Boating season calm, police say

Kootenai County sheriff’s Deputy Bob Bjelland has seen it all out on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Including the boater ticketed for going 113 mph – 63 mph over the daytime speed limit.

“He said, ‘Good thing you didn’t see me when I was going 180,’ ” Bjelland recalls.

Alcohol consumption leads to many calls. Last year there were 49 operating-under-the-influence arrests, and there have been about 20 so far this year, said Sgt. Matt Street, head of the recreational safety unit of the Sheriff’s Department, which patrols Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“Forty-nine (arrests) sounds like a lot, but we have 40,000 registered boats in Kootenai County so it’s really a pretty small percent,” Bjelland said.

This boating season has been pretty slow from an enforcement perspective. Street believes the cost of fuel – about $4.49 a gallon on the lake – and slow-arriving summer weather are likely contributors.

Most of this season’s citations come from minor offenses like no-wake-zone violations, no flotation device on board or lack of registration, Bjelland said as he directed the bright blue patrol boat through the choppy lake water.

While most arrests stem from OUIs, boaters also can be arrested for negligent operation of a vessel, including such infractions as excessive speed, reckless operation in high-traffic areas, bow riding or operating a boat in a swim zone.

For the most part, Bjelland said, the deputies get as much respect from a warning as they do through a citation.

Fuel costs drain police budgets

An unfilled position is helping Rathdrum police keep the cost of filling up from draining the department’s budget.

So far.

Despite using money from the $30,000 position to gas up patrol cars, Police Chief Kevin Fuhr expects the department’s gas budget to be about $12,000 in the red by the end of the year.

To save gas, Fuhr is asking officers to shut off cars for 10 minutes each hour. He expects officers will use about 18 percent less fuel if they don’t leave engines idling.

“We’re going to try this step before we try anything else,” he said.

Throughout the region, law enforcement agencies are running on fumes with gas costs exceeding budgets set months earlier.

“It’s one of those things you can’t really plan for,” Kootenai County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. By the end of September, the Sheriff’s Department will be about $80,000 over its gas budget, he said.

Deputies are riding two to a car in some cases, he said, and those assigned to patrol small towns like Hayden and Harrison are being asked to park and walk when possible.

The Post Falls Police Department budgeted $60,000 for gas this fiscal year and spent it all in the first eight months, Capt. Scot Haug said.

Like other departments, Post Falls is trying to cut back on the amount of time patrol cars are left idling.

Coeur d’Alene police already have burned up about 80 percent of the department’s $88,000 fuel and lube budget with less than two months to the end of the budget year, Sgt. Christie Wood said.

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is beginning meetings with the County Commissioners Office to look at ways to save on fuel costs. The Sheriff’s Office is on track to go about $12,000 over budget, according to Undersheriff Jeff Tower.

The city of Spokane Valley anticipates gas costs will exceed budget by about $18,000, Tower said.

Concerns about plan aired

Spokane Valley residents told city officials last week there’s much about the proposed Sprague-Appleway Revitalization Plan they don’t like.

More than 100 people attended the City Council’s first formal public hearing on the wide-ranging plan, a two-hour session at the CenterPlace Great Hall.

Most of those who spoke offered criticism.

As in earlier Planning Commission hearings, there was strong opposition to the plan’s call for restoring two-way traffic on Sprague Avenue’s one-way couplet with Appleway Boulevard.

Even though there wasn’t enough time to get to the section dealing with transportation issues, residents sounded a warning not to go the wrong way on the commuter-friendly Sprague-Appleway couplet.

The council continued the hearing to an undetermined date for a session devoted to transportation issues.

“From every single meeting that we’ve attended, it seems to me that the vast majority of citizens have made it very clear that transportation was the overriding factor,” David Gnotta said.

“We just don’t see the logic of spending millions of dollars undoing work that’s already done and seems to be working for the purposes that the citizens envisioned,” he said. “It does make me wonder where your priorities lie. … Is it just a case of ‘We know better?’ ”

Ron Roberts, who said he otherwise “could endorse this plan wholly,” noted that talk of undoing the couplet is “the most regressive thing” he’s seen the 40 years he’s lived in the Valley.

Roberts said he supported Spokane Valley’s incorporation, “but now I’m having my doubts.”

Opportunity Shopping Center owner Carlos Landa said the city “can kiss retail goodbye on Sprague Avenue” if two-way traffic isn’t restored in the couplet.

But an Appleway Boulevard property owner objected that his investment in a plan to capitalize on the one-way traffic will be wiped out by a return to two-way traffic on Sprague. He hopes to snag auto dealer customers on their way home.