The late, not-so-great Diamond Cup holdup

As a native North Idaho resident, and columnist/manager for a national veterans group, I attended a recent Kootenai County Commission hearing on permitting for special events to see if I could determine the hold-up on the Veterans Diamond Cup Race for 2014. The race would greatly benefit veterans groups that work with our military heroes all across America. But the evening raised more questions than answers. There were 30 people in attendance who marked themselves FOR a smooth permit process, one "neutral" and one opposed.

It appears that the majority of citizens are being railroaded by a minority. Local businesses stand to benefit to the tune of at minimum $5 million from the Diamond Cup Race.

As one of the speakers in favor of a quick and smooth permit process said, "We want to show our community in a positive light." Sorry, it's anything but at this point. I attempted to obtain an interview with the sheriff, but he declined due to concerns about "litigation."

1. Why would Sheriff Wolfinger suddenly decide to implement conditions that he knew full well would be difficult to meet by the Diamond Cup Committee? Is this problem over the Veterans aspect of the race or is there some pressure being applied to him from an outside source? Last year's race had no such conditions.

2. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office REFUSED to allow the Diamond Cup to start their county permit process in October of last year. They insisted on waiting until 2014. That action effectively cut off several months of the process for the committee ... and did not allow them an appointment until Feb. 6 of this year. That meant they had to attempt to obtain all of their permits within a 5 month time frame, which is exceedingly improbable. The sheriff's department set a date of July 1 to meet their conditions. An extension for time was requested to the sheriff's office, and ultimately denied. Why?

3. A representative from the Kootenai Environmental Alliance group came to the meeting and made certain that everyone knew she was opposed to the streamlined administrative permit process unless there was a public hearing process. (That all sounds so logical, doesn't it? Not helpful for the Diamond Cup, however, and strips an administrative review of its ability to move quickly) The KEA claims to be "local business supporters" (according to their website), but standing with the sheriff in this case is anything but supporting local businesses. Are they exerting undue influence in this case?

There are other things, such as disparity of treatment between the Ironman race and the Diamond Cup race ... but in all of it I have two questions for all citizens of Coeur d'Alene and the county of Kootenai: Will you allow ONE blockage to this race to benefit our military veterans when all other permits have been obtained? Will you allow one man and whoever is influencing him to stand in the way of something that would generate millions of dollars to the local economy? Start looking into it, start asking questions.

Faye Higbee is Post Falls resident and a columnist for MisguidedChildren.com.