At its regularly-scheduled meeting on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, the Coeur d’Alene City Council voted unanimously on a motion by Councilman Ron Edinger to approve a Special Use Permit for the Port of Hope and to have the City Attorney prepare the Findings and Order. The Council’s unanimous decision reverses the decision of the Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission in August to deny the permit.
OpenCdA urges readers to view the streaming video of the October 1, 2013, City Council meeting. We also urge readers who have not viewed the streaming videos of the July 9 and August 13 Planning Commission meetings to view them. Please pay particular attention to the testimonies of the Port of Hope managers and staff.
The Port of Hope is one of many Federal Bureau of Prisons Residential Reentry Centers (RRC) throughout the United States. They are the heart of the BoP’s program of Residential Reentry Management. To the extent this program succeeds, it is because the BoP sets high standards which its RRCs must consistently meet. But success will not come unless the RRC’s staff and management set a good example for both the federal inmates in transition and for the community which hosts the RRC. As we clearly saw from the testimonies of Port of Hope’s representatives at both the Planning Commission hearings and last night’s City Council meeting, they do set a good example for the inmates in transition and for our community.
The staff and management at Port of Hope have consistently met and exceeded the federal standards intended to ensure the host community’s safety as well as increase the chances of successful reentry when a federal prisoner has termed out and is released. These federal standards are far more stringent than anything required by the Idaho Department of Correction or the City of Coeur d’Alene.
In our community we are fortunate to have an exemplary RRC, the Port of Hope. OpenCdA hopes that the City and State will look and learn, then adopt the best practices from the federal program to improve the safety of our State and City.
I’m putting this here because there’s no other relevant topic:
Regarding the OpenCDA Poll.
I like the way the Coeur Group conducts the forums. They’re professional and respectful. I like that they pay attention and do follow-up questions. These are probably the best moderated forums I’ve seen in local politics, but they’re still forums.
I’d rather see a debate. I want to see interaction between the candidates. I want to see them throw issues at each other, pointed questions. Forums tend to be commercials, with few surprises and generally middle-of-the-road answers. Unless someone really steps in it — which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a forum — everyone walks away thinking their guy did a good job and all that. But a debate would be different. It would demonstrate quick thinking, the ability to take an unfriendly question, and show how a potential official acts under pressure. I don’t see much of that in a forum, but once these people get elected you’ll see it often. That should really be the metric by which we judge the candidates.
Comment by Dan Gookin — October 3, 2013 @ 5:15 pm