When the board of Coeur d'Alene's urban renewal agency meets this afternoon, a big step in creating McEuen Park should be taken.

Lake City Development Corp. has been asked by the City Council to be a major funding arm for improvements to McEuen Field. In one of the most divisive, hotly debated civic issues in recent years, the council recently voted to move ahead with plans to improve the park without inviting citizens to participate in a nonbinding advisory vote.

Having decided that the McEuen show will go on, the council hasn't clearly defined in what manner improvements will proceed. Phase 1, known as the footprint or the core of the park, has a rough price tag of $14 million and includes replacing asphalt on the park's east side with grass and other amenities. But confusion has cropped up in recent weeks when in the heat of political battle talk of compromise surfaced.

We respectfully remind city officials, the LCDC board and citizens that the urban renewal agency was created 15 years ago for the specific purpose of generating dollars to renovate McEuen Field. Despite simmering recent sentiments suggesting that LCDC dollars would be an inappropriate investment for the park, local history is replete with evidence that it constitutes the very most appropriate investment for the park.

Regardless of anyone's feelings about urban renewal in general or LCDC in particular, the agency is charged with helping this under-utilized public space reach its potential. That's exactly what McEuen Park volunteers have devoted much of their past year or more to; fashioning a plan that will make the park a greater source of family enjoyment and recreation not just during the summers, but year-round.

Now that McEuen's time has arrived by formal City Council decree, we encourage the LCDC board to do everything in its power to fulfill its primary responsibility. Fund Phase 1 to the full extent possible, and let's put people to work and a fabulous new park on the map.