Who is keeping an eye on Dover?

If there is a pot of money with a designated purpose and elected government officials think they have unbridled access to it, someone is going to be taken advantage of. The big pot here is the cash in the Dover Urban Renewal Agency, that the Dover City Council is raiding, and the recipients of this injustice are the property owners of Dover Bay.

DURA is regulated by Idaho state law and two city ordinances.

DURA currently has $1.9 million of Dover Bay residents’ taxes in its control with a bigger windfall coming. The DURA-specific projects outlined in the Urban Renewal Plan have been all but abandoned and the checks and balances for the authorized use of DURA funds are now subjectively determined by the Dover City Council and their handpicked DURA board facilitators, making it a massive “slush fund.”

The next intended raid of DURA is the City Council’s ask for $335,000 to reimburse the expansion of the Dover Water Treatment plant that was completed in 2006. What they are not disclosing is the developer of Dover Bay paid the city $1.8 million in capitalization fees from Dover Bay that were used to complete this water treatment project. Now, 17 years later they want DURA to pay for this project again? It’s a “double dip.”

Attempts to alert the Bonner County Prosecuting Attorney’s office about this deception have fallen on deaf ears. Why are legal agreements, state laws and city ordinances not being enforced?

TOM LALLY

Dover