COEUR d'ALENE - A suit challenging Alcoholics Anonymous gatherings at the Fort Sherman Chapel could be on the verge of going away, a Fort Grounds attorney said Monday.

Edward W. Kok an attorney representing himself in the matter, said both sides are close to an agreement that could resolve the civil complaint that was filed last year.

Kok (pronounced like Coke) filed legal action Sept. 8, 2010, against the Washington State District Area 92 AA, Fort Sherman Chapel Group and unnamed AA members out of frustration with a local Alcoholics Anonymous group's apparently loud gatherings at the chapel.

Kok lives on Forest Drive across the street from the chapel, and had said that the morning and evening gatherings with booming motors, overfilled parking and conversations beginning before 7 a.m. and lasting as late as 9 p.m., had become a public nuisance, according to the complaint.

But that could soon be settled.

"There's a good chance," Kok said of reaching an agreement but declining to specify any details of a possible resolution. "I appreciate the approach everyone took."

Meanwhile, the attorney is scheduled to go before the Coeur d'Alene City Council at 6 tonight for a public hearing regarding appealing a decision the city took in December tied to the dispute.

The AA meetings wouldn't be allowed under the neighborhood's current residential zoning, but the city ruled that they were legal non-conforming uses on the property because they had been happening there before 1982, thereby grandfathering in the allowance.

Kok appealed that ruling, but said Monday the hearing could be shelved since the sides were working together.

The chapel's owner is the Museum of North Idaho. Representatives there could not be reached for comment Monday. The city's legal team did not return messages.

Dorothy Dahlgren, director of the Museum of North Idaho, said in a September article in The Press that the group had been meeting at the chapel at least 25 years, and there have been few complaints about chapel tenants.

The City Council meeting is in the Community Room of the Coeur d'Alene Public Library.