The Coeur d'Alene City Council's recent decision to revamp McEuen Park brought back a rush of memories for me.

Not about the ball fields. I never played on the lakeview diamonds just east of the Coeur d'Alene Resort. Nor about the boat launch. I never put in at the busy junction at the north end of Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Rather, the decision reminded me of my first year as a city reporter at the Coeur d'Alene Press, where I worked for two years before coming to the Journal. It was during that year—1997—that the first serious proposal to revamp McEuen Park came forward, followed quickly by the first public outcry from those who wanted to keep the park just as it is.

Back then, Duane Hagadone, owner of the Coeur d'Alene Press, the Coeur d'Alene Resort, and what at the time seemed like half of the Lake City, spearheaded the proposal. He had offered to donate $2 million to the Coeur d'Alene Public Library for a $6 million project that would involve construction of a sorely needed new library building on the edge of McEuen Park and for botanical gardens where the ball fields have stood for decades.

I didn't know much about Hagadone before going to work at the Press, but as the McEuen controversy unfolded, I quickly learned that people in the community had deep-seeded feelings about him, both positive and negative. Some people saw him as a visionary who almost single-handedly transformed the lakeside timber town into a nationally known tourist destination. Others saw him as a ruthless businessman who strong-armed the community to get his way—and to add to his fortunes.

The vast majority of the people who came to the public hearings on the proposal railed against it. Reporting on the proceedings, I got the sense that for many the proposal felt like a land grab—an attempt to control public lands and reduce the amount of local riff-raff around the resort.

While I worked for a company Hagadone owned, I was allowed to do my job and report on the issue objectively. At the same time, I was given no special treatment. He didn't release information to me before the rest of the press, and I had to attend press conferences just like everybody else.

I did interview him one on one a couple of times on the issue, and I got the sense from talking to him at the time that he was trying to do something philanthropic, rather than trying to pull a fast one. He seemed surprised by the passion and strength behind the public outcry. After a few weeks, he pulled his offer.

A new library was built on a far corner of the park some years later, and the city revisited the idea of revamping the park.

The current proposal hasn't been without its share of detractors, and the city has compromised by keeping the boat launch and scaling back on its initial vision. It appears as though it is moving forward with doing away with the acres of surface parking at the north end of the park and creating active parkland where that and the ball fields are now.

My personal feeling is the same now as it was then. McEuen Park falls well short of its potential in a lakeside community that has made a name for itself by realizing its full potential. There is no shortage of recreation and tourist destinations in the Inland Northwest, but that's no reason to stop adding to those offerings.

It will be interesting to see how close to Hagadone's original vision the park becomes. More than anything, though, it will be good to see change that's been needed for years.