Diane Fountain: Jumping into the political fast lane

COEUR d'ALENE - Diane Fountain was born and raised in Coeur d'Alene, and at age 55 she has decided to get into politics as the newest commissioner on the Lakes Highway District.

Fountain graduated from Coeur d'Alene High School in 1978, and went on to take accounting and other financial courses at North Idaho College.

She works part time for the Post Falls Urban Renewal District, and 10 years ago she worked for Lakes Highway District as a bookkeeper, which explains in part why she decided to run for commissioner.

"I've always been interested in the local politics around here," she said. "I read the Coeur d'Alene Press on a daily basis. If you ask me what my favorite book is, I would say the Coeur d'Alene Press."

She has been married for 32 years.

"We actually got together after high school," she said, adding that her husband used to go camping with a family that went camping with hers. "So we knew each other growing up, but we didn't start dating until after high school."

Together they have raised two children, her son Jesse and daughter Emily. Fountain has two grandchildren, with another on the way.

Fountain won her seat on the highway district board, but it wasn't her first try.

In 2011, Fountain ran unsuccessfully in a three-way race against Marv Lekstrum, who landed 38 percent of the vote, and Dan Malcolm, who garnered 34 percent of the vote. Fountain came in last with 28 percent of the vote.

Lekstrum passed away during his term and Malcolm was appointed to fill his seat until the May 19 election this year, where Fountain wound up unseating Malcolm in nail-biting finish with 51 percent of the vote.

So what led you to run for the seat?

I worked out at the highway district 10 years ago. I have always been the type of person - even when I worked in the private sector - who tries to look out for the company and do the best that I can to try and save the company money. Then when I went to work for the highway district it was kind of the same thing, but even moreso for me because I was dealing with taxpayer dollars. So I looked for ways to streamline processes and to save the taxpayers money.

Was there a lot of that type of stuff to clean up?

I just saw things, and I don't know how much I want to get into that, but for a small example, and I mean it's small: The clerk would go to the post office every single day to get the mail and we were paying her mileage to get the mail every single day. We were paying her 57 cents a mile to go back and forth every single day. I told my supervisor that I could pick up the mail on my way to work every day and drop it off on my way home, and then you wouldn't have to pay anything to get the mail. The clerk didn't want to do that because she liked getting out of the office, so I asked them if we could put a mailbox out in the front of the office and my supervisor said yes. So when the clerk went on vacation and when she came back we had a mailbox. I didn't do that to be ornery, I did it to save the district money.

How much did it end up saving?

That saved hundreds of dollars, but it was just a lot of little things that begin to add up. Afterwards, I just felt I could make a difference. That's why I ran the first time. I wanted to provide the transparency and fiscal responsibility. Again, I just wanted to make a difference.

Why did you run again?

When Marv Lekstrum passed away, they appointed Dan Malcolm to fill his seat, and when I found out that he was gone in the winter and doesn't even live here for three to five months out of the year, I just had a problem with that. As it got closer and closer to having to file my declaration for candidacy, I decided to just go down there and file one. I wasn't just going to hand it to him.

What was your campaign like?

The first time Chris Kraft and I went into it together. There were two sub-districts open in 2011, and he was running for sub-district 2 and I was running for sub-district 3. Together we would go out campaigning and we would go all the way north to the Bonner County line. There were a lot of remote areas up there, so I would feel better to be out there campaigning together. We shared expenses and ran on the same platform. It was fun to get out there and meet people and listen to their concerns and tell people about the highway district. A lot of people don't know anything about the highway district and it's on their tax bill.

Did you do anything different the second time around?

The first time Chris and I started really early and we campaigned for a long, long time. So this time around I thought I would sit back and get all my stuff together. You know my business cards and my postcards, so I waited a while until I went out and campaigned and I hit it real hard at the end. And I had a lot more support and help from people I didn't even know.

What kind of help and support?

Chris Kraft actually hooked me up with Jennifer Locke. She was just more than willing to help me. She said as soon as I told her what I believed in and in what I wanted to accomplish and the fact that the current commissioner was not here to represent the taxpayers for part of the year, she was hooked from then on. She had people she knew that could help me, and I met with three or four of them personally and they went out and campaigned in their precincts for me. It was incredibly helpful.

So let's talk about how you felt on election night. What was that like?

It was about 8:30 p.m. and my husband and I went in and checked the results and they had the absentee votes and the people who voted early at the elections office. I was behind by about 103 or a 130 votes, something like that. I thought, oh man, those were the early voters and I chased them with postcards. I went down and got the list and chased those votes, so that was kind of disappointing because I know that he didn't do that. So then what I did is go out and start picking up my election signs. I figured I would just do that because it would drive me crazy if I just had to sit at home.

When did you realize you were in for a nail-biter?

I got home around 9:15 or 9:30 and Jennifer was texting me and letting me know what was happening. I hit the refresh button on the computer and it was at about 85 percent of the votes counted and I was ahead by 30 votes or something like that. My husband was in bed so I hit the refresh button again and yelled "Jeff, Jeff, I am ahead." So he comes running in and I hit the refresh button again and it was at 100 percent, so I scrolled down and saw that I had won. It was like I can't believe it I won, and it was like I didn't know how I would feel one way or the other. I didn't know how I would feel if I won or how I would feel if I lost. I just never thought about that. I just did everything I could to get it. I usually try to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I was like oh my gosh and then I got text from a friend who congratulated me for winning and I started crying. Poor Jeff. I was just bawling and he's going what's the matter, what's the matter. (Chuckles). It just really touched me. It was an emotional relief.

Most newly elected officials tell me they are surprised by how much the job entails once they are elected, is being a commissioner what you thought it would be?

For me, I feel very comfortable because I worked for the district in the past and knew what to expect. I have worked in the governmental field for the past 10 years, and the Post Falls Urban Renewal Agency has seven commissioners. For 10 years I have been working for commissioners and I know what they expect. Now that has given me an idea of how I can represent the taxpayers.

If you could only accomplish one thing during your time in office, what would that be?

Oh probably the transparency issue. I want to get everything out on the website so people can see the financial status of the district. And also the meetings. When I filed my declaration of candidacy, I went to the highway district and went through four years of meeting minutes and started seeing there are two agendas for each meeting. They would hold a workshop before the regular meeting but they were posted to the website. They are posted on the door out there, but they are not posted to the website. I would not have known those meetings were even happening until I went to look at the meeting minutes. So then I started going to the workshops and the meetings would start at 5:30 and they are over by 5:40 because they did all their discussion of the agenda items in the workshops. But they still don't have a lot of discussion about the financials and that's what I think I can bring to the table.