McEUEN: Nightmare on Front Street

Designers tout the McEuen makeover as a vision for the future. From a boater's perspective it's a horrific nightmare. Thousands of us who routinely trailer our boats to the water are still trying to come to grips with being banished from downtown. Then, we find out the gulag for our exile is an inferior location off the lake a mile down river through a "No Wake Zone" by the sewer treatment plant. This is the epitome of adding insult to injury. Ripping out a perfectly fine boat ramp and building another at a new location can only make sense to a governmental entity because someone else's money is spent.

Particularly galling is the contrived nature of the gimmicks slated to take the place of the launch ramp. Park officials want to create a destination place yet the design eliminates access to a destination lake. The importance of connections is stressed yet an essential connection to the lake is severed. We're told water features are desirable yet access to the natural water feature that is the area's prime recreation attraction is denied. One hundred percent of the park is designed to accommodate on-site pedestrian uses yet the boat launch requires little more than a hundred feet of frontage. The amount of parking can be doubled yet no space can be made available for trailers.

Reasoned compromise does not appear to be a part of the planning process. Public involvement seems only to be a marketing effort to sell the plan. Alternatives to the grandiose design won't be discussed. Meetings are scheduled for the dark of winter when summer residents (boaters) are absent. IDPR is chastised for sending meeting notifications to registered boat owners when they should instead be commended.

Politicians dance around the question of a public vote yet a biased survey is being tallied as if a vote is already under way. The problem is a boat launch option does not appear on the ballot. It matters not whether the bureaucrats and politicians have been duped or co-opted by the moneyed interests that want to see the boat launch disappear or are willingly complicit co-conspirators. The Third Street Boat Launch has probably already been lost. A process that starts by declaring the launch obsolete can easily end by deeming any replacement as equivalent.

TERRY KINCAID

Coeur d'Alene