Sandoint armory plan regains traction

Idaho National Guard putting off a project to pursue this one

SANDPOINT - A plan to develop an Idaho National Guard armory in Sandpoint is back on track.

“The National Guard is still coming. It's back on,” Bonner County Commissioner Joe Young announced at Tuesday's board meeting.

Development of the Sandpoint Readiness Center near the fairgrounds and sheriff's office hit a snag earlier this winter when Idaho lawmakers declined to put up $300,000 to get the project off the ground.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Appropriations Committee passed on the budget request because plans are in place to fund it through federal dollars in the next four or five years.

However, the federal funding is contingent upon a state/local match to help pay for the project, a point which Young said was either not made clear or not understood by legislative budget writers when the proposal was considered.

“What we need to do at the local level and the state level is we need to partnership and put together a matched project,” Young said after the commission meeting.

But the state match is no longer dimmed out. Young said he received word from Brig. Gen. Alan Gayhart, deputy commanding general of the Idaho Army National Guard, that they are deferring a helicopter-related infrastructure project for a year and putting up the $300,000 to fence the site, install utilities and place temporary buildings there.

The county, for its part, is putting up the land to site the 33,000 square-foot facility on. The armory would serve a 55-solider water treatment and transportation detachment.

Space in the $5.2 million permanent building would be mostly devoted to guard uses, although the balance of the space would be utilized by the county. The sheriff's office is eyeing the available space for its needs, said Young, who expects the temporary facilities to be in place this coming fall.