LAUNCH: Closure hurts less wealthy

I read that the powers that be have decided to close the Third Street boat launch for the season.

They were in a huge hurry to start the McEuen Park project before they were voted out of office. Of course they knew the boat launch would have to be closed for construction, but they couldn’t afford to wait until after the boating season was over.

The wealthy people who can afford seasonal boat slips will be OK. But the less wealthy tourists, the day-trippers who launch their boats every trip, will have to drive way out of their way to launch their boats for summer fun, the Fourth of July, and the hydroplane races. By all means keep the ordinary people away from the north end of the lake and turn the town of Coeur d’Alene into another Lake Tahoe!

Another possibility is that with the Third Street boat launch closed for the season, daily boat launchers will just give up and quit coming to Coeur d’Alene. Then next year the powers that be will say, “Gee, there is so little use of the Third Street boat launch, we may as well just mothball it!” That is how they got rid of the tennis courts downtown when they didn’t want them there anymore. They stopped maintaining the courts, and with broken and missing nets and muddy cement, no one played tennis any more. Then they said, “Gee, no one is using the courts! We may as well get rid of them!”

LAURIE LYONS

Coeur d’Alene