Lewis named Kootenai mayor
KOOTENAI — There is new leadership in the city of Kootenai , following the departure of Mayor Mike Keough.
Nancy Lewis, formerly the Kootenai City Council president, was chosen by Keough to take the helm as the city’s leader when he resigned.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Lewis said. “It’s a nice little council over there, a nice little city.”
The appointment was ratified by the council, Lewis said. She plans to finish out Keough’s four-year term until voters cast their ballot for a new mayor in November, a position for which she plans to run.
Meanwhile, her vacated seat on the council remains to be filled.
“We’re looking around to appoint somebody,” Lewis said. “We just don’t know yet. We’re looking for someone who might be interested.”
Asked what experience she brings as the city’s chief executive, Lewis said the job doesn’t require much experience in the sleepy town. It’s more of an on-the-job learning curve.
“You’re learning as you go,” Lewis said. “You attend a lot of meetings and learn a lot from the other mayors, too.”
Keough said he chose Lewis because she expressed an interest in the mayoral position, for which he wasn’t planning on seeking reelection. That, and she was available to attend meetings with him. Other council members weren’t available during the day to be around when “things come up.”
“Now that she’s been doing that, and this thing came up, it seemed like the perfect fit,” Keough said.
The city has a city engineer and a planner, both consultants on contract, from whom Lewis said she leans on for information. The city does not have a police or fire department, nor a professional city manager.
In terms of who manages the day-to-day operations of the city, Lewis said city Clerk Rhonda Whitaker takes care of the details.
“She’s wonderful,” Lewis said. “She gets all the calls. If there’s a big problem, she notifies the mayor, but there’s probably nothing she can’t handle.”
Keough resigned his position after selling his house in Kootenai. Husband of long-time state Sen. Shawn Keough, the couple, now empty-nesters, have been looking to move to lakefront property for several years, Keough said, but market conditions weren’t quite right until recently.
“Now that I’m retired it’s probably not a bad time to do that,” Keough said of the couples move.
Mayor for 3 1/2 years, Keough felt he and the council had accomplished a great deal during his time in office, including getting involved in the Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail project and working to get it extended to Kootenai, and a crosswalk project across Highway 200 from Ponder Point to Kootenai that helps protect school children. In addition, city ordinances were updated, and Spokane Street was paved, a project that “took the entire budget,” Keough said.
“I believe there are still some small cars under the potholes,” he said.
But Keough felt the biggest effort he and the City Council accomplished was convincing Kootenai voters to approve a doubling of the city tax rate, from 0.04188 percent to 0.08376 percent. The measure passed in March with 47 votes for and 10 against, an 82.5-percent approval rating.
Kootenai had a population of 736 as of 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The ultimate swear word. We actually got taxes increased in Kootenai,” Keough said. “Our budget was so low we weren’t able to accomplish a lot of the basic needs for the area. I’m pretty happy with that.”
Lewis agreed. The city is now in the midst of working on its 2015/2016 budget, and the extra money helps.
“We have a little bit more money to spend,” she said. “That was a big thing for us. We worked really, really hard to get that passed.”
Keough emphasized that being mayor wouldn’t have been as enjoyable without a council that worked together so well. They listened to his ideas, some, he admitted, that “weren’t all that good.” But others were OK, and the council was willing to discuss them and work together in a positive direction.
“To me that’s where the credit should go — to the council we have right now,” Keough said.