Yes, it's a crisis

Leadership matters.

For anyone who believes that great leaders aren't worth their weight in gold - or six-figure salaries, anyway - consider the current plight of the city of Coeur d'Alene.

Since last September, when Police Chief Wayne Longo retired, all hell has broken loose. The interim chief, Capt. Ron Clark, sure didn't open those gates. As his nearly 30-year distinguished career attests, Clark has been an exemplary peace officer and supervisor.

But interim isn't really leadership. Interim is a cousin to placeholder or, more harshly, lame duck, which describes the last couple months of leadership from former Coeur d'Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem. In fact, Mayor Bloem had announced in April 2013 that she wasn't going to seek a fourth term, so essentially, city government was on hold for the last two-thirds of the year waiting for new leadership.

Arguably the second most powerful person in city government, the city administrator, wasn't up for re-election and wasn't on the path of retirement. But Wendy Gabriel appeared to fade more and more into the background until abruptly resigning on May 7 after 25 years of service to the city. That made three high-profile, experienced leaders leaving in a short period of time. Other city managers - parks, human resources and assistant city administrator - also retired last fall, creating even more of a leadership void.

Was implosion inevitable?

Going back just 11 months, Coeur d'Alene officers have been involved in four shootings, three of them fatal. It was the last one, the lethal shooting of a dog through the driver's window of a van, that channeled the public's fear and fury into a focused force. Confidence in local law enforcement and by extension, local government itself, is today near an all-time low.

New Mayor Steve Widmyer has the makings of a superior leader but has been on the job a mere six months. Finance chief Troy Tymesen is serving as interim city administrator while a broad search is underway. The city has narrowed its search for police chief to two men, with one of them likely to be hired by September.

It's conceivable that these shootings and others by local law enforcement would have happened no matter who was in charge, but what isn't debatable is that the importance of great leadership becomes crystal clear in times of crisis. And for the city of Coeur d'Alene, this is a crisis, not an image problem. There's no room to make any bad hires at the top.