City of Coeur d'Alene seeks fee increases

COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene will ask the city council tonight to increase a number of park, cemetery, water and business fees.

A staff report on the issue states that the city has to hold a public hearing if it needs to raise rates more than 5 percent.

The municipal services division of the city is requesting a $50 permit fee for door-to-door sales in the city limits. The fee is to cover the cost of staff issuing permits throughout the year.

The Parks Department, which manages the city cemeteries, wants to increase some fees and add some new ones.

Interim Parks Director Bill Greenwood said the city will provide a new headstone setting service at $1,050 for a raised stone and $800 for a flat headstone area. There are a number of other funeral-related fee increases proposed as well.

Alcohol permit fees for Riverstone, City and McEuen parks are set at $300 for weekends and holidays, and $150 for weekdays. A minimum four-hour security fee of $80 must be paid.

"We outsource a security guard for the beer gardens," Greenwood said. "If you or I wanted to have a beer bash, we would have to hire extra security."

Groups can now reserve and rent tennis courts at a rate of $2 per hour for each court they reserve, Greenwood said.

The McEuen Pavilion can also be rented by non-residents at a rate of $200 for the whole pavilion per time block. Residents can shave $50 off the price. Half of the pavilion is half the price, at $75 for residents and $100 for non-residents.

Bulk water users will see a decrease in the one-time bulk water minimum charge from $25 to $5. The staff report states that the fee decrease is justified because very little administrative work is required and one-time users normally use less than $5 worth of water.

However, the water department wants to increase the penalty for bulk water users who do not submit their monthly log sheets on time. The penalty will be $40 the first time users are late, $80 the second time, and the third time, the fine jumps to $120 and stays at that level for each late submission thereafter.

"This fee schedule will help 'encourage' them to be more timely and help offset some of our extra costs involved in having to track them down when their log sheets are late or absent," staff wrote in the report.

There will also be a stiff fine for the improper operation of city water facilities. The first offense is a warning. The second offense is $50. The third offense is $500 and a complaint to the Idaho Bureau of Occupational Licenses for offenders who hold Idaho licenses.

"We continue to have problems with people (mostly plumbers) who turn off water services despite having been told that they are not to be inside our meter boxes," staff wrote in the report. "These fees are intended to 'encourage' them to call and let us do the turn-offs for them."