Kootenai County commissioners reflect on 2022

COEUR d’ALENE — As Kootenai County’s three commissioners reflect on the year that was and look ahead to the future, one won’t return for another term.

Commissioner Leslie Duncan, who was reelected in November, said a signifiant achievement in 2022 was another fiscal year with a balanced budget and higher employee salaries.

“I am most proud of continuing the fight to protect the rights of all citizens in Kootenai County and making sure the county maintains good business practices while being a good steward of tax dollars,” she said.

Commissioners voted unanimously in August and approved a $120 million budget that included an approximate 6% cost of living adjustment wage increase for all county employees. Wage study and cost of living increases total around $8.1 million.

In the spring, the board also approved a $2.06 per hour raise for detention deputies at the county jail, intended to attract more applicants.

“Continuity in government is critical and being able to hire and retain staff, especially at the sheriff’s office, in the current labor market is a huge challenge,” Duncan said.

Commissioner Chris Fillios said the wage increases were “long overdue.”

“We did the best we could with the resources available to us,” he said.

Federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act freed up some county funds to go toward raises, Fillios said.

One of the projects made possible by that money is a $22 million expansion of the Justice Building located on the county’s main campus in Coeur d’Alene. The expansion will add three courtrooms, as well as a secure detention area and office space for the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, district court employees, prosecutors and other county staff.

Though some elected leaders criticized the Justice Building expansion — including Commissioner Bill Brooks and Sheriff Bob Norris, who both advocated for ARPA funds to go toward expanding the jail — Duncan said it’s vital.

The court system is overflowing to the point of looking to temporarily rent space for courtrooms, she said. Adding courtrooms will eliminate the need to spend tax dollars on such rentals and help alleviate Kootenai County’s congested courts.

“Maintaining the ability for a fair and speedy trial benefits all citizens in the county,” Duncan said.

She added that she expects growth and impact fees to remain hot topics in 2023.

Fillios was first elected to the board in 2016 and reelected in 2020. This year, he lost the GOP primary election to Bruce Mattare, who ran unopposed in the general election and did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Reflecting on his six years as a commissioner, Fillios said he’s proud to have “led the charge” in 2019 to toss an opt-out option on the Kootenai County building permit process that a previous iteration of the board had approved.

“I would not advocate for a county of this size doing away with building codes,” he said. “I think it’s a prescription for disaster.”

Brooks joined Fillios in that vote, with Duncan opposed.

“We put to bed, I believe once and for all, the idea of eliminating building codes,” Brooks said.

For Fillios, other recent highlights include the effort to preserve the historic building now called the Music Conservatory of Coeur d’Alene, negotiating the purchase of the old Kootenai Electric Cooperative building to help bring county services further north and passing an excessive boating wake ordinance.

“It was controversial,” Fillios said. “Excessive wake is prohibited by state code, but statute does not define it. We did that without banning a particular activity.”

But more than anything, he said he’s proud to have taken a stand, even when he faced an uphill battle.

“If you’re willing to take a position, you have to be willing to lose,” he said. “I took some positions that may have been unpopular but that I felt were right and were for the benefit of the county.”

One of those positions was that Kootenai County residents ought to vote on whether to increase the size of the Board of County Commissioners from three to five members, as well as switch to the commission manager form of government.

The yearlong struggle over the possible changes ended in April, when the Optional Forms of Government study commission reversed at the last minute its original recommendation in support of the changes.

Commissioners could have put the question on the ballot anyway but ultimately chose not to. At the time, Fillios said he hoped to avoid further dividing the community over what had proved to be a contentious issue.

Now he regrets not giving voters the final say.

“The optional form of government should have been on the ballot,” Fillios said. “I’m very sorry that it wasn’t.”

Brooks agreed. He long advocated for putting the final decision in the hands of voters, whether they supported the change or not.

“It was very sad to see almost 12 months of work sabotaged in the last 24 hours,” Brooks said. “People are still asking me when the vote’s going to be.”

For his part, Brooks said he intends to be a moderate conservative voice on the board for the rest of his term, which ends in 2024.

“I’m going to try very hard to keep far right extremism from taking over the county and passing crazy legislation that the John Birch Society and others would approve of,” he said.

Fillios said his time on the board was marked by something that’s increasingly rare in government, at the local and national levels.

“Compromise,” he said. “For some on the far right, that’s a dirty word. But there wouldn’t have been a Constitution without compromise.”