CITY: Noise and other nuisances

Our guests, my husband and I woke up Tuesday morning to the loud sounds of “something” blasting and whining away over at the library around 6:30 a.m. It was the man pressure washing the gum off the concrete! We expect that this will be an ongoing maintenance project in the new McEuen Fields Park too. Why aren’t there city regulations in place about noise pollution before 7 a.m.? Aren’t there already regulations for the evening in downtown?

The real reason for this is to question why nothing has been done to correct the rotten cracked and broken concrete steps of the “new” city library leading visitors down to the lower entrance level. It’s been a disaster area ever since it was built. Surely the city has funds for such an important jewel in the crown of urban development! And, why wasn’t the concrete contractor held responsible? Shouldn’t there have been a warranty especially if the concrete finishing was done in rainy weather?

And then there is Fourth Street — great improvements that look like a cheap “fix,” red coloring chipping off all the way up and down both sidewalks. There are even areas here and there in each block where the concrete has completely chipped off. Why wasn’t coloring mixed into the concrete before it was poured? Whatever the reasons for the failures, they are in the past, now you need to get it fixed — not continuous discussions about how, that’s the contractor’s responsibility — just sandblast it and get it over with. Certainly the concrete contractor could do that. But, again, just “get ‘er done” and stop the dithering.

Finally, with all this urban renewal funding available (with people lining up at each LCDC meeting with their proposals to spend my tax dollars), why can’t the city authorize the uneven sidewalks replaced in City Park and the rotten seawall redone? Both items have looked awful for the last 10 years and yet the city keeps building new projects that don’t appear to penalize the architects and contractors for inferior materials or workmanship. There ought to be clauses in all design and building contracts that require remediation within a certain time frame. The city shouldn’t be responsible for finding the solutions to construction problems, it should lie directly on the shoulders of the contractor who has done the work.

One other thing, whatever happened to the project of replacing the main sewer line on East Sherman and then south on Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive so that development could commence in that blighted area? I realize you are working on Foster at Eighth Street right now; is Sherman Avenue next? Discussions about building height restrictions are useless if the main sewer lines are inadequate. I believe there was an article in the Coeur d’Alene Press a couple years ago about the inadequate main sewer lines.

S. WILLIAMS

Coeur d’Alene