Referendum deserves community's support

As a longtime business manager in downtown Sandpoint, I have a vested interest in the outcome of the building heights referendum before the city council.

For nearly 25 years, I have watched businesses come and go in the downtown area, and have seen firsthand the positive impact of an anchor tenant like Panhandle State Bank. I have seen their community involvement make a real difference — directly and indirectly — to everyone who lives and works here. I have watched their generosity benefit individuals with very real needs and appreciated their uncommon humility as they've gone about their business.

For everyone who visits and uses the downtown area, Sandpoint has the irreplaceable intimacy of a gathering place — a hub where people connect on all sorts of levels. There's an easy kind of bustle that's relaxing in ways only a few small towns can claim.

Aside from all the ways in which we interact as business people, utilizing each other's product, services and resources, we are all part of the downtown "community" — a unique family with the common goal of being there fore the people of Sandpoint and Bonner County.

Many of us know PSB employees as friends and neighbors. Many more of us depend on the easy accessibility of the bank's financial services. The loss of this organization would be one we would remember often.

As business people of Sandpoint, we share this city's aspirations every day of the week. And I simply cannot imagine Sandpoint thriving without the underpinnings and economic grounding of Panhandle State Bank.

I urge you to vote "yes" for the building heights referendum.

DEBRA MEAUX

Sandpoint