce them selectively and preferentially, then people will leave or stop coming here. And who could blame them? Who would trust a City that ignores state law and its own ordinances to harm or benefit individuals and businesses?
Comment by Bill — July 27, 2013 @ 8:29 am
The city is turning into a rental city where codes are routinely ignored, whether through ignorance or intent, by some rental agencies. For some of us and for many reasons, the neighborhood rental has been a nightmare. It took two years of addressing the council on the subject of enforcing its adopted zoning ordinances before a zoning violation in my neighborhood was shut down. Is this responsive government ?
Months and months ago I asked Planning and Zoning Commission to address the issue of fencing heights to keep deer from devouring gardens. I heard nothing. I again addressed the Commission without results. I finally brought the issue to the Council who remanded it to General Services. General Services sent the issue to P & Z who scheduled a workshop in August. Should P & Z decide in favor of changing the height restriction, the ordinance must go to a P & Z meeting for consideration and vote which may or may not occur in August. I might add that the growing season will have ceased by the time this issue is resolved.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — July 27, 2013 @ 9:13 am