At its regularly-scheduled meeting beginning at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, the Coeur d’Alene City Council will conduct a quasi-judicial hearing to approve or deny the Port of Hope’s application for a Special Use Permit.   This is informally referred to as an appeal from the 3-0 decision of the Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission to deny the application.  This will be a new hearing, not an appeal from the record, so all evidence and testimony must be presented as if it had never been received or heard before.  OpenCdA hopes that citizens who have fact-based evidence on this issue will appear and testify under oath at the quasi-judicial hearing.

The public packet for Tuesday night’s Council meeting is available here through the City’s website.  When we reviewed this packet early this morning, it did not include any of the copies of the 2003 and 2008 letters Port of Hope submitted to the Planning Commission at the August 13th hearing.  OpenCdA hopes that the Councilmen’s packets included those letters, and we also hope they are added to the packet available to the public online.  Copies of four of the letters were included in OpenCdA’s post on September 18, 2013, entitled Subverting Port of Hope.

Those letters clearly and unmistakably refute the City’s inaccurate and deceptive assertions dutifully parroted without verification by the Coeur d’Alene Press in July and August.  Those assertions were that the City had been unaware for fifteen years that Port of Hope was lodging federal felons in transition before their scheduled release from federal custody.

OpenCdA hopes citizens will attend the hearing or at least watch it on CDA TV 19.  The presentation by the applicant, Port of Hope, will help Coeur d’Alene’s residents better understand the need for and value of true Criminal Transitional Facilities in our community.  At present, Port of Hope is the only one.

The alternative unregulated transitional homes currently used by the Idaho Department of Correction and accepted by the City of Coeur d’Alene place the people in the community at far greater risk than a well-run, regularly inspected, and properly and professionally-staffed facility such as Port of Hope.  OpenCdA wishes the Coeur d’Alene School District 271 Superintendent and Chief Operating Officer as well as the Fernan Elementary School Principal had taken the time to educate themselves before engaging in their hysterical and ignorant rants at the Planning Commission hearings in July and August.