Move over bypass, bring on urban renewal

It seems that Sandpoint always needs something to fight about. Its newest conflict is just heating up, but it promises to be a barnburner. That's just what I'm worried about. I watched the remnants of the barn and its leaning wooden silo at the old Harney dairy, which my folks once owned, go up in smoke this past week. Work has already begun for a new housing development on that farm.

Having watched this transformation just up the road, I worry about what will happen to my stately red barn once Urban Renewal goes into action. Will our place be considered a "blight" out here in Northwest Sandpoint? Will someone come and tell us to clean up or get out because our little farm with its two horses, two dogs, half dozen cats and assorted barn-roosting pigeons is an eyesore in the midst of industrial land?

How much of our front field will get chopped off when the $4 million worth of improvements turn Great Northern Road into a boulevard? These are all questions going through my mind, along with the number one concern of how high or how low our tax bill is gonna be once we step into the Urban Renewal era. At this point, I don't know whether to be glad or mad.

Right now, all I know is what I read in the papers. Rather than the occasional report on what's happens when the urban renewal planners have their meetings and the daggar-filled flames I'm seeing launched back and forth between proponents and opponents, I'd like to read more hard facts. I'd like to see clear explanations of urban renewal and how it will affect the every-day ordinary citizen who's possibly scared to death of upcoming tax bills or fearful of who's gonna come knocking on their door to tell them their residence doesn't quite match up to Sandpoint's new community standards.

I can see urban renewal benefits because our infrastructure here in Sandpoint could use some improvements to support all those people we've invited into our town. Having driven Great Northern Road for 31 years, I'll be first in line support its reconstruction. I've often suggested that it's the worst road in the county. There's room for discussion on that, but I know it's the worst road in the city. So, it definitely needs a fix, especially considering that within the next few years, several hundred employees of various companies out here will be traveling the road twice daily.

I do wonder, however, with the estimated $4 million extreme makeover if any thought has gone into what happens when the trains continue to block the road for several minutes at key times when people are headed to and from work. Maybe that's been considered, but I haven't seen anything.

The urban renewal discussion has already turned into hot debate. And, from what I've seen so far, it promises to evolve into another of Sandpoint's bitterly divisive issues. As always, I believe that demonstrating respect through a little better communication and some open forums with reader-friendly fact sheets, explaining to the public just what it does entail, may soothe some of anxiety that this somewhat foreign concept seems to be thrusting upon the citizenry of Sandpoint.

Of course, we ARE heading toward winter, and we do need some hot stuff to help us endure those long, gray, cold days ahead. So, maybe in its own way, just like the 55-year-old byway issue, the urban renewal fight could keep the letter writers happy, sell more papers for the Daily Bee and help natives like me ward off winter doldrums by keeping us in a permanent state of unrest.

Bring it on!