Public Lake Access Is A Vital Interest

Coeur d’Alene and its army of volunteers have found ways over the years to build projects that have added to the Lake City’s quality of life. Fort Sherman Playground is only the latest example of the town’s mountain moving. During five days in May, 998 volunteers converged on City Park to pound nails and saw planks. The result was spectacular.

The same can be said for the relatively new band shell in City Park. The Lake City Senior Center. North Idaho Cancer Center. Ramsey Park. Phippeny Park. In the last decade, Coeur d’Alene’s residents and corporations have contributed millions of dollars worth of money, material and muscle to make things happen.

But, for some reason, the City Council and other civic leaders have been indifferent to one of the community’s greatest natural assets: Sanders Beach. No elected leader has had the conviction or foresight to say Sanders Beach needs to be preserved as public access for posterity. None has had the guts to contest East Lakeshore Drive residents’ claim to the beach, which extends east from Tubbs Hill to The Coeur d’Alene Resort golf course.

Instead, Mayor Al Hassell and the City Council have all but conceded landowner claims and assumed residents wouldn’t pay a steep price to buy the beach.

But public access to Lake Coeur d’Alene is too limited and too precious to relinquish on an assumption. City officials should find out how residents feel about Sanders Beach by polling them on November’s municipal ballot.

Coeur d’Alene no longer can sit back with fingers crossed, hoping East Lakeshore Drive owners won’t back up their claim to the beach with houses, fences and no-trespassing signs. Coeur d’Alene restaurant owner Joe Chapman is pressing hard to build a single-level, two-bedroom house on the beach. He had wanted to construct condominiums out into the water, but the city’s shoreline ordinance blocked him.

Privately, city officials say there’s little they can do to stop Chapman. They’re just passing the buck. If the city had the will, it would make Sanders Beach preservation a top priority. It would negotiate with landowners for a perpetual easement or outright sale. It would ask the courts to decide, finally, who owns the beach. If all else fails, it would study possible condemnation actions.

Coeur d’Alene has repeatedly proven the old saying true: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It should now find the will to save Sanders Beach.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board