Special session, virus dominate August 2020

From a special session prompted by the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic to a theft of museum exhibit items, there was no shortage of news in Bonner County in August 2020.

Here are a few of the stories that made the headlines:

The East Bonner County Library District announced it was refining its requirements for wearing masks inside its facilities and reverting to curbside service for the time being in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“It was too loose. They’re going to look at the policy to tighten it up,” EBCLD Director Ann Nichols said in an Aug. 1 story.

The mask policy came under fire in late July from a group of Bonner County residents who contend the mask requirement disenfranchised them. Library officials in Sandpoint barred a group from trying to enter the library without wearing facial coverings in keeping with a board of trustees’ policy meant to limit the spread of the virus.

The Sandpoint City Council approved a roughly $1.7 million Basin Improvement Project at a mid-July meeting, with the project detailed in an Aug. 1 story. The project is designed to aggressively reduce inflow and infiltration moving into Sandpoint’s sanitation sewer collection systems.

This project is a part of the 2018 Wastewater Treatment Plant Facility Plan, a two-phase approach that aims to identify and resolve sewer system issues and construct a new wastewater

treatment plant for Sandpoint.

Red, white and blue flags, bandanas and street signs decorated both ends of North First Avenue sidewalks on the first, according to an Aug. 2 story.

Over 200 people stood in blistering heat to show support for Bonner County’s law enforcement at the “Back The Bonner Blue” rally.

“I think it’s fantastic that a group came out to support law enforcement,” Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler said, who was one of the many law enforcement officers to attend the event. “We have a huge group of supporters and also a group of law enforcement here in the county, so I am not surprised.”

On Aug. 4, a story reported that Idaho had some of the slowest internet connectivity in the country, according to the consumer ratings website Highspeedinternet.com.

Also on the fourth, North Idaho College advised students that college life would be different when the fall semester began Aug. 24.

Among the changes, students were advised they expect to see smaller lab sessions, several options for blended and remote instruction, and a firm face mask policy. NIC told students mask masks or face coverings had to be worn indoors and six feet of physical distancing must be maintained in all college facilities — including NIC at Sandpoint — when two or more people are present. Outside,

masks must be worn whenever six feet of physical distancing could be maintained.

Pend Oreille Arts Council announced on Aug. 4 that the 48th annual Arts & Crafts Fair would go on as planned, with safety measures in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Sandpoint youth died in a Aug. 4 drowning accident near Popsicle Bridge at the north end of Sandpoint. Emergency crews responded to the scene after family members advised the youth could not be found. The 7-year-old was located a few hours later but life-saving measures proved unsuccessful.

Priest River city clerk Laurel Thomas was honored by city officials after she celebrated 15 years with city staff in August, according to an Aug. 5 story.

On the sixth, Gov. Brad Little announced a special session of the Idaho Legislature would be held to hash out how the state will navigate challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement Wednesday, Little announced he will call the session to order the week of

Aug. 24 to discuss pandemic-related issues. Little and his team have been in negotiations with legislative leadership over an outline of what issues will be addressed, an outline his office will announce in the next two weeks.

The Angels Over Sandpoint announced on the sixth that its 18th annual Back to School Program will take place on the first day of school, where students and parents can pick up their must-have school essentials from each participating school.

However, due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols, the group said its Distribution Day would not take place. Instead, school supplies would be shipped directly to the schools.

Angels Over Sandpoint’s backpack giveaway program serves around 1,100 students each year.

Reclaim Idaho announced Aug. 6 that due to the global pandemic it was ending its Invest in Idaho push to improve K-12 funding in the state. A U.S. Supreme Court decision last week to block the grassroots group from collecting electronic signatures.

Bonner County Planning & Zoning said on the eighth that it would hold a hearing later in the month on a land use code change which would allow asphalt batch plants and surface mining operations to be approved administratively and without public hearings in some zones.

A Bonner County Sheriff’s Marine Patrol deputy was on hand in California to honor a family who courageously rescued six people during a fatal boating accident on Lake Pend Oreille on June 24, according to a story in the Bee on the ninth.

Deputy Leroy Bloxom traveled to Concord, California, on Aug. 2 to recognize the efforts of the O’Hara family, who witnessed a boat capsize near Glengary Bay during a sudden storm and rescued the passengers of the stricken vessel despite heavy rains, strong wind gusts and swells of over 3 feet.

Kelly and Liz O’Hara contacted Bonner Dispatch and brought six people onto their boat while marine patrol deputies were en route.

The O’Haras — which included their 15-year-old son Shane and 11-year-old son Max — also assisted a seventh person in the water while deputies Bloxom and Kelly rescued two others. One woman drowned in the incident.

An Aug. 9 story noted that Spirit Lake’s moratorium on building permits and sewer hookups is over, for now.

In response to Spirit Lake’s rising sewage problem, the city had crafted a wastewater pond as a land-based wastewater facility, allowing it to treat effluent from 200 households However, a $1.8 million wastewater revenue bond was approved, allowing the city to lift the moratorium.

University of Idaho intern Kent Youngdahl, who is studying sustainable food systems, used an opportunity to conduct hands-on research to create a huge garden using methods that improve soil conditions to help the Bonner Community Food Bank. The result was a lot of fresh produce for those in need in the community, according to an Aug. 9 story.

A story on the eleventh reported three people were killed and two children were injured Aug. 9 after the vehicle they were in crashed into the Lower Pack River. Two unidentified juveniles were taken to Bonner General Health.

The Justice Department issued an advisory on Aug 10 saying that cards and flyers were circulating that falsely claim to exempt people from wearing face masks.

However, officials noted that the current North Idaho mask mandate does not require masks for those with a medical condition, nor does it require documentation of such a condition.

County clerks throughout Idaho called in mid-August for new legislation to help ease the havoc the novel coronavirus pandemic was having on election offices across the state.

“America has seen times of civil and world war, economic turbulence and pandemic,” said a letter signed by 43 of the state’s 44 county clerks. County clerks in Idaho oversee all of the state’s elections offices. “Through these difficult and disruptive times, elections have always been preserved. Today we face very real difficulties conducting elections in the midst of this global pandemic.”

After many weeks of drafting guidelines for Lake Pend Oreille School District, the board of trustees unanimously approved a COVID-19 protocol and reentry plan on Aug. 11.

The district said it would begin the 2020-2021 school year on Sept. 8 with a blended learning model, the yellow level, according to Panhandle Health District recommendations and the Idaho State Board of Education framework published in July.

On the thirteenth, a story detailed the journey of Mel Dick, 67, who decided to ride over 5,000 miles across the U.S. Dick, the immediate past president of the Sandpoint Rotary Club, departed North Idaho on Aug. 1 with his sights set on Key West, Florida. He hoped to arrive in Key West around Oct. 15. Dick had ridden over 800 miles so far.

Women Honoring Women honored its five recipients on Aug. 13, celebrating the achievements of Debra Heise, Carol Warren, Judy Dabrowski, Diane Green and Nancy Lewis. In canceling an in-person event, the group encouraged the community to congratulate the quintet if they saw them around.

An Aug. 14 story reported that a hearing was set on the city of Sandpoint’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by Bonner County over a prohibition of firearms during the Festival at Sandpoint. First District Judge Lansing Haynes was scheduled to conduct the hearing via videoconferencing later in the month.

Bonner County Fairgrounds Director Darcey Smith said in mid-August that the fair would go on, with plenty of hand-washing stations, hand sanitizer and open door policy for front and back entrances to increase air flow to meet COVID-19 protocols.

as reached an all-time high.

A receipt and a few calendars from an old, long-gone laundry, an old ad encased in plexiglass and a USB drive filled with historic logging and forestry photos were stolen from the Bonner County History Museum, the Bee reported on Aug. 15.

“It’s a part of our history that somebody stole and that’s really sad,” museum board president Ruth Wimberly said.

More than a third of Dianna Schuppel and Eric Odin’s 1998 hand-painted mural had crumbled into bits and pieces of paint and cement by the time Douglas Jones was recruited. A story on the sixteenth told how Jones was restoring the 22-year-old wall mural located on 220 Cedar St. Building.

Protesters converged on the Bonner County Courthouse on Aug. 17 to oppose what they consider to be a lenient sentence imposed on a local man who was charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of child via possession of child pornography.

Andrew Joseph Brown was given a suspended two- to seven year prison term and ordered to

serve 160 days in jail on July 21, according to a story in the Bee on Aug. 17. First District Judge Barbara Buchanan further ordered Brown, 38, to participate in sexual offender treatment and faces an additional 30 days of discretionary jail time, court records show.

In mid-August, the Idaho Court of Appeals affirmed a denial for post-conviction relief for Joe Frederick Ransom, 54, of Blanchard man who convicted of kidnapping and raping his semi-estranged girlfriend at remote cabin near Spirit Lake in 2016.

Bonner County commissioners agreed in mid-August to chip in another $100,000 to help pay for improvements to the Outlet Bay Dam, install an impervious breakwater at the Thorofare and conduct dredging, according to Road & Bridge Director Steve Klatt.

“The bids came in at an acceptable rate, but when all of the costs of the Priest Lake Thorofare and the dam project were put together, they truly busted the budget when you added in design, engineering, construction costs and construction management costs,” Klatt said.

On Aug. 19, Sandpoint City Council rejected a mask mandate in the city. The mandate, proposed by Councilwoman Deb Ruehle, was defeated on a 4-2 vote after an extended discussion.

Voting against the measure were councilmen Andy Groat, John Darling, Joel Aispuro and Councilwoman Shannon Williamson. Ruehle and Councilwoman Kate McAlister voted in favor of the mandate.

The proposal sparked 883 emails to the city, with half supporting the measure and half opposing it, according to city officials.

Gov. Brad Little released a much-anticipated proclamation on the nineteenth calling for a special session of the Idaho Legislature, including language for three bills.

While two topics remain up for debate in the special session — election measures and civil

liability in the COVID-19 era — a third topic urged by House and Senate committees was left off the table: Education.

The Outlet Bay Owners Association sued Bonner County and the Idaho Department of Lands to

end the struggle over its boat launch ramp, according to an Aug. 21 story on the 1st District Court case.

Outlet Beach was platted in 1936 and it dedicated River Drive to public use, but never conveyed the route to Bonner County. The launch was built in 1961 at the end of River Drive and the public was charged for the ramp’s use. A cable was stretched across the ramp in 1990 and a gate was installed eight years later, according to court documents.

Bonner County attempted to obtain a submerged lands lease for the ramp, even though it didn’t build or own the facility, nor did it own the littoral rights to the ramp. The state rejected the application and a suit was filed in 2002 which required the association to remove signs indicating that the ramp was private, court records indicate.

The association entered into a new submerged lands lease in 2019, which included the ramp.

While Gov. Brad Little praised the efforts of Idahoans in turning around at-the-time shrinking coronavirus metrics, he declared the state will remain in Stage 4 of his Idaho Rebounds plan, according to an Aug. 21 story.

An online GoFundMe benefit was launched after Ponderay Police Sgt. Mike Victorino was injured in a motorcycle crash on Aug. 15.

Idaho State Police said Victorino was riding a Harley-Davidson eastbound on U.S. Highway 12 just east of Lewiston when he lost control and was thrown from the motorcycle.

In North Idaho militias said they were standing their ground and developing counter-strategies after the social media icon Facebook began a campaign to remove pages its officials believe promote violence, according to an Aug. 23 story.

Since Aug. 19, Facebook removed almost 1,600 groups, pages and ads belonging to militias and violent leftists the platform says meet this criteria.

Pages removed so far include the groups Real Three Percenters of Idaho, the Kootenai County Light Foot Militia and the Oath Keepers of Kootenai County, as well as militias in Bonner and Boundary counties.

A Bonner County man has been arrested for allegedly bludgeoning and strangling a woman to death and forcing another man at gunpoint to help him dispose of her remains.

Bradley Michael Leader was charged with second-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to a story on Aug. 25. Leader, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, is accused of murdering Eveline Ursula Pederson on Monday, Aug. 17.

An Aug. 25th story notes the special session of the Idaho Legislature got off to a rocky start after protesters forced their way into the state capitol in Boise.

The protesters, including activist Ammon Bundy, held signs that condemned civil immunity legislation, decried the government as tyrannical and urged Americans to “drain the swamp.”

Several protesters also made their way into conference rooms where lawmakers were conducting meetings. After a silent standoff, one protester declared, “You work for us,” which spawned joyous applause from the crowd.

Protesters were later allowed in by House Speaker Scott Bedke, who gave stern instructions to to behave.

The city of Sandpoint disputed Bonner County’s standing on Aug. 25 as a litigant in the county's lawsuit challenging a firearms prohibition during the Festival at Sandpoint. Sandpoint officials also argued the matter is moot because of the novel coronavirus pandemic sidelined this year’s iteration of the waterfront concert series.

Also on the 26th, another story noted that seating capacity at War Memorial Field at an upcoming football game would be limited to 450 people in the Barlow Stadium grandstands and 200 people in the visitors bleachers.

On the 27th, a story reported that Aa hearing on Bonner County’s proposed overhaul of its mining ordinance was canceled. Bonner County Planning & Zoning Commission had been scheduled to take up the matter today. Bonner County Commission Chairman Dan McDonald said the proceeding was canceled so P&Z could conduct further work on the ordinance.

Bonner County commissioners approved an alignment on Aug. 26 for a bridge replacement project on Rapid Lightning Creek. The preferred alignment involves building the new bridge in halves and using a traffic signal to regulate the one-way flow of traffic.

A Bonners Ferry chiropractor was arrested Aug. 27 and charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of fellow chiropractor Dr. Brian Drake, 45, in late March. ISP officials said detectives worked closely with both Boundary and Kootenai County prosecutor's offices and uncovered "compelling evidence" as well as a potential motive in the case.