COEUR d'ALENE - Coeur d'Alene City Councilman Steve Adams has heard the rumors.

He's not behind the recall effort and never has been, he says.

But the freshman councilman and former Kootenai County Reagan Republican board member - whose own name surfaces when anything political arises - keeps hearing that he's the mastermind behind the attempt to oust City Council members Mike Kennedy, Deanna Goodlander, Woody McEvers and Mayor Sandi Bloem.

"I have no, no involvement in the recall whatsoever," Adams reiterated Friday, even though several of his campaign supporters are behind the recall effort, too. "I heard rumors and so did (my campaign supporters) ... It causes a little bit of anxiety. This makes me look like I'm sneaking around not being 100 percent honest."

But there's a component of Adams connected to the recall that even he recognizes: The future of the city.

Many people in the community, including the mayor, believe the recall effort is about more than the fate of McEuen Field. They believe it's about the current administration's body of work on a whole.

"What is going to happen to this community if they get the recall?" Bloem told a crowd of supporters April 5, the day the initial recall petitions were submitted, during a rally at the Fort Grounds Grill in the newly refurbished education corridor. "You're throwing out the entire vision for what we have for the future."

The recall effort then would run counter to projects like the Kroc Center, the public library and expanding the education corridor - all of which were supported by the targeted incumbents.

While recall organizers maintain the effort is primarily about the council members' support for the McEuen Park redevelopment project - and their lack of support for a public advisory vote on it - recall opponents say the effort runs counter to everything the officials have achieved.

"I just think that vision is in jeopardy because of the recall," Bloem said Friday. "I think it will affect the vision we all have - a common vision - and that is one of job growth and diversified opportunities for employment."

If it's a recall effort against the status quo, then nobody on the council better represents that stance than Adams.

He is adamantly against the city accepting any federal money, and has voted against it several times. A political friend of controversial Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, Adams supports the state implementing a gold standard to compete as a secondary currency. He classifies federal money as "counterfeit," since the government's debt is tied to borrowing, or essentially wealth it does not actually posses.

"The federal government is broke. Any federal dollars that come through any states or municipalities are counterfeited at the federal reserve, either by being printed or done electronically," he told the council March 24 before voting against awarding a $43,000 grant for Citylink, a free public transportation provider in Kootenai County. "So I would say based off our own Idaho Constitution, we're in violation of taking debt money. The Scripture says borrower's servant to the lender. The madness has to end somewhere. And if it has to end here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with rejecting a $43,000 grant, then so be it. Let it start somewhere."

He said Friday that is a line he will hold as councilman.

Even if federal grant monies are the direct result of taxpayers paying taxes, to accept them back in grant form is escalating the national debt problem, he said, so he'll never vote in favor of it.

Instead, let the government keep the money.

The argument of "use it or lose it" - that's to say, if Coeur d'Alene doesn't accept the grant another accepting entity would spend it - doesn't dissuade him, either.

If Coeur d'Alene can lead by example, and other municipal and governmental entities follow suit, then the monies won't be reallocated but rather stay in Washington to chip away at the $16 trillion national deficit, he said.

In the meantime, it would be up to the city to find the money in its own budget, or send projects out to public vote.

"To me, it's not really more of a philosophy, it's more from a moral standpoint," he said. "Where does it stop? Let's be an example for the rest of the country and say we're not going to do this, we're going to figure it out as a community."

This is a sharp contrast to the current administration whose finance department uses federal dollars annually for partnership projects like the upgraded wastewater treatment plant, street improvements, and hiring police officers.

So would the mayor's vision of Coeur d'Alene change if Adams's political philosophy could be exercised?

"Yeah, absolutely," he said.

The change is significant because, if the recall effort proves to be successful, Adams would be one of four members who would appoint three remaining seats.

"I'm not going to want to appoint somebody that's 100 percent opposed" to my political philosophy, he said.

If the four incumbents are recalled, Gov. Butch Otter would appoint the first replacement. That replacement would create a quorum alongside council members Ron Edinger, Dan Gookin and Adams.

According to Jon Hanian, the governor's spokesman, Otter's office would seek replacement recommendations through five possible avenues: The Kootenai County Commissioners, local legislators, the governor's North Idaho field representative, the Association of Idaho Cities or interested people could call the Boise office and offer their own name. From that list, the recommended names, if they were interested, would then submit resumes. From there the choice would be made.

After that, it would be up to the remaining council members.

But even Adams's fellow freshman councilman Gookin, who earned his seat campaigning against the McEuen Field redevelopment plan like Adams, said cutting all federal ties would harm the city. It's addictive, he acknowledged, and can set up the city for future expenses. The police officers the city hired with federal dollars, for example, came with the condition that the city absorb the positions after a certain number of years.

"Government crack is what it is, and they're creating users," he said. "It creates a dependency on the government."

But he said some projects with government funds are vital for the city, like the Government Way street widening project.

"I'm not as radical as Mr. Adams, but I see his point," he said. "I wouldn't go as far as say the government is counterfeiting money, but I would say they're printing money like hell."

And while the recall effort is focused on McEuen Field, so much more could be up in the air than the park.

"I don't believe it is just the advisory vote," Bloem said of the reasons behind the recall, which she said has already reverberated around the region's economy. She cited Post Falls City Administrator Eric Keck's statement, which Keck verified, that at least one out-of-state manufacturing business looking at several states as a possible location questioned whether Coeur d'Alene's current political climate would make Post Falls a good fit for the company.

"I have a hard time believing the citizens don't want us to go after the tax dollars that came out of their pocket to reinvest in the community," she said, adding that looking at other projects the four incumbents have supported should be considered when people assess whether they believe they should be recalled. "It's very fair to look at the four people up for recall and see what their track record has been and I think that track record should say something."

But for Adams, while he's not behind the recall effort, it could be about making Coeur d'Alene an example of self-sufficiency, even if some projects on the wish list have to evaporate. It would be a first step at erasing the national deficit, he said, and ultimately reduce taxes.

That's the political philosophy he would exercise if he had to appoint replacements.

"If so called conservatives, and just speaking for myself, if we're not willing to give something up, we just continue to add to the problem," he said.