Downtown's isolation will be its death knell

It is with great dismay that I see the impending isolation and therefore future ruin of Sandpoint’s downtown proceeding full-speed ahead via the ongoing efforts to divert highway traffic from passing through downtown.

Casual visitors and tourists who are charmed by the rare vibrancy of a viable downtown and quite possibly inspired to stop and enjoy the amenities will never even get a glimpse of what downtown offers.

As someone who has lived in towns that have made this very same fatal error, once the downtown is bypassed, out of sight and out of mind, it will die. Forever.

Perhaps is time to reevaluate what you want the future to hold for this remaining small town stronghold of diversity and individuality and follow the money to see who benefits from its decline.

Sandpoint’s value doesn’t lie in its fast food joints and box stores of the future. Destroy what makes Sandpoint unique and then it is just another forgotten and neglected downtown, doomed to irrelevance.

Take a look at Priest River’s downtown as the highway bypasses it, and see how well it is doing. That is the future of Sandpoint. Goodbye artist colony, goodbye fabulous food, goodbye cultural events.

Think again before it is too late. The view of Sandpoint with a roundabout at Dub’s is extraordinarily uninspiring. Don’t expect tourists to make Sandpoint a destination when the local businesses are struggling, then degraded, then gone.

“Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back!”

KATHRYN GALBREATH

Priest River