Steve McCrea: A past of politics, pancakes

COEUR d’ALENE — The Gang of Four.

Voters, eager for change, swept them into City Hall by an election landslide in the early 1980s. Mayor Jim Fromm and Councilmen Bob Brown, Jim Michaud and Steve McCrea.

Armed with a united voting majority and grand plans, they transformed Coeur d’Alene in one term from a casual, glad-handing government to a coat-and-tie operation based on protocol, efficiency and accountability.

They were an unstoppable force. The changes came at supersonic speed, many of which were popular and some of which were not. It may have been too much, too fast.

Fromm was defeated by Ray Stone in the 1986 election. Brown and Michaud opted not to run for re-election. Only McCrea, an attorney in his 30s, succeeded the Gang of Four.

McCrea served another two terms on the City Council before stepping down to focus on his priorities — family, his law practice and snow skiing.

“It was a pretty fun time,” he said, referring to his tenure with the gang. “We recognized that the city needed to get some things done. We didn’t feel like the city was progressing. So we took the bull by the horns and streamlined it and modernized it. We did most of what we said we would do in the campaign.”

McCrea, a soft-spoken and good-natured 67-year-old father of two sons and his 63-year-old wife, Tere, are preparing to fully retire in about a month. They have retirement plans, but none that would take them far from Coeur d’Alene, at least not permanently.

“I identify with the lake,” McCrea said. “I always like to be around water or mountains. One or the other.”

The McCrea clan goes back a ways in North Idaho. His grandfather, John William, moved to Post Falls in the 1890s where he operated a livery stable until it burned. He then worked for several years as a miner in the Silver Valley and moved to Coeur d’Alene, where he became a partner in a grain mill.

In Coeur d’Alene, he ran for the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners and served for about a dozen years. As chairman of the commission he passed a bond to pay for the construction of the county courthouse in 1925-26.

McCrea’s father was born in Coeur d’Alene, where he attended high school then enrolled at the University of Idaho. He graduated during the Depression when work was scarce, then was commissioned as a second-lieutenant in the Army.

At a very young age, McCrea became a rambling Army brat. He was born in Washington, D.C., and moved with family to Georgia, Alabama, Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Japan, Hawaii and Virginia. He attended 13 different schools before he landed in California, where his father retired.

Summers during the globe-trotting years were spent in Coeur d’Alene, where an aunt lived on West Lakeshore Drive. Those summers left a lasting impression that would ultimately draw him back.

His fondest memories are of simple things.

“My aunt took me around Tubbs Hill. I must have been 5 and it was the first time I had seen mica. There was mica all over the trails and I thought ‘Wow, what’s that?’”

He remembers a ride on the tour boat Seeweewana to Harrison when he was about 6. And, of course, Playland Pier.

Then there were a couple of summertime family traditions.

“Hanging out on the beach for breakfast. We’d go down there with a cook stove and make pancakes or eggs. A breakfast picnic. That was a big deal,” he said.

The other tradition was late-night skinny-dipping in the lake. In an effort to maintain respectability, they would enter the water with a wooden crate, put their swimsuits in the crate and send it to shore.

McCrea finished high school in California, then enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles and graduated in 1971 with a degree in political science. From there, he went directly to the University of Idaho law school.

McCrea worked for a year in Caldwell but was pining for the lakes and mountains of the north. He moved to Coeur d’Alene, where he worked in the county public defender’s office for three years before setting out in private practice.

During those early years, two game-changers occurred.

While about to embark on a ski trip to Whitefish, Mont., McCrea was asked if he could include an extra passenger who turned out to be a striking girl named Teresa. They were married the next year. Tere established and managed the Medical Diagnostic Ultrasound program at Kootenai Health for 42 years.

McCrea also attended a City Council meeting and was dismayed by the shallowness of the discussion. He made an immediate decision.

“I just thought, ‘I can do a better job.’ Not that I think I’m smarter than people, it’s just that I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to spend my time and energy to make the community better,” he said.

McCrea enjoyed his time with the Gang of Four, but elected office seems unlikely in his future.

“There are too many old guys in government right now,” he said. “We need more young people in government.”

McCrea serves on a number of community boards and plans to continue with those endeavors. Plus he has a couple of book-writing projects in mind.

But mostly he and Tere, both avid outdoor enthusiasts, intend to kick back at their condo at Schweitzer Mountain Resort and basically “just have fun” in the place they love. And it’s not all about lakes and mountains.

“The biggest thing is the people. They are just so friendly,” he said. “You go to most places in the country and you don’t strike up a conversation with someone in line at the grocery store. You don’t chat with the checker.

“It’s just a cool place.”