RECALL: Don't let minority rule
I am adding my no to the rapidly growing list of those who oppose the recall petition of Coeur d’Alene Mayor Bloem and council members Kennedy, Goodlander and McEvers. I will confine my comments to Mayor Bloem, but the same can be said about the other council members who are the subject of the recall petitions.
A short list, but not an exclusive list, of Mayor Bloem’s accomplishments include:
1. The education corridor
2. The Kroc Center
3. A vastly improved and much busier midtown
4. Northwest Boulevard improvements
5. A revived Sherman Avenue with its many summer activities
To bring all of these improvements to fruition, many in the midst of the worst national recession in American history, takes intelligence, talent, skill, fortitude, determination and a clear vision of where our beloved community should be headed. These attributes of Mayor Bloem are the attributes of a serious public leader hard at work.
If you remember, each of these accomplishments was met by a few, but very vocal, residents who seemingly found progress and improvements themselves as subjects for ridicule and hatred. Yelling from the bleachers like the left field fans at Wrigley Park, they opposed anything and everything that did not square with their own peculiar visions of the past and of a nihilistic future.
When faced with the prospect of improving a city park, it became one improvement too many. The “Bleacher Boys,” now apoplectic, have decided on a recall.
What nonsense.
If there ever was a recall petition circulated in Coeur d’Alene before I am unaware of it. Recalls are always reserved for publicly elected officials who commit felony crimes while in public office, such as theft or who abuse their office by holding out female employees for public ridicule for being females, or other dull and offish conduct. It is never — and I mean never — used for the singular purpose of degrading and humiliating a great public servant for acting on her belief that a city park can be improved.
Public feelings of gratitude for the years and years of good public service to a fine and honorable public servant is the last feeling to arrive and the first to leave any democracy (think of Winston Churchill). I understand that. But shouldn’t we — just this once — when presented with one of these recall petitions decide that we do not want to put our mayor and our first citizen through the ordeal of a recall?
If we can stop the petitioners from gaining enough signatures we can keep our mayor and our improvements. And not so incidentally we can also keep our sense of community and civic pride.
NORMAN GISSEL
Coeur d’Alene