Cd’A Police, Fire to get funding for COVID sanitation

The Coeur d’Alene City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to ratify the emergency purchase of six new sanitation systems designed to clean vehicles and equipment of COVID-19.

The purchase, totaling $95,518, will be backed by CARES Act dollars, the federal stimulus program President Donald Trump signed into law in March. The city has been allocated as much as $1.7 million in CARES Act relief for any coronavirus-related costs between now and the end of the year. So far, according to city accountant Stephanie Padilla, Coeur d’Alene has received only a fraction of what city staff has requested heading into Tuesday’s meeting.

“We have already started putting in expenses that we’ve incurred from March 13 to Dec. 30,” Padilla said. “We’ve currently requested $580,595.36. We’ve received $55,425 from the state of Idaho in CARES Act funding, and we still have plenty more to go.”

Capt. David Hagar of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department told The Press the systems will more effectively clean vehicles and equipment of the coronavirus, better protecting officers and firefighters from the disease that has claimed more than 546,000 lives worldwide since the pandemic began in December.

“This is a bit of an over-simplification,” Hagar qualified, “but think of it like a bug bomb you put in your house. It goes off and takes care of your pest problem, and that’s what this machine is. It creates this fine mist that gets into all the crevices in your vehicle.”

Five of the sanitation systems will go to the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department — one for each station — while Cd’A PD will claim the sixth. The decision was part of a larger motion to accept CARES Act funding as it becomes necessary, funding that comes with strict guidelines.

“This CARES Act has come into effect due to the coronavirus,” Padilla explained. “It will be used only for non-budgeted expenses that are 100-percent related to COVID-19 expenses.”