Long-time readers of OpenCdA may recognize the photo to the left.  It accompanied our April 21, 2009, post entitled Closed for Your Protection?.  It’s a photo of the City of Coeur d’Alene’s police substation that sits in City Park just behind the North Idaho Museum.

There was another photo, a more recent one, of Coeur d’Alene’s police substation in the news yesterday.  Taxpayers in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County who read the companion article from yesterday’s Spokesman-Review headlined WSU to look into CdA peeing complaint and today’s Coeur d’Alene Press article headlined Drinking and disturbing will observe in yesterday’s photo that the police substation was still closed for your protection.

Given the theme of yesterday’s photo, it’s ironic that in April 2008 we ran a five-part series of posts entitled Toilet Not Included. There were other companion posts as well, and all had the same theme:  This alleged public safety building in the park was a gigantic boondoggle, a waste of money intended to allow the City of Coeur d’Alene to put public money in the pockets of some of its favorite contractors. 

Our opening paragraphs in Closed for Your Protection? are still valid:

Event organizers and citizens who attended the April 15 Tax Day Tea Party at Independence Point in Coeur d’Alene had an opportunity to personally see how the City of Coeur d’Alene had wasted about $50,000 of our tax money.   The 10′ x 26′ Coeur d’Alene Police and Fire Public Safety Building, so vacuously foisted on taxpayers by Police Captain Steve Childers and City Finance Director Troy Tymesen in March 2008, sat locked and unoccupied at the very kind of event for which they had avowed it was so desperately needed.

In early 2008 at presentations to various City commissions, the LCDC (the city’s urban renewal agency), and the City Council, Childers and Tymesen delivered  promises of the many ways the structure would protect  the public.  Police Chief Wayne Longo, quoted in a Coeur d’Alene Press  article said,  ”This proposal, if approved, would allow for police and fire to respond to public safety concerns in a more expedient manner than before.  It also allows for more visibility and interaction with the public.”  That same article quoted Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel saying, “The fire department supports this proposal.  It would allow for EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians] to be stationary in the park during the many special events in the summer which allows us to serve the public better.”  In his memorandum to City Administrator Wendy Gabriel, Chief Longo added an additional use:  “This facility could be used more extensively as a lost child booth.”

We’re pretty sure the folks who photographed the public urinators on Saturday wish that there had been “more visibility and interaction with the public” then by our whiz-bang police department.

We also note with considerable concern that at least according to the Friday, May 2, 2014, Coeur d’Alene Press article headlined Sherman substation suggested, the same cast of clowns who brought you Boopsie’s Bunker in the Park is considering adding more substations.  The article’s lede reads, “In an effort to increase law enforcement visibility throughout Coeur d’Alene, the police department is proposing the creation of more substations.”  As we recall, an even earlier article had mentioned the substation would not be manned full-time.  We also wonder if the mentioned location on Sherman Avenue may not be moved a little further to the east where it might appropriately be named the Mayor Steve Widmyer – Jack Riggs/Sandy Patano Sanders Beach Security Station.

As we pointed our in our Toilet Not Included series, an empty building shuttered and locked does not increase law enforcement visibility.  A shuttered and locked public safety building indicates a police absence, not a police presence.  It seems pretty clear from the photo of yesterday’s public urinators that they were not intimidated by the increased visibility of the police substation in the Park.

But if there is a bright light from all the flashing going on in City Park, it’s this:  The Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce may have a new slogan:   “Coeur d’Alene – Get Drunk in Downtown, Then Pee in the Park.”