McEuen website disappears

COEUR d'ALENE - Gone is the McEuen Field website that showed the original, high-end $39.2 million estimate for the downtown park conceptual plan.

What's on the Coeur d'Alene Parks Department's web page now is an updated McEuen Field site that shows Phase 1 of the McEuen Field project, costing $14.2 million.

The previous site was suddenly taken down Wednesday because some of the information it presented, Parks Director Doug Eastwood said, was "not current, not accurate" - namely, the high-end cost of the conceptual plan that was $39 million, he said, which has led to inaccurate information being circulated about McEuen Field.

"It's ancient information," Eastwood said of the $39 million figure. "When concepts change we don't keep outdated information."

That $39 million total has been the focal point of a McEuen Field debate at the heart of the recall effort against City Council members Mike Kennedy, Deanna Goodlander, Woody McEvers and Mayor Sandi Bloem. The organizers of the petition drive to oust the incumbents have printed a flier calling for their removal largely on the grounds that the four officials "refused a public advisory vote and approved a $40 million dollar plan to remake McEuen park," the flier states.

Some opponents of the recall effort have called that figure a lie. But gone with the old website Wednesday is the itemized breakdown of the cost estimates with all facets of the conceptual plan that totaled the $39.2 million estimate. That was the conceptual plan which was presented to the City Council before it was adopted last May 24 with some tweaks.

Still, the old website's removal at a time when the $40 million figure was coming under fire has some recall supporters questioning the timing.

"Dirty politics," Frank Orzell, recall organizer, called it. "I would like to have an explanation. Outdated or not, the council approved it in its entirety."

Last May 24, the City Council did approve the conceptual plan. Around one month before, during a workshop with the McEuen Field steering committee, the park's designers estimated that the cost could range from around $15 million up to $39 million. The high end included the cost of providing replacement facilities like a baseball field and a boat launch. It also included a third level of parking in the parking structure.

"We're taking it right from the council meeting that approved it," Orzell said of the roughly $40 million figure.

But while the council agreed to the conceptual design, it dropped off Tubbs Hill from the plan completely and focused on two levels of parking, not three, as stated in a May 25 Press article on the meeting. That meeting was a launching point to craft a more precise plan from the conceptual drawings, Eastwood said, and a reason why the $39 million figure isn't the most accurate gauge to what has happened with the park plan. The third level of parking by itself would have been an additional $5 million to $6 million.

"That's not realistic," he said, "if you just take the high end" of what was presented.

Recall opponents point to the actual Phase 1 cost as proof the $40 million figure is wrong. Since that May 24 meeting, several other big-ticket items have been dropped from the first phase. Those include a water fountain, ice rink, amphitheater, and street closures while keeping the boat launch where it is. That's what has slimmed the actual cost down to $14 million.

"That's lie No. 1," Kennedy said last week during a "Stop the Recall" rally at the Fort Grounds Grill on the $40 million price listed on the Recall flier.

But recall supporters point to the conceptual plan's adoption - which hasn't been overturned. Phase 1 looks different than the overall conceptual plan, Orzell said, but that doesn't mean during Phase 2 they won't be added back on. The prices attached to the conceptual plan May 24, which ranged from $15 million to $39 million, was what he used, he said.

"I'm fed up with all the name games that goes on," Orzell said. "It's either a plan or it's not a plan."

Eastwood said Wednesday confusion in the community on the estimates was a reason the city's parks department wanted the old site, www.mceuenpark.com, to be taken down. Instead, the updated information can be found on the city's web page www.cdaidparks.com.

The original site had been established through the park's designers, Team McEuen, but they hadn't updated it in some time. Eastwood said the parks department had wanted the site down for weeks, even before the flier came out. The debate after the flier came out expedited the process, he said.

"That was probably a good reason the website should have been kept up, monitored and brought up to speed," he said, adding that the department will keep copies of the original cost estimates that calculated the $39.2 million figure, but not put them online because they are outdated.

While the old site was taken down Wednesday, City Councilman Dan Gookin had emailed a citizen Tuesday that the high-end estimates were still online. Eden Irgens, according to the email, asked Gookin, acting as a councilman, to clarify that the park cost $14.2 million, not $40 million. Gookin emailed Irgens back that the roughly $40 million figure was on the old McEuen park website.

The breakdown of conceptual costs was still up Wednesday morning, but then taken down later that day.

Eastwood said the change of sites wasn't meant to be a way to hide the original $39.2 million figure offline, only a way to condense the most up to date, accurate information.

"People are going to say whatever they want to say," he said. "Anything else is whatever they want to make of it."