Mayor Sandi Bloem has heard it from myriad sources, she said on Friday: Coeur d'Alene has a lot going for it.

But there's still room for improvement, she noted.

Like beautifying East Sherman, and cracking down on crime in downtown. Also, ensuring that the McEuen Field project is paid for without a dollar of taxpayers' money.

Speaking to the Kootenai County Democrats at the Iron Horse Bar and Grill, Bloem touched on how the city is looking at all of this and more.

"We have more projects than any other city in Idaho right now," she said, pointing to the successfully unfolding work on Northwest Boulevard. "It's because of a community that supports those projects."

Eventually, the economy is going to turn, she observed.

When it does, the city wants to be prepared to spruce up Sherman Avenue in the section that stretches past downtown.

"We hear a lot about East Sherman. We know we need to take another look," she said. "We need to think of how we want it to be, how we want it to look, like do we need height limits, and getting design criteria established. That is on the plate."

Audience members commented on a spike in crime in the downtown area, like car burglaries and vandalism.

There were calls for beefing up law enforcement, particularly around the Third Street parking lot.

The city is on it, Bloem assured.

"We're definitely looking at augmenting police, security and lighting," she said of the Third Street parking lot. "We take this problem seriously."

She added that pedestrians need to take it upon themselves to spread the message of a respectable protocol.

"We should develop a certain culture that feels good to everyone," she said.

Coeur d'Alene resident Steve Heit questioned if the City Council truly considered the public protest against the McEuen Field project, which has price estimates ranging between $15 million to $39 million.

"You had this big, democratic meeting, a lot of people spoke against it, and then you five to one, you voted for it," Heit said.

Bloem pointed out that public comments were divided for and against the plan, and the City Council attended countless meetings on the issue.

She added that between $16 million in urban renewal dollars, as well as parking fees and donations, none of the project will be funded by taxpayer dollars.

"(The project) deserves the stewardship of the council to look at it, to drive down Front and see that McEuen is being used," Bloem said. "You know if there's no baseball game, it can go day after day with less than five people using it."

The city is working toward other improvements, she said. For instance, a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency over water quality levels is looking more likely.

"It appears they might come up with different criteria for us that would be more equal to Spokane's," she said. "Spokane had a more lenient phosphorous load than we did, and why would that be? It certainly isn't going to be a deterrent to the water, what we're asking."

Also, the city is partnering with the University of Idaho on training for operation of the treatment plant, she added.

"You go into the plant it will frighten you, the technology," she said. "That technology is changing so fast in a system where you cannot make a mistake, we need people who are properly trained."

A recently created committee is still looking into alternatives to chopping trees along the Dike Road, she added, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has ordered to remove.

The group is working to show the Corps and FEMA "how passionate the community is that we do not want to take those trees down," Bloem said.

There's not much to criticize, said Coeur d'Alene resident Anne Salisbury.

She appreciated Bloem's candor at the presentation, she said, and was intrigued to hear a breakdown of how the McEuen transformation could be funded.

"I feel really good about how the council is handling things," Salisbury said. "Through the city's history I haven't been as satisfied, but I feel they've been a really good council and a good mayor."