I assume that, like me, you have scant if any information about the Education Corridor. Allow me to share what crumbs have been tossed my way:
1. The Education Corridor has had many names. The one that sticks is Education Corridor. That’s what Mayor Steve Judy called it back in the late 1990s when the idea first came up. Then it was (briefly) called the Co-Locative Educational Opportunity Campus, or something equally obtuse. Then it was deemed University Place.
2. Yes, Mayor Steve Judy originally proposed the idea. Mayor Bloem inherited it.
3. The key piece of property is the Stimson mill, a working stud mill. It’s privately owned, employes 100 or so people, and pays property taxes. I believe it’s the last operating sawmill in Coeur d’Alene.
To help you understand the location, here’s a property map:
The area in the map is bordered on the west (left) by the Spokane river, to the east by Northwest Blvd, and to the south by River Drive in the Fort Grounds. As you can see by the map, most of the land is already owned by the City.
4. Things got interesting when developer Marshall Chesrown obtained an option to purchase the 17 acre mill site (cyan on the map above). Apparently Mr. Chrsrown gave the City first dibs on the property, providing that the City paid him the $10,000,000 cost. Presently the mill is still owned and operated by Stimson.
5. The City has asked for money to purchase the site. They’ve agreed to partner with LCDC on the purchase, and Tony Berns (executive director of the LCDC) talks often about the Education Corridor purchase as being part of the Urban Renewal Agency’s objectives.
6. The Governor, State Legislature, and the State Board of Education have said publicly that they do not support the Educational Corridor purchase. They are not supplying money for the purchase. Chair of the House Education Committee, Bob Nonini, told City Councilman Mike Kennedy that if the City really wants to purchase the site, they should ask the taxpayers for a bond. (I like that idea.)
7. This past week, NIC President Patricia Bell asked the Idaho Congressional Delegation for a $1,000,000 Federal “earmark” to help purchase the site. She supposedly told the staff in Mike Crapo’s office that there was “little opposition” to the Education Corridor.
While I support higher education and its benefit, I must seriously question the value of this purchase to both the taxpayer and the student. Ten million dollars is a lot of money and the stewards of public money, our elected officials, must be forthright and honest with us about how it is spent. Therefore some key issues must be known before public money is to be spent on this project:
A. What are the plans for the Education corridor? How many buildings? How many parking spaces?
B. How will traffic be impacted downtown and on Northwest Blvd.?
C. What are the remediation costs for the old mill site?
D. What is the ratio of classrooms to office space? What is the ratio of students to staff and faculty?
E. Will there be, as Mr. Kennedy keeps saying, true river access for the public?
F. What are the costs of alternatives elsewhere?
And most importantly:
G. When will there be public input?
These are all good questions that must be asked and answered.
Over the weekend, in Saturday’s CDA Press,Post Falls Mayor Larkin publically denounced the “behind the scenes methods” of NIC and Pres Bell going to the Federal Trough and plans to use forgone taxes along with selling the Workforce Training Center to finance the purchase of the millsite. He said he will ask the Post Falls City Council at their Tuesday meeting to support him on demanding a plan first and then public hearings for the so called Education Corridor to guage public support. I intend to speak to the council, as well. Interesting to note that on Sunday, the next day, Dr. Bell had a piece in the CDA Press that said the college has a “Stragic Plan” under way and that it would be “rolled out by mid May at a public forum”. Too bad Pricilla was not more forthcoming earlier. But then, when you are manipulating behind the scenes and get caught, about all one can do is announce, “Oh my, we have a Strategic Planning Committee.” I’m curious to know when it was established and when is or when was their first meeting.
Comment by yabetcha — February 18, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Regarding my post above suggesting that the Strategic Plan may have been a defensive move because they have been exposed about the sneaky activity for acquiring the mill site, it is worth noting that in Priscilla Bell’s Sunday article there was no mention of the delveloment of the Education Corridor. All that Blah, Blah was as if it pertained only to NIC’s current geography. Such subterfuge.
Comment by yabetcha — February 18, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
Our city government has now set a precedent that says they will make decisions for the benefit of a few no matter what it costs the rest of us. Take the library. We spent an exhorbitant amount of money acquiring land for a building that is hard to access, has limited parking, and is too far away from the majority of growth in the population. If we’d purchased the land in Riverstone it would’ve cost us about 1/2. If we’d bought land for the library in the Industrial park on Kathleen it would’ve cost even less than 1/2, been more centrally located, made more money available for the building and stocking of the library, been easier to reach for more of our population. So why are these decisions being made except for the private gain of specific individuals (such as the owner of the land purchased for the library)? The LCDC seems to be operating outside the guidelines of an urban renewal agency. It would appear that whenever our local city council wants something they link up with the LCDC. Now we have the Education Corridor lurking in the dark. And let’s not forget the outrageous amount of taxpayer money and community monies that have been spent on the Kroc Center (a privately owned enterprise, by the way). And the Riverstone clean-up, park and “observation” pond. Again, taxpayer money spent to support and beautify a very privately held and lucrative enterprise. Just know that when John Stone flies in his airplane, we as taxpayers have supported him with our dollars. The beauty of all this is that when the CC is done spending our money, they point to the beauty of the finished product and suggest that it is another jewel in the city’s crown. But the money for those jewels is coming directly out of our pockets and filling the pockets of a very select few beneficiaries. It is time to disband the LCDC and make them accountable personally for the taxpayer money they have diverted to private pockets and to replace our City Council and Mayor with people who will make decisions for the benefit of the entire population of CdA.
Comment by jlj — February 20, 2008 @ 10:12 am
I looked into the purchases of both the Library and Kroc land and didn’t find anything earthshaking or stinky about either one — other than too much money was paid.
The “appraisal” for the Library land was a joke. Not a bank appraisal. What they did was compare the bare land to land with a building on it. Then they added $30,000 to knock the building down so that it would end up as bare land. Only then did they compare the two parcels to justify the close-to-million-dollar purchase price. That’s ridiculous.
Ditto for the Kroc property. How can a piece of land that requires $3M of remediation be worth anything? The land has negative value. But they again used a non-bank appraisal to compare the property with similar property elsewhere. In this case, the two appraisals were dated 2002 and 2004, for property purchased in 2006. Screwy?
Again, this is not about the Library or the Kroc center. It’s about the process. Is the process fair to the citizens and taxpayers or is it merely expedient for the powers that be?
Comment by Dan — February 20, 2008 @ 10:27 am