Many Idahoans are becoming increasingly alarmed at the number of “czars” being appointed by President Obama. So where were these same people when the Idaho legislature was effectively allowing Idaho’s cities to create powerful czar-like positions with no accountability to the voters?

In contemporary politico-speak, a “czar” is an official appointed by the head of government without either the advice or consent of the legislature.  The czar is superior to other appointed officials whose positions required legislative advice and consent.  A czar is loyal first to the head of government.  Presumably only the head of government can remove a czar he appointed.  The czars have remarkable discretionary authority and seem to operate independent of legislative oversight.  Czars are a way to circumvent public scrutiny and deliberation and accountability.

We have similar positions in Coeur d’Alene.  We call them urban renewal agency commissioners.

When Idaho legislators passed the Idaho Urban Renewal Law of 1965,  they had honorable and benevolent intentions.    However, they erroneously assumed that all urban renewal agency commissioners and the people who appointed them would similarly be honorable, honest people with only benevolent intentions for their communities.    (Many of Bernie Madoff’s lifelong friends who trusted him and invested with him made similar erroneous assumptions about his honesty and benevolence.  Now they’re broke and he’s in prison.)

The urban renewal commissioners did not need to be elected.  Their accountability was probably to be to the body that appointed them, not to the citizen electors.  But the legislators failed to prescribe in detail precisely how the appointing body would hold them accountable, how the appointing body would supervise and oversee them.      That gave too much latitude to cities with weak, inept, or outright dishonest public officials.

In Idaho Code Title 50, Chapter 20 at Section 50-2007, the Legislature gave urban renewal agencies a blank check of powers.   Please read Section 50-2007 twice.  The first time, read it just so you clearly understand the nearly unchecked powers the Legislature bestowed.

When you read it the second time, look for the constraints, the checks-and-balances, that the Legislature should have imposed to prevent a rogue urban renewal agency from abusing those  powers.  You will have to look very hard for these.  With only one exception in subsection (d), you will not find any requirement that an urban renewal agency seek the approval of the local governing body that created it.  By including that one exception in subsection (d), a court may reasonably conclude that since the Legislature specified one exception but no others, that is the only one the Legislature intended to impose.  That was a serious legislative failure.

Now go back and read the conferred powers again.

It should concern you that the city’s urban renewal agency has  the power of eminent domain.  The Idaho legislature gave them the authority to exercise this terrifying power anywhere in either of the two LCDC projects:  the River District and the Lake District.

It should concern you that these same people can “…enter into any building or property in any urban renewal area in order to make inspections, surveys, appraisals, soundings or test borings, and to obtain, upon sufficient cause and after a hearing on the matter, an order for this purpose from a court of competent jurisdiction in the event entry is denied or resisted.”  Think about that!  If your home or business is in the River District or the Lake District, the LCDC can demand entry into your home or business for those stated purposes, and if you refuse, they can get a court order to compel you to let them in.  The police have to go to a court and show probable cause sufficient to get a search warrant for that purpose, but the LCDC need only demand entry.  So much for your protection under the US Constitution.

Oh, but our urban renewal commissioners are honorable people.  They would never do that, right?  Besides, Mayor Bloem has said she would never let them do it.  Really?  How can she stop them?  In fact, her actions indicate she doesn’t even want the City to be held accountable for the LCDC’s actions.  She and the Council want the LCDC to be considered a legally separate entity from the City (except, of course, when the City needs cash for some pet political patronage project.)

This fall the Idaho Supreme Court will hear the appeal Hart v City of Rexburg.  In that case, the Court may once again decide if urban renewal agencies are a part of the municipality that created them, an “alter-ego” of the city, or if they are a completely separate body.  It should surprise no one that Coeur d’Alene’s own urban renewal agency, the LCDC, has joined other urban renewal agencies and filed amicus briefs in support of the position that urban renewal agencies are separate from the municipalities that created them.  This is being done to thwart the intent of the framers of the Idaho Constitution.  Not surprisingly, it is being done with the blessing of the Coeur d’Alene Mayor and City Council.  So explain this to us, Mayor.  You are using taxpayer money to argue against requiring municipalities to exercise oversight of their urban renewal agencies.  You are fighting for those agencies to remain independent of the municipalities that created them.  How, then, can you honestly assure anyone you would never allow the LCDC to misuse its authority?  The honest answer is, you can’t.

But why would Coeur d’Alene want urban renewal agencies like the LCDC to be separate and not under their control?  Simple.  The LCDC can do things in their area of operations that would normally be done by the City, but it can do them more quickly and with less public scrutiny and accountability.

The Idaho Constitution allows two methods for municipalities like Coeur d’Alene to incur long-term debt:  Funding with voter approval and judicial confirmation.  Both processes require formal public participation, and formal public participation is precisely what the LCDC and its cohorts in City Hall do not want.   Public scrutiny of how tax dollars are spent is anathema to the Mayor, the City Council, and the LCDC.  It’s easier to get things done if you have a cash slush fund controlled by a body separate from the municipality.  In Coeur d’Alene, that body is the LCDC.

Never forget this point:  Urban renewal agencies spend your tax dollars.  It is not “their” money, it is your money.   Because tax dollars are your money, the framers of Idaho’s Constitution required officials to involve the public in the process of deciding how and where tax money will be spent in the long term.  It is that constitutional safeguard that the LCDC and the City of Coeur d’Alene’s Mayor and Council are trying to defeat in Hart v City of Rexburg.

Urban renewal can be a useful tool for economic development, but it is not the only one.  Unfortunately, too many cities like Coeur d’Alene have decided it is the only one.  And why shouldn’t they?  After all, thanks to legislative imprecision, it has become the “bucket-o-cash”, the “First Unregulated Bank of Idaho”, the slush fund.

Idaho has its own czars.  They were created and empowered by our own legislature to be accountable to whom?  We don’t know.  The legislators never quite thought that through.