COEUR

d’ALENE — The Bonner County Prosecutor's Office is reviewing a

representative’s complaint about potential conflict of interest

violations regarding Coeur d’Alene city officials and the McEuen

Field project.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall said today he agreed to

review Coeur d’Alene Republican Kathy Sims’ complaint and would

issue a legal analysis at the end of the week.

That analysis will be forwarded on to Kootenai County Prosecutor

Barry McHugh, who asked the outside agency to look at the Coeur

d’Alene issue at Sims’ request.

The complaint says that ethics in government laws could have been

breached as Coeur d’Alene city officials worked on the conceptual

plan for the downtown park because some officials have business and

property ties near the park.

Sims forwarded the complaint to the Idaho Attorney General’s

Office. The office said that violations didn’t exist according to

Idaho statute, but it couldn’t investigate the matter.

McHugh’s wife has had contracts with the city of Coeur d’Alene for

public art pieces over the last couple of years. McHugh said he

didn’t feel there was a conflict of interest for him to look into

the Coeur d’Alene matter because of those contracts, but asked

Bonner County to handle it at Sims request.