ISSUE #53: Ketchum = Bureaucracy + Troika

16 Entities Get a Say, But Only 3 People Decide... Everything

Dec 04, 2024

Most people think of Idaho as a red state, one with smaller government rather than big. In some ways, that is true. For instance, we grossly underinvest in education and infrastructure; we could use a little more government in those areas.

In Blaine County and the City of Ketchum, however, I’m amazed by how much government there is. I used to live in a town in New England with a population five times that of Ketchum. The non-school budget was about the same, yet there was much less bureaucracy. Some of this has to do with Idaho’s approach to taxation. The counties and cities are limited in how much they can raise taxes, as the legislature governs that.

One of the things I like about Idaho is that every tax has to have a specific purpose. As a Mayor, you can’t just raise money and figure out what to do with it.

Or can you?

The system is being gamed, and Ketchum has been particularly artful in doing it. This is not what the legislature intended.

Let’s look at this bureaucracy:

How Many City Committees Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Actually, we don’t have some of the bureaucracy that cities in other states have.

Ketchum has no Board of Ed running a school system. Schools are the single most significant expenditure for most cities. In Idaho, we do that at the county level, where we have the Blaine County School District. This dramatically reduces the workload for our City Council during budget season as the BCSD has taxing authority itself. The City Council doesn’t need to spend much time thinking about kids, which is not good because our children are the future of our community. The Comprehensive Plan has a mandate to attract families to Ketchum, yet this city council’s single focus is on tourism, tourism, and more tourism. The time freed up with not having to deal with our schools has been devoted to maximizing tourism revenue (see Ms. Breen’s bio on the City website before they take it down).

But instead of making less bureaucracy, our city has used this pass to create even more. And even though Idaho law mandates that a City Council must protect the health and safety of its residents, Ketchum has figured a way out of some of that.

Ketchum has outsourced its security. Animal control was turned over to Mountain Humane (good). Our policing went to the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office about a decade ago. Still, we pay for their office space and capital equipment.1 The Ketchum City Council rubber stamps the BSCO contract every year, with almost zero time spent discussing it in public.

Is this the arrangement Ketchum residents want? The cities of Belleview, Hailey, and Sun Valley don’t outsource their police.

Then we have what Idaho Mountain Express calls a “pig in a poke:” Fire Department consolidation. In giving up the KFD to a discontinuous system (it includes the Magic Reservoir), we will pay extra for a fire department with its own commission and taxing authority and no accountability to the City. Higher taxes for the same service.

Back to the Light Bulb

Not including any County bodies, sixteen separate entities decide how our tax dollars are spent. This is what some would call “lipstick on a pig” because, the way Idaho empowers city councils, only three people actually control how every dollar is spent.

I call them the Troika: Bradshaw, Breen, and Hamilton. They tend to vote as a block and, in my analysis, are working hard to replace low-profit locals with high-profit tourists—and to keep wages depressed for the tourism industry.

Of the sixteen bureaucratic bodies, only six have public meetings listed on the City website. Indeed, public participation is only permitted at the Ketchum City Council when required by law.

Here are the entities:

Ketchum City Council: the ultimate “deciders” of everything. The Mayor controls appointments to most of the other entities. If you can muster three out of the five votes as a voting bloc, you are the equivalent of the modern-day Tammany Hall. We have that today with the Troika. Notable, almost 2/3 of Ketchum voted AGAINST Bradshaw in the last election. But they still run things the way they want. As Ms. Breen essentially said, it doesn’t matter what people want; they got elected, and they get to decide.

Planning & Zoning Commission: the business of Ketchum is tourism and tourism development. Development consumes the vast majority of time at the Council level, and we have a commission dedicated to it. Our Zoning Codes have more words in them than Boise's. The Mayor picks the P&Z members. While it is called P&Z, you can tell by their agendas that it is really the development committee. On numerous occasions, they have worked around the zoning laws they are supposed to enforce. Only recently, under immense public pressure, has the P&Z started to push back on the City’s Planning Department staff. The simple fact is that P&Z does no planning.

Historic Preservation Commission: Want to tear down a building in Ketchum? Not so fast! If you are on their subjective list, you need HPC approval first. I am for historic preservation, but not this way. Once again, the Mayor appoints the members; the membership overlaps with the P&Z and the Council. In its four years, the HPC has made about one decision a year, yet 5% of the Planning Department’s time goes to support the HPC.

There is no need for the HPC. This P&Z should be doing this. Does anyone think the photo at the top of this posting is historic preservation? The HPC does!

Ketchum Urban Renewal Agency (KURA): did you know that Ketchum’s commercial core is so blighted as to require “urban renewal?” In 2006, the Council created KURA. It is a scam to borrow money without the usual required taxpayer approval in a referendum.

A URA borrows money to invest in improvements in the blighted downtown and pays back the debt with an increment of our property taxes from all the value they catalyze. The Mayor appoints the members. They don’t have to live in Ketchum (and one vocal member does not). KURA has no representation from the urban core it is supposed to be renewing. Instead of fixing sidewalks, it has been turned into a scam to effectively raise taxes for spending on projects not supported by the Ketchum budget. Its top priority is developing the Washington St. parking lot into a massive housing development. None of the members see the irony that they are supposed to be increasing the tax base of their URA, but this project will pay not $1 in property taxes. It has become an unaccountable way for the Mayor to pay for projects that have little support in the community. KURA should be wound down as quickly as possible.

Blaine County Housing Authority (BCHA): “That’s not Ketchum that’s the County” you say. Wrong. It is the same staff as the Ketchum Housing Department. Same Executive Director. Ketchum taxpayers pay the staff. It is listed as a City agency on the City’s website. BCHA’s unelected commissioners, of which only one is from Ketchum, have immense power over what happens in Ketchum and how our tax dollars are spent. They got a 0.5% LOT for Housing passed to fund them, with only 20% of registered Ketchum voters approving it.

BCHA is currently recruiting unhoused people from Twin Falls to reside in Bluebird (see Issue #44—it’s incredible, but it is true). Bluebird is only 75% leased, despite the supposedly massive BCHA waiting list for people to move into it. Ms. Connelly, who runs it, facilely switches her hats between Ketchum and BCHA to maximize her quest to fill the commercial core of Ketchum with low-income housing projects on absurdly expensive real estate. I would withdraw all City of Ketchum support for BCHA.

Ketchum Community Development Corporation (KCDC): This is supposed to be a non-profit focused on economic development. In reality, there is no accountability to Ketchum voters despite having control over $10s of millions of what was Ketchum taxpayer-owned real estate. They own Northwood Place and Bluebird and we get paid $11/year for the land by the for-profit developer. In my view, they are the non-profit shell for the for-profit activities of the for-profit developer GMD. Only one of its three officers resides in Ketchum. Guess who used to be president of KCDC—Neil Bradshaw. Their website says that Council Member Hamilton is on its ex-officio.

Arts Commission: did you know that 5% of every public project in Ketchum must be spent on public art? The Ketchum Arts Commission allocates that. The crosswalk designs? The painted power boxes? That’s them. My quibble with this commission is that many of its members are not Ketchum residents. Good governance dictates that Ketchum residents allocate Ketchum tax money.

Traffic Authority: live in West Ketch? Then you are familiar with this body. They are the ones who deal with speeding complaints as your neighborhood is converted into a virtual hotel for Airbnb. They have also put in the new stop signs in town. They are the body that approved the Parking Plan for downtown, which calls for permanently eliminating dozens of spaces and pushing parking into adjacent residential areas. The TA is run by the City Administrator, with its members appointed by the Mayor.

Sustainability Advisory Committee: there is no current info on this one. If it meets, it meets in secret. This was a pet project of Council Member Hamilton. In 2020, they came up with a Sustainability Action Plan for Ketchum. Since then, crickets. There is no transparency and no accountability. Meanwhile, Ketchum forks over $130k a year to the Blaine County Sustainability Commission, which, in its entire life span, has issued two reports. Neither of those reports mentions the largest contributor to WRV greenhouse gases (the airport). It is greenwashing. Meanwhile, Ketchum and Blaine County have become less sustainable (per the BCSC's latest report). If we were going to do something to be more sustainable, maybe we would need a Committee, but this seems to be more for show than anything else.

Technical Advisory Committee: we only know this exists via references from the Planning Director at some Council meetings. Its composition is unknown, and it convenes in secret. This group advises the planning department on building code and zoning issues. It will impact the new Comp Plan. At the very least, it should have a charter and meet in public. This is terrible governance.

Citizens Advisory Committee: another group appointed by the Mayor that meets in secret yet is helping to write the Comp Plan. It is a way for the Mayor to claim public input. More bad governance.

A Lot of LOT Boards Spend your Money

The largest source of revenue to Ketchum outside of property taxes is LOT taxes. In Idaho, cities aren’t supposed to impose sales taxes on top of the 6% state sales tax, but there is an exclusion for resort communities of under 10,000 people if passed by referendum. The purpose is to compensate the locals for bearing the cost burden of tourists. That’s why it’s referred to as a “tourist tax.” However, our Ketchum leaders also figured out how to tax locals to promote tourism with a tourist tax. You pay about 27% of this tax. I don’t think you should be paying $1 of it.

There are several LOT taxes in Ketchum. Our LOT structure is poorly formed, resulting in some strange things for a tax that is supposed to benefit locals . I include the LOT entities in Ketchum’s bureaucracy because some of these boards have elected officials from Ketchum, and they spend Ketchum taxpayer money—with no transparency or accountability.

Sun Valley Air Service Board: if you think the cities of the WRV can’t agree on anything (like sustainability, housing, traffic, emergency service consolidation), this is the exception that proves the rule. The SVSAB comprises the WRV mayors and is highly efficient at spending your LOT taxes to promote tourism growth. They are the ones who decide how much money goes to Visit Sun Valley and Fly Sun Valley Alliance from the LOT for Air. SVSAB is chaired by the Mayor of Ketchum. The way the agreement works, he holds over 50% of the votes, so he gets to decide how the money is allocated. Remember—I said all the power in Ketchum resides in the Troika—this is another example.

Visit Sun Valley: these are the people who are keeping it sunny. This is blatant use of taxpayer money for corporate welfare. Its overhead is outrageous. Its mission is to promote not just tourism but specifically tourism growth. Governance is unclear, but Sun Valley Co always has a seat. If you thought the LOT for Air was for Air, silly you. Most of it goes to VSV to promote tourism growth. FSVA gets the leftovers. VSV is not transparent and not accountable to the taxpayers. It should be eliminated unless the tourist interests themselves want to pay for it.

Fly Sun Valley Alliance: spends the remainder of the LOT for Air. It might have been useful when no airline wanted to fly to SUN, but those days are long gone. The airlines make a fortune flying to SUN. The same airline (Skywest), with the same planes and similar load factors, flies to BOI for half the fare with no minimum revenue guarantees. Something is fishy here. Council member Breen (mis)represents Ketchum on FSVA. Sun Valley Co always has a seat. Also, there is no transparency or accountability to taxpayers. I would eliminate taxpayer support for FSVA and let the private sector deal with it.

Mountain Rides: this is one of Ketchum’s biggest budget items and is paid for with LOT. As Ketchum’s public transportation provider, it is part of the bureaucracy. MTR is really good at getting federal grant money, which pays for half of its revenue. Of the WRV cities, Ketchum is, by far, the largest contributor. MR is also partly funded by Sun Valley Co, which uses it to shuttle people between the resort and the mountain. In the winter, that can be 30% of MR ridership. There is no info on whether MR is fully reimbursed for its services to SVC. The Mayor of Ketchum has appointed himself to the MR’s board for the past six years despite his lack of transportation experience. I am all for their mission, but it should be transparent and accountable—it is not.

In Ketchum Only the Troika Can Change a Light Bulb

When I reflect on Ketchum’s bureaucracy, it’s genius. It lets the Troika, supported by fewer than 15% of the homeowners in Ketchum,2 maximize tax revenue and distribute the money to achieve their goals while looking like there is public participation in decision-making. It is the veneer of transparency without transparency. If we ignore their words and judge them by their actions, their mission is to close the price per square foot of Ketchum real estate with that of Aspen.

Locals are low-revenue. Replace them with higher-value inhabitants: tourists. To keep wages low for the tourism industry, tax locals and second home-owners to provide subsidized housing, not for essential workers like teachers, essential health care workers, and first responders, but for hotel workers, retirees, and even homeless people from Twin Falls. To make it look “fair,” tax the tourists a little for this too. Make sure there are enough rich second-home owners to boost the budget and to donate to the things that make Ketchum such a nice place for tourists.

Am I wrong? What do you think?