Yearly ignite cda report sparks pushback against KC treasurer

COEUR d’ALENE — As part of his yearly duties, the executive director of ignite cda came to the Coeur d’Alene City Council to deliver the urban renewal agency’s 2019 annual report.

And unlike others in the community, city officials had nothing but praise for two urban renewal districts that made massive leaps forward in 2019: the Health Corridor District and the Atlas Mill District.

“They’ve both been very productive for Coeur d’Alene,” ignite cda’s Tony Berns said before the meeting. “They both offer different opportunities for us. With Atlas, we’re starting from the ground up and building a unique public space for everyone to enjoy before we move toward development.”

The Atlas Mill Site and its 47-acre property served as a hub to expand the River and Lake districts. The Atlas District was officially created in December 2018. Since then, the $6.3 million Atlas Waterfront projoect — awarded to T-LaRiviere Construction — has already seen the stabilization of the shoreline for a public waterfront space.

“We’re spending over six million right now for public investment into the future for generations to come,” Berns said. “For the rest [of the project], we’re hoping market conditions will help grow the area.”

A December-approved Health Corridor urban renewal district — a project designed to boost the economy and revitalize the area surrounding Kootenai Health — is one Berns emphasized as critical to the economic and physical future of Coeur d’Alene.

“I don’t know what term to use for the Health Corridor other than ‘huge,’ Berns said. “It’s extremely critical to our future: not just to the well-being of the community, but from an economic growth and stability viewpoint. There’s no more important partner we have right now than Kootenai Health. It’s important we help that area drive new innovation and smart growth.”

The Health Corridor has been the focus of a swell of political discource, most recently from Kootenai County Treasurer Steve Matheson.

Matheson has pushed for political support for an advisory vote that asks to either favor or oppose the urban renewal district, a position that was spotlighted in the Feb. 16 edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press. The question for the May ballot would carry no binding force but would serve as a marker to hold future City Council members politically accountable. It’s a push City Council members took exception to after the presentation.

“I’d like to speak about an article in the Sunday paper,” Councilmember Christie Wood said. “… Some people don’t care for urban renewal. I can appreciate their feelings on that, but I like to focus on facts. So the city of Coeur d’Alene has the highest forgone tax in the entire state. They have $5,686,999 of uncollected taxes. It’s very clear this Council — even though I’ve only been here for a month — this Council before I got here, they have a long track record of conservative tax increases.”

Wood added that Matheson’s attacks on urban renewal districts were misplaced.

“Mr. Matheson claims URDs are to blame for citizens seeing an increase in taxes. I won’t say there’s zero effect, but I will say he’s off the mark considerably.”

“Over the last month,” Mayor Steve Widmyer said in a jab to the Idaho Legislature’s push for a property tax freeze, “as the talk has come about property taxes and the state has decided that they’re going to make decisions for us, as far as what property taxes go … The assessments are really the issue. What we’re seeing in Coeur d’Alene, what we’re seeing throughout Kootenai County, and I think what we’re seeing throughout areas that have substantial growth is, you are seeing a giant tax shift.

“I can show you example after example after example where there are people that are paying less taxes in 2019 than they were in 2014. Their tax bill has gone down. Where do those taxes go? They have shifted over to other people that are paying more, percentage-wise. So I know why people are upset about growing taxes, because their taxes have grown. But people the who have been paying less in 2019 than in 2014? We’re not hearing from any of those folks … We really need to take a look at the assessment issue, because that’s a major part of it.”

“It seemed that, in that article,” Councilmember Kiki Miller added, “there was a loosely … quote that it said that it went from a whiteboard conversation, the Health Corridor district, to a vote to become an urban renewal district. As I recall, there was a technical panel that was put together through CDA 2030 that studied that. Then there was multiple presentations back to Council. Then there was a feasibility study that included an immense amount of public input and engineers involved in what that would look like before it came back to become a potential district.

“So I think that part of that article needed to be a little bit fact-checked, that it didn’t go from a whiteboard idea to a district. There was a long period of a lot of Council and citizen input on that.”

Berns also took time Tuesday night to highlight the 2019 completion of Memorial Park’s improvements, the completion of the Higher Eeducation Campus Initiative’s collaborative education facility, the completion of the Seltice Way Project and the continued development of Riverstone, among the many projects outlined in the report.

Berns also stressed another milestone, one not in 2019’s rearview but on the horizon: the expiration of the Lake District in 2021.

“When you look at what the Lake District brings in,” he said, “all that that taxing entity brings in, being placed back into the city, it will really demonstrate the benefits urban renewal can provide.”