COEUR d'ALENE - The Kootenai County commissioners decided Monday to continue with the land-use code writing process, but without the Texas-based consultant Kendig Keast Collaborative.

A document communicating the commissioners' desire to end the county's contractual relationship with Kendig Keast will be drafted immediately. The consultant's president, Bret Keast, couldn't immediately be reached for comment late Monday.

"Unfortunately, Kendig Keast, in my opinion, doesn't capture the essence of the county or the character of the county," Commissioner Dan Green said.

The commissioners will meet later in the week to decide what direction to go from here. One direction they don't like, though, is a modification of the consultant's proposed Unified Land Use Code.

"My recommendation would be that we need to get the planning commission another draft to review, and the public another draft to review so they can comment," Commissioner Todd Tondee said.

Kootenai County's planning commission recommended last week that the county dump Kendig Keast. The planning commission also recommended discontinuing the use of the existing ULUC and start fresh on something else.

However, laying out the planning commission's recommendations in writing, Chairman Wes Hanson told the county commissioners there is a lot of discussion about whether the draft ULUC "should be totally disregarded or utilized as is needed in the composing of a new draft."

The third recommendation was that the planning commission discuss recommendations for contentious issues such as shoreline protection. Commissioner Jai Nelson said she supports all three recommendations from the planning commission.

Nelson said Hanson has "the autonomy to hold those discussions and give us recommendations."

Green said comments from those discussions could be incorporated into a new code document during the drafting process.

"I'd much rather bring forward something that the planning commission (and public) tends to support than they don't," Green said. But he doesn't want the discussion series to drag out the process as much as 18 to 24 months.

"I think we need to start with a document that has a clear, useable structure," John McFaddin, a member of a new group called the Rural Property Owners Committee, told the commissioners. "I think then we can get a more reasonable review of the document."

Other rural property owners who are critical of Kendig Keast's draft ULUC have said there was a lack of public input.

"These codes apply only to property owners," said Bob Bingham, a rural property owner. "To keep this from going off the rails again, I think it's important that the major stakeholders... who these codes apply to, are well heard at every stage of the game."