Huckleberries: Condo proposal was no day at the beach
The beach rimming North Idaho College would look differently today if the Committee to Prevent the Construction of Condominiums on Coeur d’Alene Lake Front had never existed.
Fifty years ago, the committee with the jaw-breaking name formed in haste to stop development of 45 to 50 two-story condos on what is now NIC’s Yap-Keehn-Um Beach.
It was the brainchild of an instructor beginning his fourth semester at NIC — Tony Stewart.
In late winter of 1972, Tony was the right person in the right place when students and The Cardinal Review approached with concerns about the proposed Pack River Properties project.
Pack River was pressing city officials for annexation because the company needed sewer hook-ups for the “high-class project.”
Although dismissed as a "young upstart" at the time, Tony flashed the organizational skills that would later serve him — and the community — well when he helped form the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations.
While organizing a petition drive and a media campaign, Tony gathered support from political leaders, prominent individuals, civic groups, organizations and institutions. Also, he recruited environmental legal specialist Scott Reed of Coeur d’Alene for a possible lawsuit.
In a speech before NIC students, printed in the student newspaper on Feb. 11, 1972, then college president Barry Schuler spelled out what was at stake: “Every little boy, girl, teenager and most of the working people will have lost the way of life. … Unless they are lucky enough to find a spot in the (limited) city park beach, they will no longer be able to frolic in the clean lake water, sunbathe in a lounge chair on the beach, or meet their friends for a lakeside barbecue.”
From Jan. 22 until Valentine's Day, 1972, Tony and his committee collected 3,504 signatures in a house-to-house campaign — or about 22% of the 16,228 Coeur d’Alene residents.
Local residents were solidly against the annexation request by the time it reached City Hall.
In a surprise move before the City Council meeting on Feb. 15, 1972, Pack River offered to sell the beach for $800,000, stating “time is of the essence.” But the company would wait until June 30, 1977, for the college to pull funding sources together. It then accepted an offer of $260,000.
On Sept. 12, 1980, NIC was deeded ownership of the beach.
In 2007, the NIC beachfront, which begins at Hubbard Street and wraps around the college to the Chief Morris Antelope statue, was valued at $47,740,000, according to attorney Reed.
Sometimes progress is made by leaving things alone.
Hard to Crack
Justin Ruen, formerly of Clark Fork, believes eggshells are harder today than 20 years ago when he gave up the “cooking game.” His wife, an excellent cook, has run the kitchen for much of their married life. Now, Justin handles the spatula during breakfast. “The brown eggshells today seem thicker and harder to penetrate,” Justin told Huckleberries. “My cracking failure rate has skyrocketed. And there is egg shrapnel all over the place.” Justin longs for the days of user-friendly eggs — you know, the white ones that were pre-organic, pre-cage free and broke cleanly and easily. He said he may add a hatchet to his culinary arsenal — to crack eggs. Stay tuned.
Huckleberries
• Poet’s Corner: The rain will splash,/the snow will fall,/and thick black clouds/cast winter’s pall;/but then one day/a pleasant shock –/it’s staying light/til five o’clock — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Over the Hump”).
• So what made retired KCSD captain Kim Edmondson dance in her home on the Rimrock last week? After years of trying, she had learned that a coveted vanity plate was hers: “BARNCAT.” The name is apt since her dream car, a 1968 Cougar, has rusted in barns for years. It’s taking shape in her shop. The engine purrs. The exterior sparkles. But Kim would still need a milk crate to sit on if she took BARNCAT out for a prowl now.
• If you’ve been to Kauai, you may empathize with the one complaint Carole Tabakman of Coeur d’Alene has: roosters. The pests greet the new day before 3 a.m. with a cock-a-doodle-do chorus. And it’s wearing on Carole. “I don’t hate many things — Nazis, buttermilk, Trump and snakes,” she says, “but I’m adding roosters to the list.” Chicken soup isn’t an option either. Roosters are protected on Kauai. So they run the place.
• Mike Lehosit of Hayden Cinema doesn’t want to trash the four “old school” 35mm projectors he has. He would prefer to give them away rather than recycle them for metal. They don’t work. They’re big, 4 by 6 feet. But they’d make good conversation pieces.
Parting Shot
Jennifer Drake of Coeur d’Alene has become a one-woman, anti-censorship force after a Tennessee school district banned graphic novel “Maus.” Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winner uses cats and mice to tell his parents’ Holocaust story. Jennifer bought five “Maus” books — one for her family, one for the public and three to give away for re-circulation. “I will continue to do this for every book banned by any school board in the country,” Jennifer said. That could be an expensive vow to keep in this era of hypersensitivity. But noble.
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D.F. “Dave” Oliveria can be contacted at dfo@cdapress.com.
