COUNTY PLANNING: Department lacks oversight

I would like to shine a big light on the Kootenai County Community Planning and Development department. This is one of the most disorganized and dishonest government entities I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I’ve literally had County Planner Vlad Finkel tell me that they wouldn’t support a variance request on one parcel because I had another parcel right next door.

When applying that rationale across the board, that would mean if you had two different parcels spread across different parts of Kootenai County, that you couldn’t get a variance for one property if you can do the same thing without a variance on another property. Are you thinking that this doesn’t pass the logic test? Well so do I.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of stuff that is happening within this department. They will tell you that they are under staffed and under paid, which they are; but that doesn’t mean they get to abuse their authority with impunity and needlessly stack the deck against citizens of this community simply because they’re on some misguided effort to teach people a lesson. This is easily the worst leadership I’ve ever seen in a government entity and they seemingly have no oversight.

So unless you can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring suit in district court, you just have to take it on the chin. David Callahan needs to resign immediately or be fired by the County Commissioners. What a disgrace!

CLAYTON SAPPINGTON

Rathdrum