COLUMN: Jordan wrong target

I waded through David Lyons’ guest column Saturday, July 21, to see why he thought Brad Jordan isn’t best qualified to serve another term on the ignite cda board of commissioners.

All I could come up with was this: Jordan has served on the board too long. That, and Jordan serves on too many appointed city boards and doesn’t have to face the voters. Snarks Lyons: “If Jordan is able to finagle an appointment to yet another 5-year term, he might as well include the board seat in his will and pass it on to his heir.”

Basically, Lyons offered thin reasons for dumping the long-serving, dedicated commissioner.

I know Jordan in passing. Yet, I can speculate about his work for the urban renewal agency.

In the past 20 years, ignite cda (formerly Lake City Development Corp.) has helped transform the face of downtown Coeur d’Alene and the waterfront. Ignite cda’s fingerprints are on successful project after successful project, beginning with the Coeur d’Alene library and McEuen Park downtown and extending to Riverstone, the Kroc Center and beyond to the west.

Developer John Stone told me during my newspaper days that there would be no Riverstone without the urban renewal support.

Jordan has been part of most, if not all, of the enlightened decisions that ignite cda has made.

Lyons is right that many politicians and appointees succumb to seduction and addiction of political power. But Jordan doesn’t appear to be one of them.

D.F. ‘DAVE’ OLIVERIA

Coeur d’Alene