Cd'A amends Ironman agreement

COEUR d’ALENE — A billboard at Riverstone used to berate the mayor for the Chamber of Commerce’s decision to eliminate an Ironman race in Coeur d’Alene has run afoul of council member Ron Edinger.

And Edinger said so at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

“That billboard is a bunch of crap,” the longtime council member said.

And then he said it again.

Edinger told audience members the city and mayor generally support the chamber in its difficult decisions.

And the latest decision by the chamber to drop the full Ironman race from its summer event schedule in favor of keeping a shorter version of the race, was no cakewalk.

“We, the mayor and the council have always agreed on what the chamber and other groups wanted to do,” Edinger said.

The billboard was out of line, he said.

“For someone to come out and put up a billboard is a bunch of crap,” Edinger said.

With that, the Coeur d’Alene City Council elected Tuesday by a 4-1 vote to amend its Ironman agreement with the Chamber of Commerce.

Although the latest agreement the chamber hammered out with the World Triathlon Corp. calls for ditching the August 140.6-mile race and playing host for another three years to a June, 70.3-mile, half-Ironman race, future negotiations are likely.

The agreement does not mean the sun has set for good on the race that many in the audience of Tuesday’s City Council meeting came to support, Steve Wilson, chamber CEO said.

“This agreement keeps the door open for future changes in the industry,” Wilson said. “If the 140.6 comes back, we’re keeping the door open for that.”

That means other WTC events could find a home in Coeur d’Alene in upcoming years.

“We’re looking forward to a longer relationship with WTC,” Wilson said.

The chamber’s board elected unanimously to adopt the latest 28-page contract with WTC, Wilson said, and other entities including the downtown association supported the changes.

More than a dozen people in the audience Tuesday, however, hoped a lack of support from the city to provide support services for just one — not two races — could push the chamber to renegotiate its latest agreement with WTC.

“The whole Ironman community is a little confused by this decision,” Britt Bachtel-Browning said. “We hope we can lobby to keep the full Ironman here.”

Bachtel-Browning of the Coeur d’Alene Triathlon Club, wondered before the council’s vote, why an event that bolstered the local economy and brought nationwide recognition to the city would get kicked to the curb.

“There’s a massive amount of revenue,” she said. “It attracts people who are environmentally and health-conscious.”

Bachtel-Browning was among representatives of several clubs — including the Lake City Triathlon Club, Fleet Feet and the Coeur d’Alene Bike Co. — who showed up to protest the chamber’s contract, but Mayor Steve Widmyer said their concerns had less to do with the city than with the chamber.

When it came to a vote, Amy Evans was the sole council member to go against the city’s amended contract with the chamber.

“Ironman unites us all, and it sets us apart,” Evans said. “I am voting from my heart.”

Her dissension earned a round of applause from the runners, swimmers and cyclists in the audience.

Council member Woody McEvers abstained.

Having the City Council accept an amended agreement with the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce to provide support services for one Ironman race per summer instead of two, was the last step needed to finalize the chamber’s responsibility to WTC.