An open letter to the next mayor, council

There’s a lot that I’ve learned over the last 15 serving the city of Sandpoint on the Planning and Zoning Commission, City Council and now two terms as mayor. I encourage the incoming electeds to keep a few things in mind.

In 2018 the City Council approved the city’s first Strategic Plan. The plan, updated in 2022, marked an evolution in how our city government operates. In it, the council committed to strategic, data-driven decision-making.

This was significant because, as newly elected councilors and mayor will soon discover, the pressure to make reactionary decisions based on the loudest voices in the room is overwhelmingly powerful and ever-present. In my experience, nearly all newly electeds make this mistake and many veterans as well. This results in rash decisions that don’t consider long-term consequences or everyone impacted.

Making data-driven decisions ensures Council is making the best choices for the most number of people over the longest time horizon. This is good democracy. The city improved its data collection by adding workshops, surveys, stakeholder interviews and planning beyond what was practiced previously. The Parks and Rec Master Plan, approved in 2020 included more public involvement than any plan in the city’s history: 17 public meetings, 67 stakeholder interviews, a downtown public forum and over 1100 survey responses. The PRMP plan was widely accepted and identified Travers Park as the city’s central sports complex.

Council and I have heard from many that the decision to locate the Russel Sports complex was made in haste and lacked adequate public engagement, despite the year-long process that included 10 public meetings, an open house and survey. The city vetted all potential locations owned by the City. There were four locations considered, all on the Travers/Centennial/Great Northern complex because of available space and because it had already been vetted as the central complex for court sports in the PRMP.

While it has come to light that there are personal histories and emotions involved at this site, the city’s explicit priority has been to minimize impact to outdoor sports. The current site was chosen primarily because other options would have impacted user groups- softball, baseball, soccer, football, lacrosse, tennis and football. In addition, impacting outdoor sports would have killed the eligibility of this project for the $500K Land Water Conservation grant, which the city was recently awarded.

Many have suggested reconsidering Great Northern Park for the site. This would have had the greatest impact to user groups as these are our best fields and the most used. In addition, the infrastructure is inadequate which would add significant cost to the project. Also, pickleball is loud, even inside, and would impact neighbors adjacent at GN.

Others have suggested siting at the Baldy property. Baldy would need to be purchased by the city general fund and would require major improvements that would add millions to the cost. In addition, it’s too far away from the schools for children to have easy access.

Others suggested a private property on Ontario or the school district property next to the high school. I met with the property owners and spoke with LPOSD to discuss those options.

Simply halting the project to have further community discussion on this issue would require canceling the contract costing several hundred thousand dollars in penalties. It would also require redesign, new contracts, infrastructure and possibly purchase of land. All in, halting the project would cost at least a half million to several million more and take another year to complete. Going down this path could also impact the original donation which was committed for Travers which means the city could lose the donation and opportunity altogether.

First and foremost, the council and mayor are charged with responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources. Canceling the contract opens the city up to all kinds of risk and cost that is not budgeted for and not necessary. This is not responsible stewardship or a wise decision.

I understand the public frustration over the location of the Russel Sports Complex has contributed to a feeling among many that public engagement and communication from City Hall is falling short. The incoming mayor and council can avoid this problem in the future by reaffirming the city’s commitment to public engagement by creating more effective public notice and engagement outside of city hall (where the people are). The city has done well to engage stakeholders and user groups but needs to work on engagement of community members at large. The Council and I recognize this and are addressing the issue.

It seems that many of the candidates running in this election also recognize this opportunity. It would do the city well if they also recognize and support the incredible work that has been done by the last several Councils to build an effective framework for strategic and data-driven decision-making. This will ensure that city decisions are durable, take everyone into consideration and are grounded in reason and facts.

Shelby Rognstad is the mayor of Sandpoint. He can be reached at mayor@sandpointidaho.gov.