City Council prayer stays

Thou shalt continue to pray in Coeur d’Alene City Council meetings.

Coeur d’Alene city officials Tuesday decided to continue using a lottery system to select religious leaders to usher in public forums with a short prayer.

Called an invocation, Coeur d’Alene has practiced this since at least June 1970. The practice was exclusive to Christian pastors selected by the Kootenai County Ministerial Association.

“It is a long-standing tradition here in the city of Coeur d’Alene,” City Clerk Renata McLeod said. 

Until 2022, Pastor Paul Van Noy of the Kootenai County Ministerial Association, a Christian organization, handled the process of selecting who would give the invocation.

“Invocations are offered each day in the United States Congress,” Van Noy said during public comment Tuesday.

That process changed when the city switched to a lottery system, giving any local nonprofit, faith-based organization a chance to offer opening prayers at city council, which officially meets twice a month.

Councilmember Christie Wood said the city has been very fair in not taking a position on any given religion.

“I think that staff’s been doing a good job, that the way it’s been working, we’ve had a variety of pastors and religious organizations come before us and it’s been pretty refreshing,” she said. “I love hearing from all the different churches in town and giving everybody an opportunity, and those with personal differences in their religion, they have the ability to say their own prayers to themselves.”

Meanwhile, the city also expanded its invocation reach to allow for organizations beyond city limits in Kootenai County to lead the prayers.

As to why Tuesday’s vote came to be, City Clerk Renata McLeod said the city currently looks to renew its lottery system; however, the system has led to fewer and fewer people registering to do the invocation.

So, the city essentially voted Tuesday whether to replace its current invocation prayer with a moment of silence and get rid of it altogether.

A motion to keep the current lottery system in place passed 4-1. Councilmember Dan Sheckler, who voted against it, supported returning to the invocation process scheduled through the Kootenai County Ministerial Association. Meanwhile, Councilmember Dan English did not attend Tuesday's council meeting.

“I think we should go to having the ministry association lead the invocation and select a person. I think that’s important to the churches in this community,” Sheckler said, adding, “I think there are a few times we struggled to get an invocation pulled together here before our council meetings."