ISSUE #13: What Does the Troika Want for Ketchum?

I can't tell; but quality of life for residents is apparently not on their agenda

Apr 30, 2024

An essential definition for readers: I use “Troika”1 as shorthand for the Mayor and Council Members Breen and Hamilton. They exert iron control over Ketchum, as they have for the past six years.

As I type this, over 420 people have signed up to receive this blog. Why so many?

I think it is because the residents of Ketchum care deeply for their community, are upset at what the Troika is doing to their home, and are upset at what the Troika has not done for the residents. They don’t feel there is any outlet for them to be heard, be it the City Council or even the town newspaper. They feel powerless. They seem to feel I am articulating what they are thinking.

If you have suggestions for topics—just let me know.

You Can Indeed Sue the Post Office

I got some comments from Issue #12 that my call on the City of Ketchum to sue the Post Office was not doable, as you can’t sue the Post Office. While it is true you can’t sue them for lost mail; you can indeed sue them when they are doing something that is not kosher. The Post Office itself says so on its website. There are lots of suits against them.

But here is a tidbit that someone sent me that has me LMAO (hat tip to A!). Please click on that red link. Read the article. The comments on the article are even better than the article.

Do you know who once led an effort to get home delivery for Ketchum? Council Member Amanda Breen. Per the IME: “She said the reputation of her practice suffers when people have to resend important documents after sending them to her physical address.” She said this…in 2015. Indeed, she was very articulate in this guest opinion she wrote in the IME on why fixing the Post Office is such a compelling quality-of-life issue for residents. She nailed it.

This issue got her noticed in Ketchum and was the basis for her run for Council. Then, like the rest of the Troika, once she got elected, her focus shifted from representing the interests of the people who live in Ketchum to making Ketchum more developable.

She is an attorney! Why won’t she lead the Council in suing the USPS on behalf of the community?

Parking—Guess Who Was an Advocate “For” Parking?

I gave you a layup on that one. The answer is, of course, Amanda Breen. When the KETCH project was built without parking, she was concerned. “It’s unreasonable to imagine we’re going to have 36 tenants with no cars,” Breen said. It would be good to have a new discussion. They’re going to have a car. People are going to stick those cars somewhere.”

She quickly reversed that position when it came to Bluebird 1 and now with the Main Street project. As her voting record shows, she has joined the anti-parking camp championed by the Mayor.

How does this change of mind happen? How does someone start in favor of what the community wants and then cave to the will of the growth-at-all-costs camp? Was she being duplicitous from the beginning? Is it laziness? Hmm.

I’m not picking just on her. Mr. Bradshaw had a similar political evolution.

It begs the question: what is their vision for Ketchum? What do they want this place to be like in 10 years?

“Judge Them by Their Deeds, Not by Their Words”

A couple of subscribers use “hide me” emails—I wonder who those people are and why they are afraid to use their real emails. As far as I know, no Troika member or City Hall staff subscribes. Given how direct I am, you would think someone they know has to be sharing this blog with them. I wonder what they are thinking.

I struggle to understand their motivations—I interpret them from their actions.2 The difference between what they say and what they do is so dramatic that taking what they say at face value produces cognitive dissonance.3

I have spent five years studying their actions. I don’t know of anyone else who is paying this much attention to what is going on at City Hall—certainly not the newspaper. 4

What Has the Troika Achieved for Ketchum?

They have achieved many things, some of which I presume most people support, others that leave some scratching their heads, and some that are positively anti-resident.

When the Troika gained office in the 2017 election, Ketchum was essentially debt-free. When they leave office after the 2025 election, they will have burdened Ketchum with about $25 million in debt in their eight years of control. What did we get for that money?

A new Firehouse: interestingly, they did not include workforce housing with that project, despite having passed an ordinance that would have permitted them to add a third floor to do so. We struggle to staff our fire department because of the lack of workforce housing. It is a lovely firehouse. It came in slightly under budget, but somehow, they figured out how to spend all the money from the bond issuance on “related” items.

A new City Hall: The argument was that the old one was falling apart and couldn’t meet the demand for public services, given Ketchum’s growth. The new one is quite nice and conveniently located next to the post office, which we all must regularly visit. The financial shenanigans around how the City got the money to pay for this (they basically got KURA to borrow the money and then buy the City-owned Washington Lot in a questionable transaction) are the stuff of legend.

KETCH: this was supposed to be affordable housing for people working in Ketchum. As soon as the out-of-state developer had it leased up, he jacked up the rents to almost double, then flipped the project for a massive gain. He took advantage of the concessionary zoning on parking and construction to build the cheapest thing he could get away with. Ketchum got fleeced while someone got rich and took the money out of town. Where will the residents park once the parking lot the City said they would park in becomes Bluebird 2?

Bluebird 1: the move of City Hall made Bluebird 1 possible. Of course, the zoning code prohibited Bluebird. So the Troika changed it. In a footnote to a table. Voila! Now, low-income housing can be built anywhere in the commercial zone—up to four stories with an average, not minimum, fourth-story setback. Then, the Mayor lied, in print, about who they were building Bluebird 1 to house. I am on record about the scam that is Bluebird 1 and what a better way to create actual workforce housing for essential workers is. We will live with this monument to stupidity for 40 years.

Lease to Locals: I like this one. It has been relatively small scale, but it has been a great bang for the buck in providing workforce housing for Ketchum workers. That said, some of it is to house people for big corporations like Sun Valley Co. (see my pieces on corporate welfare).

LOT Tax: They got it renewed and reduced the amount going to tourism promotion and put some into the housing plan kitty, with no specific use for that money. That is terrible governance. And the wording of the referendum was, in my analysis, not entirely truthful about how the money is spent and who gets to decide how it is spent.

Master Transportation Plan: Read it if you can find it. Let me know if you think it is a “plan.” I think it is a consultant study. It projects intersection failures with no solutions. The Troika team brought you the HAWK light and the Main Street / Sun Valley Rd “scramble.” They also got the City sued (and lost) for shutting 4th St to traffic. I could go on and on about how we need an actual MTP, but that is a whole blog post.

Housing Action Plan: The official policy is to promote housing growth to provide housing to anyone who wants to live in Ketchum. If they can’t afford it, the taxpayers will chip in. It is an idiotic plan that calls for $350 million to be spent on 690 housing units over a 10-year period. I have dissected it at length in another blog post. It is a disaster for the people of Ketchum and a distraction from a much better alternative approach.

Parking Plan: Like the MTP, this is also not an actual plan. It is a presentation of alternatives for managing existing spots to make them more available for retail customers. An actual plan would start with a supply/demand analysis and layout alternatives with cost/benefit analyses.

A commitment to rebuild our 40-year-old Water Treatment Facility: this one drives me nuts. It is the largest single capital expenditure in Ketchum history, and we are borrowing $14 million to pay for it. From the public record, there was no analysis of alternatives, and the Council rubber-stamped a staff recommendation with almost no discussion. Why rebuild the old one when a new one could have been built with more modern features and a smaller footprint for about the same amount of money? That could have freed up more land for housing. Who wants to bet this project will come in under budget? I will take that bet.

Pickleball courts: the Council spent far more time debating this than on the WTF. Or pretty much anything else.

A dog park: You can argue a lot about how this was done and who benefited (the developer is a genius—he got to build 32 luxury homes, and the land only cost him $4 million), but in the end, it was better to have the land reserved than the 400 luxury housing units it was zoned for. I struggle with how the City could not have negotiated a better deal given how rich they are making the developer. Like just a couple of acres for workforce housing?

Rebuilt Sun Valley Road: at a massive cost overrun.

The Main Street Project: in progress.

BCHA: The city basically took it over in a glaring conflict of interests and poor governance.

What didn’t they do?

Workforce Housing: See comments above, in previous blogs, and IME comments. To me, this is their biggest failure. Under their watch, many people who make a town like Ketchum work were forced out of town. Under their watch, almost all long-term rentals went to Airbnb (and they just passed an ordinance that could create more short-term rentals).

The Post Office: see last week’s post.

Parking Plan: see comment above

Transportation Plan: see comment above.

Dark Skies: They did the minimum to get the certification. Ketchum's nighttime lumens keep growing. Evidence: Visit Sun Valley and Sun Valley Co. marketing materials that prominently feature Ketchum lit up at night like a Christmas tree all year ‘round.

Achievement of the 2014 Comprehensive Plan: I don’t think they have ever reported on their progress in achieving that plan.

Roundabout at Serenade: I struggle to understand how the City can be powerless about the traffic light that ITD will install there yet take over the Main Street Project from ITD. Was some trade made?

Capital budget for roads/infrastructure: We are still “pay as you go” on city streets, which is one of our largest expenditures.

Have They Passed the “Acid Test?”

Keep in mind that they have had SIX YEARS of control—and they have it for almost two more.

Do you feel better off because of what the Troika has done for you as a Ketchum resident? Not according to the statistically valid surveys conducted by the City and Visit Sun Valley. In both, the decline in quality of life loomed large. Indeed, the quality of life of residents is not a criterion for decisions—I can’t think of a staff memo recommending a development that references it.

Do you feel that Ketchum’s government was made more transparent? More inclusive? I don’t.

The big problem is that the Troika has not been honest with us about what they want for Ketchum. I wonder why that is. They never revealed a plan and then managed to the plan. Their actions look chaotic and not well thought out. But in the end, they have successfully displaced locals with tourists. Was that their plan all along? What do they have in store for us over the next two years?

Why Are People in Ketchum So Afraid of The Troika?

I get a lot of inbound email traffic, and one of the common themes is that people are afraid to speak up. They are scared because they need to do business with the City and think that if they speak up, there will be retribution from City Hall.

General fear is a terrible way for people to think about their elected officials and inhibits the political process of building consensus. Personally, I don’t ~~give a sh!t~~ care what the Troika thinks about me; I have trouble understanding why others are so frightened to speak up. If you don’t like what is happening in Ketchum, complaining to me or posting a comment in the IME is unlikely to change anything.5

No one I know who has gone to the Mayor with a concern has gotten anything but sympathy from him— and inaction. He does what he does.

“I Can’t Chaaange”

Who is the swing vote on the City Council? I can’t tell. I thought it was Ms. Breen. She is a Stanford-educated lawyer. In theory, she should understand the implications of her voting and how to represent the interests of the people who live in Ketchum.

But maybe Ms. Hamilton, who fits some people’s definition of a “local,” might be more likely to join Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Cordovano in standing up for the residents of Ketchum. She hasn’t done that for six years, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

I am stuck with the conclusion that there is no swing vote on the Council.

“We’ve Got the Power”

In one Council meeting, the one where they gave away the store to the Utah developers of the coming 6-story Marriott, Ms. Breen said something to the effect that it didn’t matter what the people want; the Council got elected and gets to decide.6

This makes perfect sense. Why do anything in response to any resident of Ketchum? The Troika has all the power; we have none—at least, not until the next election.