Coeur d'Alene ready to compete
Tom Hasslinger | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 12 years, 11 months AGO
COEUR d'ALENE - Coeur d'Alene is competing with everyone.
Big or small, the landscape has changed, and cities are vying to land the same thing - recruiting businesses and bringing jobs.
So how does a city outshine its competitors?
By outscoring the filed, Mayor Sandi Bloem said during her State of the City Address at the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce Upbeat Breakfast. It was her 10th end-of-the-year speech as the only three-term mayor.
"If we want to grow jobs, we need to score big points," she told a packed room inside The Coeur d'Alene Resort.
The points are what the city has accomplished to land numerous awards, high-profile recognition from Forbes Magazine and USA Today and the City of Excellence title it has held for more than a decade, she said. And it's the blueprint to follow as the city pushes through the recession and builds to its vision as a top-tier city.
"The culture we live by in our city is guided by that word, excellence," she said. "It's a prevailing attitude."
Some of the accomplishments are familiar - the Kroc Center, the education corridor, the public library. Others are more obscure - more than double the recycling participation with implementation of the more inclusive single stream system, and park technology that allows the city to cut its water bill 30 percent.
Still, the pattern of creating public space, providing environmentally friendly service (leaf pickup kept 1,600 tons of leaves out of the landfill), and linking the city as a 'walkable' town with public art are driving factors that bring people here, she said.
It's the reason a New York-based Swedish Journal reporter interviewed the mayor last week for a story about cities which have actually progressed during the recession.
Everything he could find led him to Coeur d'Alene, Bloem said the reporter told her before the interview.
The annual talk recaps the city's year, reviewing the previous 12 months while looking ahead. All in 2011 hasn't been smooth sailing, either.
The city did catch criticism for giving employee raises this year during an economic recession, lost a multi-million wrongful termination suit, and took some flak for adopting the McEuen Field conceptual plan.
The proposed multi-million plan's first public meeting was six days into 2011, and played a central role for two council-elects, who opposed the park's planning process.
But Bloem, who just thumped Spokane Mayor Mary Verner in a fundraising showdown for the Salvation Army $5,500 to $1,200, said enhancing the park keeps with the vision that earned the Lake City its awards. The plan will surely change in places, she said, but the city is crafting what the first phase of that project could look like for the place "that deserves to be better than it is."
"You have to talk about it," said Scott Jaxxson, Coeur Group member, who bills the city as a "proactive, forward-thinking" place, and was glad the mayor addressed the issue that drew the city some heat. "Otherwise it's the elephant in the room."