ISSUE #29: The More I Look At SUN, the Worse it Looks

It is supposed to be run to benefit the public--it is not

I usually focus on Ketchum, as there are more than enough misgovernance issues here to keep a blogger blogging. That being said, I have started to look more closely at the Freidman Memorial Airport Authority (FMAA) that runs SUN, as so much of the tax dollars raised in Ketchum go to the airport via the Sun Valley Air Service Board (SVASB). More than half of SVASB’s funding comes from Ketchum taxes.

KURA Ignores Community Feedback; Destroys Local Retail

But before we get into the airport, KURA is moving full speed ahead with the permanent destruction of 65 parking spaces in the commercial core, replacing the Washington lot with another massive four-story lot-line-to-lot-line housing project. It put forward the project to the first step in P&Z approval this week.

This is despite massive community-wide opposition to the project. I went into this in detail in ISSUES #16, 21 and 24. KURA is a tool of the Mayor (he appoints all of them) and is work hard to kill local retailers as part of the Troika’s locals replacement program. SNAFU. FUBAR.

FMAA Is Not Performing Its Governance Function As it Should

The more I look into FMAA and SUN, the more I am learning that it is run for the benefit of the airlines, the tourism industry, private aviation, and its management team rather than the benefit of its owners. It is the canary in the coal mine of what is going to become of the Wood River Valley.

Who owns the airport? YOU DO. It is 50/50 owned by the City of Hailey and Blaine County. It is managed on our behalf by our elected officials in the seven-member FMAA. Three members from Hailey, three from the County, and one random person they recruit to represent the community at large (who, from recent comments doesn’t seem to be clued in on what the FMAA is doing).

You would think our elected officials would put their constituents’ interests first. They do not. They do not even exercise their statutorily required fiduciary responsibility on our behalf. They generally just give in to whatever SUN’s management tells them to do.

FMAA is Expanding the Airport

A the highly contentious June 4th FMAA meeting, Chair Martha Burke insisted that the FMAA is not expanding the airport. This is mendacity. The FMAA may not be lengthening the runway, but in all other respects, the FMAA is expanding the airport operations. Commercial seats are up 23% this year alone. And they plan to grow quite a bit more.

I previously wrote about their plans to double the private aviation capacity at SUN. That looks like it is a done deal—they are in negotiations with the second FBO.

Now, FMAA is on board with the Fly Sun Valley Alliance (FSVA) plan to significantly increase the number of flights into SUN. Remember, FSVA is a non-elected, unaccountable organization controlled by the tourism industry that uses tax dollars to pay airlines to fly to SUN.

Is Airport Expansion What SUN Owners Want? Qui Bono?

You are the owners of the airport. Did anyone ever ask you if you want airport expansion? Has anyone every asked you anything about the airport? Ask yourself—why is that? Why has there been zero attempt to include the community in critical decisions about our community asset? While FMAA does hold public meetings, they do NOTHING to encourage people to participate. Indeed, some of their deliberations have been conducted in secret.

Why do we need more flights? The FSVA says we will get more options and that is good for us residents. That may be true. Unless you live near SUN, where you will have to put up with this expansion of air operations.

I think the real motivation for more planes is to bring in more tourists to fill all the new hotels and AirBNBs that are permeating the WRV. It looks like the Hole in the Ground will actually get built into a hotel. And then there is the 135-room, 6-story Marriott that the Ketchum Mayor and Council gave waivers to over the objections of 3,000 people. It will need more flights to fill it up. As will the 80,000sf mixed use building proposed for Warm Springs. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Oh, let’s not forget the Sun Valley Resort master plan that the City of Sun Valley council just approved. It calls for a 75% increase in hotel rooms at the resort. I worked through the math on that— Sun Valley Co, which has a permanent seat on FSVA to direct public tax dollars to its own purposes, will need 16 more flights a week to fill up those rooms.

The bottom line: whether the people who own the airport want it or not, we are going to get a lot more commercial and private jet flights at SUN. Nobody bothered to ask us, and our elected representatives just went along with it. Whose interests are they representing? You know who they do survey to make sure they are satisfied? The airlines who fly here. That tells you where their priorities are.

I have previously written about how the load factors and fares for SUN flights make public subsidization ludicrous, and how SkyWest, who conducts both the Delta and United flights, flies the same planes to BOI, usually at half the fare and at lower load factors, and gets no payments from BOI to do so.

In my analysis, the people of the Wood River Valley and the tourists that come here are getting price gouged by the airlines. Again, our elected representatives hold no one accountable for this—they do as they are told.

More FMAA Governance Failings

The August 13th meeting of the FMAA is a case in point. The agenda packet has some standard components, one of which is complaints about flights. You know what SUN tells people who complain? Too bad. Nothing we can do.

That is not true. For example, SUN tells people it has no control over pilots who choose to take off to the North. Not true. The tower can require them to take off to the south. But the pilots sometimes prefer taking off to the north because it makes their life easier so the tower just says, go for it. Taking off to the north maximizes the noise over Hailey. SUN is conveniencing the pilots and inconveniencing residents. FMAA does NOTHING about this.

Or take flights that land after the 11pm curfew that FMAA promised the residents. According to SUN, that’s more of a guideline than a rule. It’s “voluntary.” Unenforceable. How can it be true that a community owned airport cannot have its hours of operation set by the community?

SUN Management Runs SUN—for Whom?

And then there is how the SUN management team treats our money. FMAA is supposed to hold them accountable—do they? Take the old fire suppression vehicle they replaced. SUN wants to give it away to the West Yellowstone airport. The vehicle is probably worth about $100,000 if it has been maintained. Because the Feds contributed to its purchase, they get 93.5% of the proceeds if it is sold. Apparently, SUN can’t be bothered to get the $6,500 they could for the community owned airport. Not their money, why do they care.

This is the same management team that raised the parking fees because they thought they were too low relative to what JAH and BOI charge. No consideration for the locals who pay for parking.

This is the same management team that plotted the Eccles Ranch acquisition to get them land to double the private hanger space for billionaires, but has give no thought to providing covered parking for locals.

This is the same staff that is trying to get the FMAA not to competitively bid its engineering consultant contract because they like the guys at the current consulting firm. Classic backroom local politics.

Please: Tell Me I am Wrong

I know some people reading this disagree with me. They want more flights. They think it makes their life easier and is good for business in the WRV.

I disagree with them. Expanding the airport means expanding everything. It means not just more flights, but more tourists, who will need more hotels rooms and airbnbs, which will need more employees for which the City of Ketchum will undoubtedly want to tax its residents to provide with subsidized housing, and more cars, more traffic on 75, and the need for more first responders, teachers, healthcare workers, city workers, etc., etc., etc.

Where is the Planning? Who is Looking Out for the Locals?

No one has done any planning for any of this. Indeed, they REFUSE to do this kind of planning. Probably because they know there would be a revolution if the people who live here today understood that their plan is to replace almost all of us. I don’t mean just the middle class, who they are squeezing out to make room for chronically underpaid transient tourism workers.

Our poor are not poor enough! They want the tourism industry to depress wages to force the workers into income-capped Bluebirds, so they are dependent on the state for their housing. I lay out the math of this in a previous post.

The Ketchum City Council is even trying to squeeze out the wealthy here. Apparently, even our rich are not rich enough! High-end real estate goes for about $1,000 per sf in Ketchum. Some new construction is on the market for almost $2,000. Even that is too low in their thinking. In Aspen, the high end is closer to $4,000. They want to close that gap! But how?

The way you do that is to build more luxury hotels and luxury second homes at one end of the supply chain, and then put all the working people in cheap dorms or shove them down-valley into cheaper housing and bus them in every day and the other end.

Sound familiar? You ain’t seen nothing yet! That’s what they need this 2% increase in the LOT for. They need more Bluebirds to provide corporate welfare to the tourism industry interests to get them to build more hotel rooms.

Then, you have to expand the flights into the airport to get more people here. Our elected officials have set up a system to facilitate this. From LOT for Air, to SVASB, to FSVA and VSV, to FMAA to SUN—they are all on on it.

The icing on the cake will be the sale of Sun Valley Co to Vail or something like it once Mrs. Holding passes on. Why else would be Sun Valley Co be perfecting its interests in a real estate play to grow so dramatically at the core resort and on the hill across from Dollar? You know they have the right to build a 9-story hotel at River Run?

You know who doesn’t pay LOT on the sale of ski passes? The people who buy an IKON pass. But the locals all pay it on their season passes. So much for a “tourist” tax.

Again: Please Tell Me I am Wrong

This isn’t my fantasy about a dystopian future of Ketchum, Hailey, Sun Valley, SUN, and the WRV. This is happening right now. TODAY. Airport expansion is a critical component of the plan. I think they can get their Aspenization plan accomplished in under 20 years if they keep at it.

And if you let them.

Which we seem to be doing. We elected the Troika of Bradshaw/Hamilton/Breen in Ketchum and this is what we get. We elected Cordovano and Hutchinson to protest what the Troika has been doing—but what have they accomplished in their eight months in office?—NOTHING. Both seem to have been co-opted into the process—they are now both in favor of raising the LOT for more corporate welfare for the tourism industry.

Is this good for you? For the community? For the environment? For your children?

Time to wake up.