School levies, library, highway and hospital districts on Tuesday's ballot in North Idaho
May 12—North Idaho voters on Tuesday will choose who will represent them on a variety of local boards and whether to pass school district levies that will determine the fate of several area campuses.
In Kootenai County, two neighboring school districts are rerunning levies after they failed to pass in the March election.
Coeur d'Alene Public Schools has a two-year, $25 million supplemental levy on the May 16 ballot, while Lakeland School District in Rathdrum has a two-year, $9.5 million levy.
The levies represent about 25% of each district's annual operating budget.
The Coeur d'Alene school district has declared a financial emergency and anticipates cutting extracurricular programs, reducing staff by 300 employees and closing one or two elementary schools if the levy is rejected.
A perpetual version of Coeur d'Alene's levy narrowly failed in the March election. Lakeland's levy also failed, but the election had low turnout.
Lakeland also is running a separate two-year levy for building maintenance. The levy is $1.15 million a year.
Two trustee seats are up for the Community Library Network, which serves Kootenai County outside Coeur d'Alene and part of Shoshone County. Trustees serve six-year terms.
The incumbents, Judy Meyer and Regina McCrae, say the library district is on the right course, and that library board members shouldn't be in the business of restricting access to books. Challengers Tim Plass and Tom Hanley say library board members need to do more to keep sexually explicit books out of the hands of kids.
Kootenai Health District, which is transitioning from a hospital district to a nonprofit organization, has two trustee elections. Voters across the county can vote for two of three candidates: Paul Mahlow, Chris Nordstrom and incumbent Thomas deTar.
The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee endorsed Mahlow and Nordstrom. deTar, who also identifies as a Republican, is an ENT physician who previously served as chief of staff and chief of surgery for Kootenai Health. The North Idaho Republicans endorsed deTar.
Three Kootenai County highway districts have commissioner races for four-year terms.
In Lakes Highway District in northern Kootenai County, Michael Curry is running against Steve Adams in Subdistrict 3. Weston "Monty" Montgomery is running unopposed for re-election in Subdistrict 2.
For Post Falls Highway Subdistrict 3, Glen Heape is running against incumbent Lynn Humphreys.
For Worley Highway Subdistrict 1, Ronald Hartman is running against incumbent Phil Cooper. George Miller is running unopposed for re-election in Worley Subdistrict 3.
Other notable North Idaho elections include Boundary County Library, which has had its own debates about book restrictions and has two trustee seats up for election. Lewis Clark and Mary Esther-Williams are running against incumbents Aaron Bohachek and Lee Colson.
The library board recently revised its materials and collections policy, which formalizes a process for concerned community members to challenge books for the board to consider. Esther-Williams sat on the committee that updated the policy, while Colson chaired it.
Voters in West Bonner School District, based in Priest River, will decide on a $4.7 million supplemental levy for the district's budget.
James Hanlon's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
