Hooligan Island structure returns

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

COEUR d'ALENE — A floating play station that met with furrowed brows from city and state officials earlier this year is back in the water in front of the city’s beach despite a red light from officials.

City officials say the Hooligan Island waterborne recreation station, which drew a passel of fun seekers over the weekend, is floating outside the city’s property, therefore it is not within the city’s jurisdiction.

The city has jurisdiction on the lake out to 1,000 feet from the city’s shore.

“As long as they are outside the 1,000 foot mark, they are welcome to be there,” Coeur d’Alene Parks Superintendent Bill Greenwood said.

Greenwood received reports this week the play station — a mechanical island outfitted with two trampolines, a water slide, swinging rope and flotation devices — was back in Lake Coeur d’Alene causing a stir.

Earlier this spring, the play station drew the ire of lakefront property owners near downtown who said it looked ugly, and from state and city officials who were perplexed as to what kind of permits the contraption’s owners might need, and who was responsible for supplying the permits.

Jim Brady of the Idaho Department of Lands, which regulates the beds and banks of state waters, said if the play area encroached on state land, “they would have to deal with us.”

It was unclear, however, if an encroachment existed.

“We haven’t resolved that yet,” Brady said.

Owners of the floating playpen, which weighs 7,000 pounds and can safely hold 40,000 pounds of fun-loving adults and kids, vowed to work out the legalities and bring the business back this summer for people to enjoy.

“This is so new, they don’t have a process,” co-owner Rob Riley said. “They don’t know how to work through it.”

The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission denied a request last month by Riley and co-owner Clint Kauer to provide a safe place for the avant-garde aquatic play piece on city-regulated waters, advising the men instead approach North Idaho College to seek permission to anchor on college waters.

Greenwood said the commission turned down similar requests by other floating play area vendors and probably won’t entertain another request.

“The Parks and Rec Commission is not interested in this type of water-based business at this time,” he said.

The business charges $12 a pop, Kauer said, for people to jump, swing, bounce and splash from its floating platform.