NIC’s beach property may be annexed into city

The NIC board of trustees discussed a proposal to annex Coeur d’Alene beach property to campus.

“The commission and city council has approved an ordinance to annex this property in the City of Coeur d’Alene as our 17-zone property that will be consistent with the NIC property across the road,” said Mark Lyons, NIC’s attorney and board of trustees member.

Lyons said one of the logical reasons for annexing the beach to the campus is the fact that it keeps the law enforcement centralized.

Ron Dorn, vice president of business management, said he agreed with this rationale.  Having the ability to call upon the city’s law enforcement instead of waiting for the county’s would be far more efficient if an issue arose near the college.

“Any issues that might start on the Dike road and then move down to the beach becomes a county issue, and we’d have to wait for the county police. But I believe we need to take care of what we own,” Dorn said.  “I mean let’s get consistent. The college is in the city, the dike road is in the city, we got this little piece of property in the county, let’s get it all together. There’s no more to it than that.”

Dorn said there are not  a whole lot of negative aspects except that the city has a few more restrictive building codes.

The annexation is not yet complete and is subject to NIC and the City of Coeur d’Alene in coming to terms and making a final agreement.

Both are considering the pros and cons in this agreement.

“This is not a critical issue,” said Lyons. “But it is something, I believe, that the Board should be considering and talking about.”

Lyons said that they have a year to reach an agreement.