Hayden Day, candidates at Fedora

COEUR d'ALENE — The Kootenai County Reagan Republicans meeting at Fedora on Thursday served as yet another opportunity for Hayden leaders to speak to their community.

Dubbed "Hayden Day," the meeting featured Hayden City Councilman Tim Timmins and his challenger, Matt Roetter — as well as Steve Griffitts, who is running unopposed for the position of Hayden mayor in the upcoming election.

Several Hayden issues arose when questions were collected from the group of about 20 attending the meeting. Timmins and Roetter had one minute to answer with opportunities for rebuttal as they fielded the inquiries, which included the future of the airport and the impact its expansion will have on the community; snow plows, berms and removal; urban renewal; how they intend to work with highway and county districts; and just what is happening with the class action lawsuit the North Idaho Building Contractors Association filed against the city of Hayden.

Right out of the gate, when Kootenai County Reagan Republicans President Jeff Ward asked the first question of whether Timmins and Roetter were registered Republicans and considered themselves as such, the politics began.

"I will note that in the last three city elections in Hayden I voted in all three, my opponent only voted in one, and that was in the election of 2011," Roetter stated.

"I did not live in the city of Hayden until 2010," Timmins fired back. "I voted in the city of Coeur d'Alene."

On the subject of the lawsuit, Timmins said he feels as though he has kind of "been thrown in the middle of something" and noted that he has removed himself far from the case.

"This lawsuit is something that has come up because the Supreme Court Justice Jones sent in to the city's attorney, 'What should we have done?' and all he said was, 'You should have followed the law,'" Timmins said. "That meant that what they did was wrong; we have since corrected that issue with the city, but as far as all of the lawsuit issues, I have not been a part of those. I have recused myself from all activity when it went into executive session, nothing that was voted on at the city council concerning that lawsuit at all."

"There is a conflict of interest," Roetter rebutted. "How can you be on both sides of a lawsuit? If that lawsuit is successful, and this is my research on the case and Mr. Timmins, he will get $106,000 from a class action lawsuit that could bankrupt the city of Hayden, $3 million in capitalization fees would have to be returned to the people who paid for those capitalization fees. The city only takes in $1.2 million in taxes. Do the math — we either go bankrupt or increase our property taxes three or four times."

?Griffitts, who spoke before Roetter and Timmins, ?said he is very much looking forward to representing the city of Hayden and that disagreements aren't always a bad thing.

"I'm excited to be a part of the process in Hayden, I'm excited to be able to do something like that in my life," he said. "I hope you disagree with me sometimes, I hope the council does, I hope I get feedback, I hope I can be better because of you, because I'm not smart enough on my own. I don't think any of us are."

Ward said inviting political candidates and community leaders to speak at the meetings is great for the members and will encourage people to get out and vote.

"We're about informing the voters about what's going on and informing our members," he said. "We've done events like this since we were founded in 2009. One of our first events was a big debate with county commissioner candidates back then, so this is par for the course."