City Council candidates speak

COEUR d'ALENE - Three seats, nine candidates, and a slew of stances.

Coeur d'Alene City Council incumbents and hopefuls lined up Wednesday night at the Best Western Coeur d'Alene Inn to answer questions and outline their campaigns heading into the Nov. 8 election during a candidate forum hosted by the Coeur Group.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the three bigger issues centered around city employee pay and raises, what to do with McEuen Field, while looking at what aspects City Hall has handled well in the last few years, and what could have been handled differently.

While some of the candidates took hard line stances on some topics, others couldn't commit specifically on others without researching the topics a bit more.

But on the question of whether the city should conduct an advisory vote for the public to weigh in on major changes to McEuen Field, each candidate stood firm in his or her position.

"If we did that in the past nothing would ever get done," said Adam Graves, on putting big decisions up to vote.

Graves, who said city salaries are in a "vacuum" that doesn't reflect the private market, is vying for Seat 1 against Ron Edinger, and is the only challenger who opposes an advisory vote. Edinger, meanwhile, has made headlines for being the lone council person who supports the advisory vote. He reiterated his position at the forum, saying City Hall and the park plan's designers, Team McEuen, didn't listen to the will of the people.

Vote for him, Edinger said, and he would be sure to keep putting the motion for vote before the council.

"So we can discuss it," he said.

Asked if an advisory vote came back approving the conceptual plan - which could include roughly $30 million in improvements when it's all said and done - he said he wasn't certain if that would mean he would vote to accept it.

"It's something I would have to consider," he said, adding that he supported the city employees and their wages and pay raises as outlined in the city's collective bargaining contracts.

Seat 5 incumbent John Bruning was the only other candidate who opposed a vote. He called side-stepping a tough decision like that a "cop out."

"We were hired by you people to do a job," he said.

His challengers, Amber Copeland and Steve Adams, said they support the vote, as do Seat 3 contenders Derec Aujay, Dan Gookin, Pat Mitchell and George Sayler.

Gookin, a watchdog with a lot of name recognition around the community, said he would work to "break down the wall" between City Hall and citizens.

"There's a lot of great ideas in the community," he said. "Don't shut them out."

He said that divide has created a rift between taxpayers and the people who represent them, pointing to city salaries as an example of the two sides not agreeing on a topic. He said the city has essentially two city administrator positions as well as a parks director and a recreation director, when other cities of comparable size only have one for both sets.

Sayler, a former educator and state representative, also carries a lot of name recognition for the seat. He said compensating city employees fairly is an investment for the community, and pointed to the city having reworked its collective bargaining agreements in the past two years to not take full cost of living increases, and department heads forgoing merit increases, as an example of good leadership that could have been communicated better.

"Coeur d'Alene has a progressive, positive, can-do attitude that I share," he said, pointing to the education corridor development as an example.

Political newcomers Derec Aujay and Pat Mitchell both said there were some issues they needed to study as they moved forward, but added their commitment to recruiting new business to Coeur d'Alene. For Aujay, it would be to reduce taxes to recruit new industries.

"Government, get out of the way," he said. "The jobs thing is just big."

Asked by Coeur Group members who emceed the event how that was different than urban renewal, which he opposed in his intro speech, he said he would have to look into it more.

Engineering jobs and high tech jobs would be on Mitchell's plate. But what the city urban renewal agency, Lake City Development Corp., should play in that role, he couldn't say.

"I learned a lot," he joked at the conclusion of the forum. "First off, LCDC is not a band."

"I'm honest," he added.

Adams and Copeland, who took part in a Seat 5 forum last week, repeated their stances they shared there.

Copeland, 30, said she would be a unique, younger voice to the council for future generations, as did Graves on Wednesday. She said she would look at focusing urban renewal in a section of town that needs it, such as east Sherman Avenue.

"If the plumbing in your house is broken," she said, referring to spending money on McEuen Field as opposed to a directing attention to a section of town that needs it, "you don't buy a brand new TV."

Adams, a self-described "conservative voice," said he was comfortable with his statement last week that City Hall could have 100 or so jobs too many. He wouldn't whack 100 jobs right away if elected, he said, just look at the possibility of reducing some.

Asked what the city has done right, he said it hasn't done anything correct, other than "unifying the citizens of Coeur d'Alene against them."

The Coeur Group is a nonpartisan team of young businessmen who contribute to our community by donating time to various causes and charitable organizations.

Annastasia Somontes, who is seeking Seat 3, did not attend.

Who's running?

• Seat 1: Ron Edinger, incumbent; Adam Graves

• Seat 3 (open): Derec Aujay; Dan Gookin; Pat Mitchell; George Sayler; Annastasia Somontes

• Seat 5: John Bruning, incumbent; Steve Adams; Amber Copeland