COEUR d’ALENE — An unusual alliance spoke out Friday against what it called “a last-minute attempt to deceive voters” in the Coeur d’Alene City Council races.

“We are here to shine light on the practice of a few extremists who seek to manipulate the course of our elections, and do the voting public a great disservice,” said Sandy Patano, who has been active in the Republican Party for decades. “These people seek to destroy opposing candidates by using false information at the last possible moment to attack their integrity.”

She said the people behind the political attacks are the same few people who used similar tactics in the past few elections.

“As we head into the final days of this campaign, I urge everyone not to be taken in by the dirty tricks of Brent Regan, Greg Pruett and others who would seek to manipulate Idaho’s election laws and hide from the light,” she said.

Patano said Regan, and a handful of others, formed a political action committee named Responsible CDA this week to avoid campaign finance disclosures until after the election on Tuesday. They are using the PAC to send out fliers attacking Councilman Ron Edinger and former Kootenai County Clerk Dan English.

“This is no accident or coincidence of timing,” she said. “This is a deliberate manipulation of Idaho’s election and disclosure laws, designed to keep Coeur d’Alene voters in the dark.”

Regan told The Press the PAC is not his PAC.

"They came to me and asked for money, so I gave it to them," Regan said. "I would caution Ms. Patano to get her facts straight before going out and making hysterical claims.”

A flier sent out by Responsible CDA calls for voters to support Edinger’s opponent, Toby Schindelbeck, and incumbent candidate Steve Adams, who is being challenged by Dan English and Bruce MacNeil.

Becky Funk, who’s managing Steve Adams’ campaign, said the candidate had nothing to do with the flier or with the Responsible CDA PAC.

“That would be illegal,” she said.

The same flier also asserts that Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer, Councilman Dan Gookin and Adams support disbanding the city’s urban renewal agency, ignite cda.

Widmyer and Gookin issued statements Friday that the information on the flier is false.

“I in no way support or endorse this flier and I do not support disbanding urban renewal,” Widmyer said. “I was not consulted about this.”

Gookin said the flier is a problem because it appears to be an endorsement of Schindelbeck and Adams.

“I didn’t authorize or approve this,” Gookin said. “I am not endorsing either candidate — and to drag me into this and make it look like I’m in cahoots with them is not true.”

The flier claims that Widmyer, Gookin and Adams are “one vote short” of disbanding urban renewal, which Widmyer said is false.

Widmyer also took exception to the “immature” portrayal of Schindelbeck’s opponent, incumbent Ron Edinger, and Adams’ challenger Dan English, in a cartoon published on the flier.

At Friday’s press conference, Sandy Patano was joined by two prominent Democrats, Tony Stewart and Norm Gissel. Both took offense to the way The Second Amendment Alliance, led by Pruett, and the Responsible CDA PAC, funded in part by Regan, attacked Edinger for a vote he cast concerning guns at city parades.

Edinger voted in September 2014 against removing a city ordinance that was passed in 1998 that prohibited guns at parades in Coeur d’Alene. The prohibition was unanimously overturned by city council members two months later, after the state attorney general's office advised that cities cannot regulate firearms. 

Stewart said the ordinance was created in 1998 to prevent members of the Aryan Nations, and its affiliate groups the Order 1 and Order 2, from marching down Sherman Avenue with loaded guns.

“The criminal background of these groups included nine murders, bank robberies, armored car robberies, counterfeiting American currency and bombings in Coeur d’Alene,” Stewart said. “When members of the Order 1 were arrested, documents were found in their possession declaring war on the United States.”

Stewart recalled that in 1986, the Aryans bombed Father Bill Wassmuth’s home because at that time, Wassmuth was the chairman of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. Other board members of the task force, including Stewart and Gissel, had their lives threatened as well.

In 1998, the Aryan Nations obtained a permit to hold a parade on Sherman Avenue, and the city council at that time passed the ordinance to prevent the group from carrying loaded guns during the parade.

Stewart wondered aloud how Pruett might have voted on that ordinance.

“I would have voted no on that,” Pruett told The Press during a phone interview following the press conference. “We don’t trade freedom for security.”

Pruett said there are already laws on the books that prohibit people from using weapons in a threatening manner.

“Criminals don’t care if we pass laws. They aren’t going to follow them anyway,” he said. “If Aryans wanted to carry loaded weapons in the parade, they were going to do it anyway.”

Pruett said Edinger created a gun-free zone and then voted twice to retain the ordinance knowing full well the ordinance was in direct conflict with state law.

Edinger said at the press conference that he and his entire family own guns and hunt. He said they all support the Second Amendment.