‘We’ll be in good hands’

When Kerri Thoreson was first sworn in as a member of the Post Falls City Council in 2008, she did so in the old city hall, where buckets caught rainwater that dripped from the leaking roof.

Since then, much has changed in Post Falls. Operations moved to a new city hall. The population doubled, from about 25,000 residents to more than 50,000 today. Through it all, one fixture stayed in place: Thoreson.

Tuesday marked the end of her 16-year tenure on the City Council. She did not seek a fifth term in office.

“In that job, you’re looking forward, not to next week or next month, but five, 10, 20 years out,” Thoreson said Thursday. “You don’t often have an occasion to look back.”

Now that her retirement has officially started, she has time to do just that.

Thoreson and her husband, Bert, settled in Post Falls with their children in 1985, a time when the city had about 4,000 residents and just one stop light at Spokane and Seltice. She’d attended middle school and high school in Coeur d’Alene and longed to return to the area after living in her husband’s home state of North Dakota.

“I need mountains and lakes,” she said.

Though the population has increased significantly over the years, Thoreson said it’s incorrect to characterize the area’s growth as “explosive.” She noted the population of Post Falls has grown steadily and predictably since the early '90s.

“This has been the reality for Post Falls,” she said. “Dealing with infrastructure planning for the future was probably easier for us than it was for a lot of communities because we were riding a wave as opposed to a tsunami that came in 2020.”

Thoreson said she takes no personal pride in the accomplishments made during her tenure because they're all group efforts.

“City councils do not work individually,” she said.

But she does take satisfaction in certain projects, such as the Greensferry overpass, which was completed in 2015. The project had been in limbo for two decades.

“Post Falls had jumped through every hoop that (the Idaho Transportation Department) threw out for us and had no luck getting moved up the line,” she said. “All the projects were in southern Idaho. After 20 years, it was incredibly frustrating.”

The city of Post Falls and the Post Falls Urban Renewal District eventually took it upon themselves to make the overpass a reality, with ITD’s blessing.

“Every time I drive over it, I am just tickled that we did it,” Thoreson said.

In some ways, Thoreson’s retirement signals the end of an era.

“I feel like there’s this whole group of Post Falls folks who have retired out of the public-facing positions,” said Post Falls City Administrator Shelly Enderud. “Now we have new people stepping into those positions and those roles are changing.”

Thoreson said she’s glad to see that happening.

“We have to give others a seat at the table and you can’t complain that no one is stepping up if you never step aside,” she said.

Thoreson spoke with excitement about the two newest faces on the Post Falls City Council, Samantha Steigleder and Randy Westlund, who are both in their 30s.

“We’ll be in good hands,” she said. “It doesn’t always have to be the seasoned crowd."

She said she hopes to see more younger people in their 30s and 40s step into the ring.

“I think serving on a city council is probably one of the purest forms of elected office there is because you’re accountable in ways that people who are more distant from the people they serve are not,” she said. “Wherever you are, people are going to let you know if they agree or don’t agree with your stand on something. I always appreciated the accountability. I also knew I had valid reasons for voting for or against something.”

Thoreson said she plans to stay involved with the community that has been her home for nearly 40 years. There’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

“Post Falls, to me, always felt very family-oriented. You don’t always get along with your family,” she said with a laugh. “But I saw people rolling up their sleeves to do whatever it took. It was that sense of community that was very tangible. I feel like it still exists.”