ISSUE #33: Ketchum Council's Program to Rid Ketchum of Children
No Schools Means No Kids Means No Families Means No Future
Am I wrong? I sure hope I am wrong! Let me know what you think.
Last week, I wrote about what the Ketchum City Council could be doing instead of ruining Ketchum. I missed a big one, and I thank a reader for pointing this out.
Comp Plan Calls for More Families—So Ignore It
The Council is supposed to implement the Comprehensive Plan. Not only has the Troika ignored that Comp Plan, but they have actively worked against its goal of making Ketchum a livable city for current and future generations.
One of the Comp Plan’s goals is to bring families to Ketchum. City Council grade? F.
The plan's #1 priority is to preserve Ketchum’s character. Who in Ketchum would give them better than an F on that? The evidence is most apparent in their massive development program for Ketchum, but the more pernicious impact is the locals-removal part of their program.
The best way to sanitize a town for tourism development is to make it impossible for families to live there. As our reader reminded us, that is what the Ketchum City Council, led by the Troika of Bradshaw/Breen/Hamilton, has been doing.
Ignore What They Say; Watch What They Do
Think I am crazy? That I am being dramatic? While I accept that both are probably true, look at the evidence and draw your own conclusion.
On July 31, the last remaining daycare operation in Ketchum, The Growing Garden, shuttered its doors.
On August 14, the IME reported that the Blaine County School District is considering shutting down Hemingway Middle School.
How often have child services been on the Ketchum City Council’s agenda? Would it surprise you to learn the answer is NEVER? Not once.
Maybe the Troika won’t prioritize housing for essential workers like teachers because they plan to eliminate all the schools in Ketchum, so teacher housing is a waste of time and money. Getting rid of schools would free up acres of land for more hotels and Bluebirds to house transient, low-paid hotel workers.
Ketchum’s Future: All Tourism, All The Time
If you aim to help developers close the price per square foot gap between Ketchum and Aspen, you would do exactly what The Troika is doing. Think about where the Troika are leading us. Look ahead ten years into our future.
More short-term bedrooms. Two new hotels at the entrance to Ketchum, a planned development for Warm Springs, Sun Valley Co has the right to build a nine-story hotel at the base of River Run. The City of Sun Valley will adopt a master plan for Sun Valley Co. that will grow its bedrooms by 75%.
More flights into SUN subsidized by taxes not just on tourists, but taxes on locals. FSVA is actively recruiting more airlines to fly into SUN. Your tax dollars support tourism promotion via Visit Sun Valley.
More Sewage Treatment Capacity: Did you notice how the Ketchum Council approved a plan to double the City’s water treatment capacity? It might have slipped by you. While it was on the Council’s agenda, they discussed it about five minutes before unanimously approving it. Those tourists use a lot of water.
More taxpayer-subsidized Bluebirds for transient, low-paid workers that are needed for all those hotels. Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan has a near-term goal to get another 200+ units of Bluebird rooms built—one in a secret massive 108-unit project they call “Trail Creek.”
All those pesky middle-class families who want to raise kids in Ketchum get in the way of this plan. Get rid of them. Get rid of their daycare. Get rid of their schools. Tourists are much more valuable when your goal is to “maximize revenue.”1
Do you know what demographic disproportionately has families? Teachers, first responders, and healthcare workers. Do you know what demographic doesn’t? Transient low-paid hotel workers. Does it become clearer why Ketchum’s Housing Action Plan is focused on the one and not the other?
No Need To Export Children If There Are No Children
I used to say that Ketchum’s #1 export product is its children, as we have made it almost impossible to build a life here with a college degree. Now I understand that exporting our children won’t be a problem in the future. We won’t have any local children here at all. We are going to replace them with the children of tourists.
Ms. Breen has said Ketchum is tourism. One of her goals is to maximize Ketchum’s revenues.2 Can you build a “community” when it solely exists for tourists?
Can you even have locals if you don’t have local children? We know that the Council has squeezed out the adult children of locals by encouraging all the long-term rentals to go to Airbnb. We know that including a three-bedroom apartment in Bluebird was performative rather than substantive—the developer publicly stated that he anticipated no families would move into those units. He had to build them to get the subsidies that made the project profitable…for him.
Now we see that unless you can afford the tuition at the Community School (which is in Sun Valley, not Ketchum), there will be no place to send a kid to school in Ketchum. How long will BCSD keep Hemingway Elementary open if there are no kids in Ketchum? This is a vicious doom loop that has accelerated under the rule of The Troika.
What Can We Do To Stop This? RECALL
While The Troika remains in power, there is nothing we can do. I demonstrated the mechanics of their control in several posts. These three people largely control the future of Ketchum.
I have come to the conclusion that the only way to change Ketchum’s future is to take control of it back from The Troika. That means we need a recall. I used to think we could recall just the Mayor, which would be enough, but now I think we need to recall the entire City Council and start with a clean slate. It would cost the same in terms of time and money.
What does this take? Someone to lead the effort. A committee to support that person. And money to fund the campaign.3
Who is up for it?
see the next footnote.
Her official bio says she plans on “…maximizing revenues coming in to the city so that Ketchum can continue to provide a variety of world-class amenities and services to its residents and visitors.” At least she put residents ahead of visitors. For once. https://www.ketchumidaho.org/citycouncil/page/amanda-breen
The problem in a nutshell—no one competent runs for office in Ketchum, so this is the government we get. If we want a better government, better people need to step up and do their civic duty. This is not about money—it doesn’t cost that much to run a campaign in Ketchum. It’s about competence. If you are a Ketchum voter who has read this far, and you believe a local is someone who puts more into Ketchum than they take out of Ketchum, and you passed an advanced math class, you should be running for office. Living here, knowing that you could be part of the solution but saying you won’t because you “don’t like politics” is a cop out. Donating to/volunteering for local organizations is nice, but it is not a substitute.
The other day at the Community Comprehensive Planning Session held at the Limelight Hotel mayor Bradshaw had the audacity to lecture our table on why we were all wrong about our perception that there was an issue with parking in the downtown core. This is not an indication of a public servant listening to the feedback the community is giving him. I think the idea of a recall is an interesting idea, that if nothing else would signal to the city council that many of its constituents think we’re going in the wrong direction.
I think the community narrative regarding the future of Hemingway Middle School is running far ahead of the BCSD's very deliberate planning process. Superintendent Foudy tried to clarify the situation with an email to all BCSD school families. He wrote:
Dear Families,
Recently, there have been concerns that the board is considering closing the middle school at Hemingway STEAM School in the near future. This is categorically inaccurate. My intent is to clarify the facts and context.
The Board recently held a work session looking at the financial forecast for the next five years. The fundamental issue is a pattern of declining enrollment, due to county birth rates. We currently have approximately 275 students in each grade level 9-12. We have 175 kindergarten children projected to start this year. Next year, we project 156. This will significantly impact revenues several years from now.
At the work session, the Board started a conversation that will be ongoing for years to come. Many options were discussed. For example, we talked about increasing the minimum number of secondary students required to open, or maintain, a course. We talked about leasing district property to private entities to generate revenue streams for the district. We talked about sharing “specials teachers” between Hailey and Bellevue Elementary Schools. We talked about consolidating the district office and technology staff at the Community Campus and leasing or selling the current facilities. And, given the current and project enrollment at all schools, we talked about the long-term viability of the middle school at Hemingway.
Complicating this discussion is a significant unknown variable: we don’t know what state revenue will look like in five years, let alone next year. Obviously, the Hemingway middle school solution would have to be evaluated very carefully, because it has the greatest impact on students and families. The board is planning over the next two years to continue discussing all options for reducing expenses and increasing revenues.
All of these decisions require research, discussion, and an evaluation of the impact on students, families, staff, and district finances, which will take time. None of the decisions will be taken lightly.
I hope this clarifies the facts and serves to alleviate unnecessary anxiety or concerns. If you have any questions or additional concerns, please contact me directly. I’m happy to take a phone call or meet in person with you or any member of our community.
James Foudy
Superintendent
No decision to change the programmatic offering at EHSS will occur without extensive community input in open meetings where all inputs, including enrollment and financial modelling, and most importantly, impact on local families will be publicly debated.
Any implication that BCSD land would land in Ketchum city hands to further their housing initiatives is categorically false. We are bound by statute and land patents that would preclude any such transaction. Our assets will be utilized strictly for the benefit of our students and the staff who support them.