County postpones church deliberations

To give the county legal department more time to review documents, commissioner deliberations on the 42,000-square-foot Hayden Lake Seventh-Day Adventist project have been postponed to April 1.

The conditional use permit has received several hearings in front of the commissioners and hearing examiners. After discovering that denying the permit could violate the federal Religious Land Use Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, the board voted to have legal counsel perform a detailed review of the application.

Commissioners had anticipated deliberations Thursday, but unforeseen circumstances pushed the meeting back two weeks, Communications Manager Nancy Jones said.

“Part of the deliberations is going to likely be discussed in an executive session as the commissioners need to have a conversation with the attorney,” Jones said. “That attorney was unfortunately not available for the conversations this morning, and so they will need more time.”

The meeting is now scheduled for 9 a.m. April 1 on the bottom floor of the Kootenai County Administration Building.