From the Panhandle

Saving Public Access: the Pend Oreille Bay Trail

For years, panhandle residents have been trespassing on a narrow strip of private land along the northwest shore of Lake Pend Oreille, using an old road along the shoreline to bike, run, ski, walk their dogs, and occasionally take a dip in the lake. Although their trips rarely traverse more than a mile or two, the land they cross has a multitude of owners—including several private citizens, the cities of Sandpoint and Ponderay, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bonner County Historical Society, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad has a right-of-way across it as well.

Nearby is the site of the historic town of Sandpoint, which—along with its related de facto public waterfront-- was lost a few years ago to a high-end development. It may be this loss that has spurred the community on to try to formalize and save their access to the strip along the shore.

From the Panhandle With Cate Huisman

Timber Falls, But Manufacturing Rises in the Panhandle

What stands out from the “first annual” Economic Outlook Forum that was held in Sandpoint Thursday is the extent to which the panhandle continues to grow away from its roots in the timber industry. This process has been going on for decades, but the current recession and concomitant implosion of the real estate market have hastened the transition. While logging and milling employed over 1100 local people in January of 2006, that number had fallen to less than 500 by January of 2009.

For a while, mills laid off workers, cut shifts, or shut down for a few weeks at a time. But in October 2008, JD Lumber permanently closed its mill in Priest River, and Idaho Forest Group ceased production at its mill in Laclede two months later.

From the Panhandle With Cate Huisman

Commissioners Cogitate Over Consumption by Car

The Sandpoint City Council hit a hot button last year when it proposed a temporary restriction on the construction of drive-through fast-food places. Council members wanted some time to consider how this kind of land use fit with the newly minted Comprehensive Plan, and the city had sprouted a drive-through Jack-in-the-Box while the plan was being cogitated over. Shortly thereafter, a corrugated metal farm shed turned up next to Highway 2 that turned out to be a drive-through convenience store.

After the ban was passed, certain members of the community vehemently voiced their disapproval, and one owner of a restaurant that had both drive-through and sit-down options posted a notice on the order counter suggesting that the city planning director go back to where he came from, inspiring some other community members to dine elsewhere.

In Sandpoint, Progressing Toward a Less Cantankerous Council

Sandpoint’s seven city council candidates didn’t exactly duke it out in public debate last Wednesday evening; in fact they revealed that they agree on many big issues, although their approaches to those issues may vary. Most significantly, they all seem eager to implement the city’s new Comprehensive Plan, adopted last year after countless hours of debate among members of the council and the public. The only major issue on which there was a significant division of opinion was the city’s water treatment bond, with some candidates in favor of approving it and others opposed.

So how’s a responsible voter to choose?

Observers of the council over the past several years will recall some contentious and lengthy meetings, with interaction among council members not always entirely copacetic. 

From the Panhandle with Cate Huisman

Lakedance Film Festival Returns to Sandpoint

The fourth annual Lakedance Film Festival moves a little later into the fall this year, enabling it to kick off on Halloween night with four horror films: In addition to the classics “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Night of the Living Dead,” two short films entered in the festival will be included, including “FM,” a locally produced film involving blood-curdling screams interrupting music being played on the radio.

Father-and-son team Fred and Trevor Greenfield started this festival in 2006, with the hope of encouraging a nascent film-making industry in Idaho. In 2008, with the support of local banks, it started a grant program to support filmmakers in north Idaho. From just three north Idaho films in 2006, the festival had grown to include 13 north Idaho films by 2008.

From the Panhandle with Cate Huisman

Hometown Girl Wins One, Almost Wins Another

Sandpoint native daughter Emma Millar gained a new national title and barely missed defending a second one at this past weekend’s Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships at Northstar at Tahoe in Truckee, California.

Emma, a junior at Fort Lewis College, captured the four-cross championship after easily winning all her heats but then falling behind in the final. Four-cross is an event not for the faint of heart in which four riders compete on the same course at the same time. She captured the title by pulling to the inside of a steep, sharp switchback in a move that gave new gray hairs to her proud parents, Karen and Alan Millar, who had traveled from Sandpoint for a weekend of torture by observation.

New North Idaho Blog

From the Idaho Panhandle

This is the debut of a new North Idaho blog: “From the Panhandle.” Writer and editor Cate Huisman of Sandpoint will add a North Idaho point of view to our pages.

The SilverWing Flap
In Sandpoint, Internet-wielding locals have been stirred up recently by a story in the Bonner County Bee about the county commission’s move to buy out the developers of a high-end residential development at the Sandpoint airport. The planned community, SilverWing, envisioned 44 hangar homes in which airplanes could be housed on the ground floor and humans in fairly fancy digs above.

Not surprisingly, given the recent change in status of many of the kinds of folks who can afford this sort of housing and transportation, only one of these 6,100-square-foot structures has thus far been built.

Meanwhile, the plan has run afoul of the Federal Aviation Administration, which cut off funding for the airport for reasons having to do with the development’s effect on airport safety and access.