Candidate forum: Part II

COEUR d'ALENE — Eleven hopefuls for mayoral races and seats on local city councils and area school boards participated in an online town hall forum Tuesday evening.

The virtual town hall was coordinated and presented by the joint public policy committee of the Coeur d’Alene Regional, Post Falls, Hayden and Rathdrum chambers in conjunction with the Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls Press.

The event was moderated by Coeur d’Alene Tribe Legislative Director Tyrel Stevenson and Beacon Clinic CEO Helo Hancock.

Participants answered questions about preserving the quality of life in their respective communities, the most important issues their school districts are facing, roles of trustees, budgetary goals and more.

View the entire town hall on cdapress.com under “Meet the Candidates.”

POST FALLS SCHOOL BOARD

Paul Wagner is running unopposed to serve as Zone 2 trustee of the Post Falls School Board. Wagner was born and raised in Cincinnati and has lived in North Idaho since 1980. He and his wife were active parents in the educational pursuits of their children when they were students in the district.

He said the biggest problem he sees in Post Falls is the population increase. While the student population increase isn’t what people expected at this time, he said eventually it’s going to catch up. Making plans for new schools is what it comes down to, he said, as well as making sure Post Falls has the property for it, which will entail a bond election to construct new buildings.

“I think looking out for the future and keeping up with the capital buildings that we’re going to need in the future is my biggest concern,” he said, adding that he will advocate for the Post Falls School District and the patrons who will vote in the future.

Regarding a trustee’s role when selecting curriculum, Wagner said trustees’ jobs are to hire a superintendent, set policy and set budget.

“Getting the right people to do the job, hiring the right people and then letting them do their job, I think, is what it comes down to,” he said.

LAKELAND SCHOOL BOARD

Cherish Hansen is vying with incumbent Ramona Grissom to represent Zone 2 on the Lakeland Joint School District board of trustees. Grissom did not participate in the forum.

Hansen has lived in Athol since 1997. Her four children went to Athol Elementary and Timberlake junior and senior high schools. She said she is running for this seat because she wants to build a positive rapport between students, families, educators and trustees to work through concerns the district has experienced the past couple years.

Trust is the No. 1 issue facing Lakeland and its families, she said.

“There’s a lot of concern for families and scary things they hear about,” she said. “They hear about (critical race theory) being taught in the schools, even though I firmly believe it is not. It’s illegal to teach that in Idaho. I don’t think it’s ever been taught in Idaho officially. Bill 377 was passed a couple years ago, and schools cannot teach CRT.”

When families raise concerns about things that might go against their family values, Hansen said she hopes to build communication so parents feel heard and educators are aware of their concerns.

COEUR d’ALENE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Incumbent Heather Tenbrink is being challenged by Matt Blatt to represent Zone 3 in the Coeur d’Alene School District. Mike Stavish, James “Jimmy” McAndrew and Yasmin Harris are competing to represent Zone 2.

Tenbrink, who works as a tax accountant, has had children in the district for the past 15 years and has lived in Coeur d’Alene for 19 years. She has been an active volunteer in her kids’ classrooms since they started school.

She said when it comes to setting a budget, student achievement needs to be the priority. The school board now has a budget subcommittee, which parents and community members are invited to be a part of, she said. The goal is to make the district’s budget easier to understand, which is important since the district relies on a supplemental levy.

“We need our community to understand where the money is going and to be accountable to them for what that money’s being spent on,” she said.

Blatt is a retired Army lieutenant colonel after more than 20 years of active service and moved to Coeur d’Alene to be closer to family. He said he is running to ensure better leadership and public engagement.

“Our schools are the poorest funded in the nation, but somehow, magically, the charter schools here, even though they get less money per student, are able to turn a profit,” Blatt said. “That suggests to me there is significant irresponsible behavior or management and disregard for taxpayer funds.”

Stavish is a small business owner who has been in North Idaho since 1994. He has three kids currently in public school. He said curriculum should not conflict with community values and he views social-emotional learning as “hippy dippy.” He said competitive salaries are important for teachers, who he described as the “ground troops of this army” and who should be comfortable doing the difficult work with which they are tasked.

“Some of them are dealing with, well, obnoxious little kids,” he said. “And we’re very thankful that we have them, they can be very troublesome at their young ages, and these teachers really are heroes in that regard that they’re willing to step up and do this.”

While he recognizes teacher pay is “a little on the low side,” he said he wants to consider budget cuts.

“I feel like we overspend on some stuff,” he said. “Some of it is kind of ethereal, I don’t really understand what these line items mean and people don’t really answer the questions clearly when you ask, and I don’t want to do anything crazy, I want to do what they call ‘dime stacking,’ just a percent or two a year, but over 10, 15 years, that could save a ton of money.”

Harris has two boys in the district, is the wife of a retired U.S. Marine and is the director of ministry development at Pathway Church. She said she has a background in finance and commercial property management. She said she is running because she has a vested interest in protecting children and the future generation of Coeur d’Alene. She said she thinks the district is “top heavy.”

“It is important that we are pouring as much funds as we can to our teachers. Ultimately they are the ones who are pouring into our children,” she said. “I also think that we need to do a better job in managing the money. I don’t think that there is communication happening between the district and the community, which in turn has caused a distrust, which is why we’ve seen such contention when it comes to these levies.”

McAndrew is a lifelong North Idaho resident with two kids in the Coeur d’Alene School District. He is a co-founder of the nonprofit Coeur Group, which serves underprivileged children.

“There are concerted efforts out there to see the Coeur d’Alene School District move forward without that $25 million in levy funding,” he said.

He said a lot of people here now were not in North Idaho in the late 2000s when the state was stripped of $240 million in education funding that levy funding must now make up for.

“We need to look back at what we’ve done; we’ve put that into local control, but it’s putting a lot of pressure on especially rural districts around the state,” he said.

“I think it’s time that we start getting a little bit proud of the fact that we operate on a lean budget already and we do so much with what we have,” he said. “For a living, I look at W2s and pay stubs. Nobody’s getting rich off the Coeur d’Alene School District.”

RATHDRUM MAYORAL RACE

Mike Hill and John Lamb are competing for the office of Rathdrum mayor.

Hill was born and raised in North Idaho, has lived in Kootenai County for 17 years and in Rathdrum since 2017. He is an Army veteran.

Preserving the Rathdrum Prairie, prioritizing infrastructure that has been overwhelmed by growth and listening to constituents are the No. 1 issues, Hill said.

“There have been so many developments that have gone through, despite the public’s outcry about what it is that they would like to preserve for the small-town feel of what Rathdrum is, the character of what Rathdrum is,” he said. “I think that it’s important to listen to the community and to act as a representative of the citizens that elect the candidates into these positions.”

Lamb is a 36-year active duty veteran who has lived in Rathdrum for three years and in the region for almost 10 years. He serves on the Rathdrum Planning and Zoning Commission and since May of 2021 has been the president of the Radiant Lake Homeowners Association.

He said traffic is the No. 1 complaint he receives from community members, as well as growth.

“The city’s actually grown at a 3.73% rate over the last eight years, so it’s growing, but what’s not growing is our business community,” Lamb said. “We need to be more business-friendly so we can encourage more business to come into our community to support our members and our owners and our citizens here so they don’t have to drive so far to go out and seek services.”

HAYDEN MAYORAL RACE

Alan Davis and Luke Sommer are vying to be Hayden’s next mayor.

Davis served in the Navy for 27 years. He and his family have lived in Hayden for about 12 years, during which time he has also served as a soccer coach. He is the chair of the city’s planning and zoning commission.

“Of course growth and density are important. They’ve ranked as the No. 1 thing in citizen surveys for years,” Davis said. “In response to that, our city has significantly slowed down development. All we have to do is look across the prairie to see all the development going on and it’s not happening at the same pace in Hayden.”

He said affordable housing has become a myth in Hayden.

“Our kids can’t afford to live here unless they’re living at home,” he said, adding that because Hayden is not affordable, it is impacting traffic of people coming and going, which causes problems and costs tax dollars.

“I’ll tell you what Hayden doesn’t need is big promises that a candidate can slow growth or control growth,” he said. “If that’s the case, they have a poor grasp of their influence.”

He said if elected, he will invite the public to a meeting of developers and Hayden City Council members to work on responsible growth solutions.

“City staff has provided us solutions that we have yet to realize,” Davis said. “An example of that is cottage housing, where we put up four smaller houses in a common courtyard. There’s greenspace, it’s beautiful, it can happen.”

Sommer is married and has five grown children. He moved to Kootenai County in 2002 and to Hayden in 2013. He said observing Hayden City Council since last December motivated him to run for the office. He said Hayden’s top issue is growth.

“The growth that we’ve experienced here is partly a result of what they’ve done with the comprehensive plan, the future land use map and all the plans that the city has come up with,” Sommer said. “I would seek to revise that and revisit the issue and having been trained as a parliamentarian, having studied the law a bit, I think I’m well equipped to do that.”

He said quality of life boils down to revising the comprehensive plan.

“We need to reset it so that we achieve slower growth and achieve less density, and as a result of that we’ll have improved traffic and the ability of people to move around more safely and have their own homes,” he said.