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Over 300 people showed up in solidarity against the proposed Traffic Management Center at the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting on Thursday. With Post Falls City Hall overflowing with people, the KMPO board quickly amended the agenda to change the order and bring the ITERIS contract to the forefront.
As a reminder, in September of 2022, the KMPO approved a contract with ITERIS to develop and produce a Facilities and Operations Plan for possible development of a Traffic Management Center. With almost a year of TMC planning behind them, the KMPO threw all that planning out the window and voted to terminate ITERIS' contract in a 10-1 vote. The crowd erupted in cheers and the board had to take a 5-minute break so people could celebrate and leave if they so chose.
Once they resumed the meeting, the KMPO heard updates from the Transportation Team, a presentation about the county's urban areas borders, and public transportation reports.
In a bizarre conversation about recording/livestreaming the KMPO meetings, the audience finds out that the meetings are conducted like we were back in the early 20th century with no video recording, only audio recordings which are temporarily kept until the minutes are available to read online. Bruce Mattare asked why the meetings are not video recorded and uploaded to Youtube, the answer Director Glen Miles gave was that the staff was too busy to record them. Dan Gookin suggested they look into moving the meetings to a location where someone else could record them and the lukewarm response from Director Miles gave no one confidence that a move was going to happen. The finalized directive on this matter was that they would continue only recording the meetings on audio (throwing transparency out the window) and put this topic back on the agenda for a later date so they can figure out something else.
Ironically, CDA Freedom Watch was recording the whole recording conversation and made it available for viewing below.
This was probably the most-attended, most interesting meeting the KMPO has ever had, and we can thank the Stop Smart Cities crew for bringing the TMC issue to the surface.
Speaking of thanking people, I urge everyone to thank the KMPO commissioners for voting against the Traffic Management Center. A very short email a couple of sentences long would be really appreciated for the spotlight that was put on these commissioners and Director Glen Miles.
City of Rathdrum, Vic Holmes mayor@rathdrum.org
City of Hayden, Sandra White swhite@cityofhaydenid.us
City of Post Falls, Lynn Borders lborders@postfalls.gov
CDA Tribe, Jim Kackman jim.kackman@cdatribe-nsn.gov (maybe? otherwise send to kmpo@kmpo.net)
East Side Highway District, Graham Christensen (Vice Chair) grahamc@es-hd.com
Idaho Transportation Department, Damon Allen damon.allen@itd.idaho.gov
Kootenai County, Bruce Mattare bmattare@kcgov.us
Lakes Highway District, Rod Twete (Chair) info@lakeshighwaydistrict.com
Worley Highway District, Corinne Johnson corinnejohnson@worleyhwy.com
KMPO Director, Glen Miles gmiles@kmpo.net
City of CDA, Dan Gookin dgookin@cdaid.org
Post Falls Highway District, Jeff Tyler jtyler114@gmail.com
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