In 26 years, how far we have come

Reading your Jan. 14 headline “P&Z Commission to be Dissolved,” my thoughts went immediately to Jan 15, 1997. It was an unforgettable SRO meeting at the Community Hall. The headline the following day read: “Mueller, Allen Lower the Boom!”

Excerpts from the Jan. 16, 1997, Daily Bee:

The banner above the entry at the courthouse reads: “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, Public Welcome” but only three comments were allowed Wednesday before shutting down the building and safety department and firing its eight employees, a mere two days after taking office Monday.

In their first official meeting as commissioners, Republicans Bud Mueller and Larry Allen also cancelled business inspection contracts, gutted the planning and zoning commission and planned to bring people of their own choosing to oversee county departments.

All attempts to comment by carryover commission Dale Van Stone were ignored.

Allen proposed a plan to remove zoning responsibilities from the P&Z commission and put responsibility for conditional use permits, variance requests, preliminary plats and zoning changes into the hands of a hearing examiner or the commissioners themselves.

Under the new regime, the planning commission will be charged only with completing the county’s comprehensive plan.

After stating that their moves were part of their plans to downsize government, the pair voted to add a “staff director” into the county bureaucracy to oversee implementation of their edicts.

Seven days later the commissioners met with an engineering firm to facilitate the completion of 8,750 pending building applications.

Twenty-six years later, how far we have come!

HELEN NEWTON

Sandpoint