COEUR d'ALENE — State Rep. Kathy Sims was cited and ordered to pay a fine for defying a traffic officer's instructions on the Fourth of July.

Sims was stopped by a traffic officer in downtown Coeur d'Alene, presumably following the annual Independence Day parade, and told by the officer that she could not cross Sherman Avenue at that location. According to a Coeur d'Alene Police Department report, Sims told the officer she would wait for things to clear instead of turning her vehicle around.

"I started to walk away from her truck," the officer wrote in the report. "As soon as I started to walk away, she drove southbound across Sherman Ave. The intersection was still filled with people that she had to drive around to avoid."

When the officer called Sims the next day to inquire where he could deliver a ticket to her for the infraction, Sims is quoted as saying, "I have a P.O. Box in Cd'A. This is Representative Kathleen Sims."

The report adds the exchange between the representative and the traffic officer continued to go back and forth, with Sims declining to arrange a meeting.

However, in a July interview with The Press, Sims said she doesn't recall the officer asking to meet with her in person.

"After he called I gave him my address and that's all I recall," Sims said. "I asked him if he wanted to cite me and he didn't say yes or no. He was quite unusual."

On Aug. 5, Sims was issued an infraction for failure to obey traffic control devices, with a Kootenai County District Court hearing three days later resulting in a guilty plea. Sims was ordered to pay a $90 fine.

Sims was defeated by Paul Amador in the Republican primary in May, so her term will end before the next session in January.