ELECTION: Honor non-partisan status

I applaud Judge Hosack's decision reaffirming Mike Kennedy's election victory for Coeur d'Alene City Council last November. People should be clear however that this lawsuit by Mr. Brannon and his shadowy financial backers was a blatant attempt in a non-partisan city election to unseat a fairly elected person who was seen as a Democrat with a political future (if Mr. Kennedy wants it).

These are basically some of the same people who unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Kennedy's residency in Coeur d'Alene the first time he ran for the City Council. There was never any fraud in this election as the court confirmed. I would hope that if legally possible, Mr. Kennedy is able to file suit for recovery of the attorney fees he spent to defend against this frivolous election lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised if their next plan is to demand Mr. Kennedy's birth certificate and say he wasn't born in the USA and was actually born in Ireland.

Mr. Brannon and his financial backers should be quite clear that if Mr. Brannon runs again for the City Council and Mr. Kennedy chooses to run for re-election, Mr. Kennedy's supporters will remember this politically based lawsuit and make sure that he wins by more than enough votes to discourage any challenge to the results. It would also be nice if people respected non-partisan elections as just that, whether they are city council races, judges races, etc. The political party affiliation of members of our Coeur d'Alene Council is irrelevant to most of the citizens of this town which is one of the reasons these elections are supposed to be non-partisan. This challenge to the election results however was clearly a partisan political scheme that thankfully was unsuccessful.

TOM HEARN

Coeur d'Alene