I’m getting a lot of inbound about a recall. I all for it. But you need a leader and a well thought out plan lest you do. A lot of work for little change in outcome. The fisrt step is to find someone who has the time to step up for the Mayor seat and who will recruit a couple of people for the council who will represent the interests of the residents. If they had any cojones, it would be Spencer or Tripp. They have been totally shut out by the Troika so are irrelevant on the council. They have achieved nothing of significance and can achieve nothing while the troika is there. But neither seem to have the leadership ability to take the reins.
The public needs to get vocal. I hear it all day long at the shop that nobody wants this to be built in this location. I asked people to sign, they did. Now I am asking folks to actually speak out loud to their elected officials.
The council completely disrespected us business owners and our customers. They disrespected the people - you.
KBAC did ask the city to sharpen their pencils on the First and Washington Ave project. And the city staff did. They took the time to find parking options.
Option 6 is 'spend-y' but the only way to plan ahead for our future parking needs. We appreciate their efforts (maybe we didn't say so in the meeting and their feelings were hurt) but at the end of the day, it did not seem to matter.
Neil actually looked at us and said; "We don't care what the business community wants or thinks, we are going to do this thing anyway. Even though we know P&Z will shoot down the first renderings of the building."
The city does not want us on any of their panels and boards. - We have asked over the last six months.
The city does not want citizens participating in their plans. - We have asked.
They do not want anyone's agendas but their own prefixed agenda.
The city folks do not run small businesses, they get paid by us!
Just FYI the LID tax will only happen if we build subterranean parking on the lot. It would be part of the funding package and keep the parking free to the public.
Speaking up won’t work. That meeting proved it. You did more than anyone else has ever done and they gave you the shaft. Only a recall will have any impact and it has to be for all three of the troika. Can someone at KBAC lead the charge?
This starts now with signing up volunteers and tasks. Meet in person via different shifts and bring friends that are registered voters and feel the same way. We started a recall a few years ago and got signatures in public places. This did not work well. We do have a list of who signed
I am a commercial owner in the LI2 zoning but am also a resident in Elkhorn Parking is a major concern for me and all of downtown Ketchum businesses. It is impossible even with this parking area still available, to find parking anywhere during the daytime.
My suggestion is to keep all the open parking on GROUND level (not underground) area for public use and build the 4 Story building with necessary columns to support 4 Stories on top of the GROUND LEVEL parking. The parking will be open meaning NOT enclosed. Charge hourly so money is collected by public use. And reserve x amount of parking for the residents.
Why hasn’t this option been presented and if it has, what is estimated cost to build over (on top of / above) the open ground level parking area? Surely far less than digging 2 levels underground!
Yes she is. As is Bradshaw. As is Hamilton. They lie to get what they want, rather than be honest with the public. Because they have the controlling votes they are unaccountable for their lies.
While I do believe public transportation should be encouraged my limiting parking, it is crazy NOT to provide adequate parking for planned residential projects.
It is also sad to see such generic modern architecture with little volumetric expression .
If this kind of aesthetic continues to be built , the Ketchum in Ketchum is going to be lost. Soon, the downtown will like any other redeveloped downtown.
To Andrew Fitzgerald: I support all you're talking about in terms of getting to the state level. I'd absolutely love it if short term rentals were regulated. (It happened recently in a tiny town where I grew up, thanks to the organization of the locals. The S.T.R's were wrecking the real estate and rental market.) I love the idea of the vacancy tax. I also would love to see square footage limitations on mega-monster homes that sit empty. I LOVED it when Tripp Hutchinson proposed the 12-month emergency ordinance to stop construction downtown to "address residents' concerns + evaluate future development". Sadly, he and Spencer were outvoted.
The entire economy of the town is lopsided and bizarre, and I don't know what the answer is. A LOT needs to happen. I think it's important to go for what's 'within reach'. It seems that City Council, if you have enough smart people on it, can indeed effect meaningful change.
I've watched them repeatedly vote to enact projects with devastating consequences. ( i.e. the main street 'modernization project' --- I believe Tripp opposed? )
Had a 3rd person with a brain been on the council for the last few years, most of these insane projects would have stopped right then and there. So there IS power in the council !
Perry, you can all me a lamebrain for saying this, Perry, but if you think a recall of the mayor would be effective, forget about it. It would be nothing but a waste of time. So what if you get Bradshaw kicked to the curb. Then what? You don’t have someone specific in mind to replace him and there’s no way he’s going to get re-elected in any case. The same goes for someone like Amanda Breen. She’s done.
The more I think about it, the more I think you need to take the fight to Boise whether or not you recruit people from other Idaho resort towns, which would be helpful but probably not worth the time. Forge ahead on your own and let them come to you, which they will if you get enough traction and momentum in the press. Much of this is about swaying public opinion statewide. I believe enough people will understand and and at least listen to your argument that the laws related to short-term rentals in Idaho are far too restrictive with respect to resort towns.
Perry seems to think that Bradshaw has created a tacit understanding with other councils, a kind of cabal of power brokers who are pro big development solutions and growth. I doubt it. Neil isn’t devious in that way nor is he intelligent enough. He’s got a short-term mindset with blind spots of which he is unaware not unlike all of us, except he’s a mayor of a small town at the moment so he can do a lot of damage. And he has succeeded because of the state’s laws and market forces. He's a very small a cog in a larger framework of thinking. At the moment it’s Neil (1), Perry (0) when it comes to measuring what is happening on the ground.
Perry thinks a lawsuit at the state level is a fool’s errand? I’m not so sure. Even if you lose you would have brought the issue into focus, and quite possibly at the national level if you handled it well. The $100,000 or whatever it might cost would be well spent for that reason alone. The money is there. Ketchum may not be Aspen but it's not McCall, either, when it comes to available capital. There’s also the requisite intellectual capital in that town with some very articulate and progressive thinkers that often keep a too low a profile, imo. Why? Maybe they don't want to get shot (or audited), who knows. Repression comes in many forms.
Don’t underestimate yourselves or your chances of prevailing in court. You need to make life a little difficult for Brad Little and his merry band of self-satisfied, cocksure, pin-headed, patriarchal, ideologically-driven whiteboys.
The impact of short-term rentals on resort towns in Idaho (and nationally) is disproportionately severe. A town the size of Boise has more capacity greater socioeconomic elasticity. Its economy is more diverse, the tax base is broader, the population has a wider distribution of skill-sets and opportunities, and the decision-making processes that result in development involve more people. It’s a little harder for one little guy with an MBA and some relatively low-level experience at Goldman Sachs to have his way unilaterally, even if he might be well-meaning in his own mind. Neal is a good person but his blind spots (we all have them) matter at the moment because he happens to be the mayor.
In Idaho, the residents of resort towns lack the ability to control their own destiny. The word “destiny” is nebulous but it shows up as quality of daily life. It's somatically felt and objectively measured more severely in small resort towns than in larger, more diversified economies. The erosion of social cohesiveness, greater polarization and general social tension is clearly a national problem. Putin and Xi love this kind of card play and Dorito Boy has leveraged it into a second term. With a nod to Neal Stephenson, "Smooth move, Ex-Lax". Ketchum is very much caught up in this game.
The inequality of wealth is a major driver as is tax policy and increasingly, and so is climate change. Small towns dependent on tourism (and snow) are especially vulnerable. Their economies are more brittle. Idaho state laws unfairly and unjustly hobble the ability of resort towns to manage short-term rentals in a way that is commensurate with the broader needs of their social, financial and environmental interests. This is the kind of issue that could go to the Idaho Supreme Court if it's managed well. It's also relevant nationally and it's an issue the NY Times and the Washington Post would potentially track. Stir up the hornets nest.
It’s obvious to most people who have lived in Ketchum for a while that the quality of life has deteriorated. Recalling Bradshaw is not the answer. Your chances are better if you take the fight to Boise and start from the top down. It seems to me that the damage being done is severe enough to warrant the effort. And if you think the next mayor will be able to chart a new path and solve your housing and parking problems, I’ve got a good deal on a bridge I can sell you. Elevate your game, good people.
OK, Perry, now you can call me a lamebrain if you want. Have at it man, I've said my piece.
Perry, as a follow-up to my previous comments, it won't be difficult to construct legal arguments for filing a case based on three broad categories: financial, social, infrastructural. Remember, what you call the Troika is largely a function of supply-side economic thinking. The people who are making these decisions are the merely tools of a much larger systematic way of thinking about public policy. The problem is, they are largely unaware of this fact because none of them are old enough to have lived in a era (pre-Reagan in 1984) where a different ethos was in play with respect to how the public and private sectors were taxed.
I've said it to you before: Trickle-down economics is one of the most cynical concepts (and bitterly ironic names) ever foisted on people in the history of how socioeconomic engineering. Fifty years on, it has become encoded in the nation's DNA but it didn't have to be this way.
You're swimming upstream in a state like Idaho, especially with pin-headed ideologues like Raúl Labrador and Brad Little at the controls, but that doesn't necessarily mean a consortium of resort towns filing suit wouldn't prevail in court.
Public opinion is your friend and it will drive your efforts forward. You need more communities, more people and more money. Keep your powder dry, build momentum systematically and don't let them wear you out. Be professional rather than hysterical. Call in the reinforcements lest you go down in flames. Go for the jugular with a strategy, not a series of febrile rant sessions.
You really need to get better informed. The mayor already rounded up the resort cities into a lobbying group that he controls—so nothing is going to happen there. I have spent an outrageous amount of money on legal fees challenging this stuff. If you paid attention to the last elections, the legislature got even more Ketchum unfriendly. As for the Troika being supply sides, you could not be more off base. They are socialist redistributionists.
Perry, this problem is very much market-driven and it's framed by tax policies that do not contribute to the greater good. It's got nothing to do with "redistributive socialism", whatever that means in a right-wing white-boy state like Idaho. It's about mechanics, and only in an intellectual sense is it about -isms. Fyi, you don't get to call me out because I'm not living in Ketchum at the moment. I lived in that little town from 2003 to 2017 and I stay informed. No, I don't go to the Council meetings like you so I don't get as frothed up. I take a very different approach with the work I'm doing to contribute to the progressive way of thinking in specific, targeted areas with specific people in the press. Nobody is accountable to your standards, Perry. Remember, you're just one little meathead floundering along, like all the rest of us and that matters because it means you can enlist the support of people without worrying about your reputation.
Labels aside, Bradshaw may think he controls this "lobbying group", but that doesn't mean there aren't people in local government positions and and residents who think otherwise. No, I think you lack a sense of perspective and of agency, ironically. Also, I beg to differ: this has nothing to do with socialism, if it did the developer of Bluebird would not have been a prime mover and sole beneficiary of that project. You sound like you're prone to taking things personally.
Yeah, I know "the legislature got even more unfriendly" in the last election. That's obvious. What's not so obvious is the potential for forming a collective of people in multiple municipalities that think along the same lines as you. Would it be easy" No, the mechanics of doing that are challenging but it could be done. As I said, you are swimming upstream in the state of Idaho. Nonetheless, the voice you need are out there and so is the money, IF you can calm down a little and take a slightly different tack. At the moment, you are not exactly a steady hand on the tiller and you're not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed.
Andrew, I don't know you. And I don't know Perry. But I do follow this blog, and he is a highly dedicated person. Perry has put forth a TREMENDOUS amount of effort following and challenging the city council. We've got to stay unified in our efforts. The stakes are high.
Hi Annie, Perry is a very good person who obviously feels very strongly about the ways the quality of life in Ketchum is deteriorating. He's good at what he does but that doesn't mean he has all the answers.
If you think electing Spencer or Tripp as mayor would change the trajectory of Ketchum's demise in any significant way, think again. It won't, there's too much momentum and it's systemic. That's the main problem.
There is a formal definition of what is a "resort town" in Idaho and a consortium needs to formed with more people than just Perry leading the charge. Perry has an accountant's mindset more than a strategist's. It's a necessary skill. but it's NOT sufficient. All credit to him for speaking up though. It's a good effort and he's good at what he does.
With a suit filed, the next Bluebird project could quite possibly be put on hold while the lawsuit progresses. Plus, if skillfully handled, the effort could generate news on a larger scale. This is necessary, imo. The "powers" that be in Boise are far too entrenched.
I'm not saying it would be easy to get people in other resort towns organized but Airbnb is everywhere. The state laws that prevent resort towns from controlling short-term rentals need to be changed. Until that happens, there isn't a mayor in the state, present or future, who will succeed in any significant way.
Annie, as a quick follow-up, it's significant that there are now 838 people signed on to Perry's Substack account. He needs 10,000 people, enough money, collective will ans skill-sets to take the fight to Boise. Make the national news. Bradshaw as his crew are a symptom of a way of thinking made possible by tax policies and a laissez-faire approach to shaping how government's responsibilities to protect the environment are applied. Bradshaw doesn't have as much control over the other resort towns in Idaho as Perry thinks he does. He just a small-town mayor with an MBA from a second-rate business school and some experience with Goldman Sachs. Would a lawsuit succeed? The odds would not be good but the issue would be raised on a broader public stage than the the microcosm of the WRV and you might be surprised: Airbnb has done enough damage -- with COVID-19 being one of the catalysts, the inequality of wealth being another -- and tax policy at the state level makes amplifies it, that there might be some progress. Short-term rentals need to be regulated and taxed. A significant amount of that tax (i.e. all of it) needs to be used by the resort towns to help solve the lack of housing in each resort town that is being disproportionately affected. Electing a new mayor is not the answer.
Andrew: I see your point. My question is WHO is going to take this on? It’s a monumental task
Who, that you know, would do this? Are you interested in leading the charge? If so, I'd do my best to support. But I am a teacher and parent and have almost zero spare time.
I’m all for exploring all the options but they have to be workable and approachable, and within the grasp of local people, many of whom also have jobs and families and other daily obligations.
The whole situation is so beyond maddening-- Beyond frustrating, aggravating and painful to watch each new bad idea unfold. And at such breakneck speed. The town is unrecognizable. I saw an online photo of Ketchum the other day, and honestly didn't know where it was. With the Limelight Hotel on its horizon, and all the other big boxy buildings, I thought it was some shitty town in Colorado.
Bradshaw, Breen + Hamilton really do need to go. At each council meeting, I watch them repeatedly just totally steamroll over the people of Ketchum. They are awful.
Hey Annie, thanks. I couldn't agree more. It's pretty damn tragic and I understand why Perry is so angry. It's a rational emotion in this context.
You're right, taking the fight to Boise would be a massive effort and a very expensive one. Somehow, Perry and his crew have to develop a set of legal arguments that have enough weight and substance to get traction at the state level. It's not going to start at Ketchum's City Hall with the next small town mayor. Sooner or later, the WRV will look like a another cookie-cutter American suburbia of haves and have-nots...it already does if you compare it with what it was like as recently as the 1990's when I first started spending time in that town.
Factor in climate change and sooner or later it's going to stop snowing in Idaho and the valley's way of life will collapse like a dying star. It's not that far away. That's one reason I think Perry needs to be very bold, find people with resources (both intellectual and monetary) and take the fight to a higher level. It's not really about The Troika. The Council is a symptom not a cause.
I'm thousands of kilometers from the US now and probably won't ever return but that doesn't mean I couldn't help...and I would, and could, probably most effectively by helping to review and edit the materials to be presented in court.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Perry but I don't want to see him get worn out tilting at windmills like Don Quixote, not that he is, exactly, but at the moment he's not being very effective when you look at what's happening on the ground. They don't care what he thinks at City Hall. Change needs to come from higher up the food chain and that's the Idaho State Capitol.
Annie, it occurs to me that one of the good effects of Perry's Substack efforts is this: He has tilled the ground for debate and he has taken a reading. This issues of housing and good governance have some traction and there are at least some people who sympathize with his cause. The number 838 is not nothing...and there enough people with the monetary resources and skill-set in Ketchum to bring a suit forward. Why can't Ketchum do what Canmore, BC, or Barcelona, or Mykonos, or Lisbon, doing to control the metastasis of short-term rentals? It's partly because a bunch of patriarchal white-boy right-wingers in Boise have bought into the idea that government needs to out of interfering with the rights implicit in a free-market economy.
Yet, they have no problem spouting off about government control of abortion based on some childish, abstract notion of morality derived from a religiously-grounded belief in the sanctity of all life. Meanwhile, the planet is burning up. Hypocrisy comes in many forms and we're all complicit to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how granular and detailed you want to get with your enquiry. Nonetheless, The Troika is an example of a few people who think they know what's best for the rest of Ketchum ride rough-shod over the people they are meant to protect and serve. Will a new mayor and a few new council members help stem the tide. Maybe but probably not in the long-term (that being about 15 years in this case), and in 25 years, climate is going to tip the scales and everyone will be asking "how could this possibly happen to us". No, I personally think it's better to start at t he top and work down. File a suit, get a stay on the construction of the next Bluebird. The destructive effect of each new Bluebird will be logarithmically more severe.
There needs to be a Vacancy Tax, an LLC requirement, standardized insurance requirements and a registry of all short-term rentals that forms the basis for reasonable taxes. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Airbnb is laughing (globally) all the way to the bank and in Idaho, it's because Brad Little and his boys drank too much American free-market-flavored Kool-Aid.
Perry, I have to say that this vituperative approach you're taking is pretty much failing, miserably. I said this in an earlier comment: You can't fight City Hall. That might be an anachronism from the old Tammany Hall days but it still holds, especially in this case. You really are risking looking like Cervantes' Don Quixote with this approach. You will most likely fail.
You'd be better off forming a consortium with every other resort town in Idaho that's suffering from the virus-like invasion of poorly regulated and anomalously taxed Airbnb's.
Running a short-term rental property is a business venture that needs to be a registered as an LLC and that's taxed/regulated accordingly. Get a larger effort going with multiple towns and file a broad class-action type lawsuit. Construct your arguments and present them publicly against the State of Idaho.
At the moment, all the energy your putting into this effort is starting to resemble a tempest in a teapot, with you on full boil.
If you lived in Idaho, you would understand that none of your suggestions are feasible (or legal). You are 100% right that you can’t fight City Hall. Elections matter. We need better candidates who care about the community to run.
The way to fight this City Council is to initiate a recall petition. It's that simple. These people need to be confronted with substantial and unambiguous petitions that clearly demonstrate that their actions do not reflect the communities desires.
Many of us prefer his approach, adding a recall, than the approach you suggest. Do you even understand the issue? As I understand it, you don't even live in the state, not to mention the WRV - the stakeholders in Ketchum. As you belittle a Red state, be advised that Ketchum and the area is quite Blue... You sound like an attorney seeking an engagement....
One suggestion would be to first get a meeting of interested parties and explain the process (which many are familiar with as one was initiated not so long ago), have a local (supportive) lawyer present to discuss alternatives and outline the steps to be taken. It just might take a lawsuit on this current Council action to stem the tide until a recall can be completed. Perry would know who should attend to get this started. Since nothing like this has been started, I suspect that the community actually supports this City Council....
I am a member of that "Old School Ketchum" group on Facebook, which is pretty great by the way, to see all the historical photos and hear peoples' stories. The group has 7,000+ members/followers.
I doubt many of the 'nostalgic' people in that group are happy with what's happened to Ketchum. I see lots of people commenting on how sad it all is.
I'm not versed in this lawsuit process. Who pays for the lawyer? How does that work?
Sign me up. Happy to help (in my small/limited way)
Annie, thanks for your support! I don’t do FB, but feel free to share this blog with your group when it comes out. I think KBAC is the logical group to sue KURA and the City as they have been demonstrably harmed. KURA is particularly vulnerable as they are IMO violating their statutory mandate.
I’m getting a lot of inbound about a recall. I all for it. But you need a leader and a well thought out plan lest you do. A lot of work for little change in outcome. The fisrt step is to find someone who has the time to step up for the Mayor seat and who will recruit a couple of people for the council who will represent the interests of the residents. If they had any cojones, it would be Spencer or Tripp. They have been totally shut out by the Troika so are irrelevant on the council. They have achieved nothing of significance and can achieve nothing while the troika is there. But neither seem to have the leadership ability to take the reins.
Curious - Have Spencer or Tripp ever expressed interest? Or has anyone asked them?
They seem to offer little resistance to the Troika. Hence, they, too, are part of the problem...
Yes I had hopes for them at first, but I've watched them buckle under the pressure a few times. Or get mesmerized.... I don't know.
If not, I'll email them.
The public needs to get vocal. I hear it all day long at the shop that nobody wants this to be built in this location. I asked people to sign, they did. Now I am asking folks to actually speak out loud to their elected officials.
The council completely disrespected us business owners and our customers. They disrespected the people - you.
KBAC did ask the city to sharpen their pencils on the First and Washington Ave project. And the city staff did. They took the time to find parking options.
Option 6 is 'spend-y' but the only way to plan ahead for our future parking needs. We appreciate their efforts (maybe we didn't say so in the meeting and their feelings were hurt) but at the end of the day, it did not seem to matter.
Neil actually looked at us and said; "We don't care what the business community wants or thinks, we are going to do this thing anyway. Even though we know P&Z will shoot down the first renderings of the building."
The city does not want us on any of their panels and boards. - We have asked over the last six months.
The city does not want citizens participating in their plans. - We have asked.
They do not want anyone's agendas but their own prefixed agenda.
The city folks do not run small businesses, they get paid by us!
Just FYI the LID tax will only happen if we build subterranean parking on the lot. It would be part of the funding package and keep the parking free to the public.
This is not a democracy anymore...
My ass is sore from bending over.
Speaking up won’t work. That meeting proved it. You did more than anyone else has ever done and they gave you the shaft. Only a recall will have any impact and it has to be for all three of the troika. Can someone at KBAC lead the charge?
I don't disagree with you Perry. We are changing our strategy.
All the complaining has had little impact. We should either start a meaningful recall effort now or stop complaining!
This starts now with signing up volunteers and tasks. Meet in person via different shifts and bring friends that are registered voters and feel the same way. We started a recall a few years ago and got signatures in public places. This did not work well. We do have a list of who signed
I am a commercial owner in the LI2 zoning but am also a resident in Elkhorn Parking is a major concern for me and all of downtown Ketchum businesses. It is impossible even with this parking area still available, to find parking anywhere during the daytime.
My suggestion is to keep all the open parking on GROUND level (not underground) area for public use and build the 4 Story building with necessary columns to support 4 Stories on top of the GROUND LEVEL parking. The parking will be open meaning NOT enclosed. Charge hourly so money is collected by public use. And reserve x amount of parking for the residents.
Why hasn’t this option been presented and if it has, what is estimated cost to build over (on top of / above) the open ground level parking area? Surely far less than digging 2 levels underground!
Hi Mary-KBAC is hosting a meeting for businesses, property owners, and the community on Tuesday, Dec. 3rd at 4:3pm at The Argyros to discuss the funding model for parking option #6 at the Washington St. All 6 options can be seen here: https://mccmeetingspublic.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ketchid-meet-db53063204c247898f866d120ed7e9fa/ITEM-Attachment-001-5859daf93e5c477dbf673be4bd5bfa05.pdf
We hope you'll be able to attend our meeting! Thank you.
Breen is a liar …
https://www.mtexpress.com/news/ketchum/breen-wants-city-to-readdress-paid-parking-issue/article_03cf9404-f00b-11e7-b360-2719f1ce21a0.html
Yes she is. As is Bradshaw. As is Hamilton. They lie to get what they want, rather than be honest with the public. Because they have the controlling votes they are unaccountable for their lies.
While I do believe public transportation should be encouraged my limiting parking, it is crazy NOT to provide adequate parking for planned residential projects.
It is also sad to see such generic modern architecture with little volumetric expression .
If this kind of aesthetic continues to be built , the Ketchum in Ketchum is going to be lost. Soon, the downtown will like any other redeveloped downtown.
To Andrew Fitzgerald: I support all you're talking about in terms of getting to the state level. I'd absolutely love it if short term rentals were regulated. (It happened recently in a tiny town where I grew up, thanks to the organization of the locals. The S.T.R's were wrecking the real estate and rental market.) I love the idea of the vacancy tax. I also would love to see square footage limitations on mega-monster homes that sit empty. I LOVED it when Tripp Hutchinson proposed the 12-month emergency ordinance to stop construction downtown to "address residents' concerns + evaluate future development". Sadly, he and Spencer were outvoted.
The entire economy of the town is lopsided and bizarre, and I don't know what the answer is. A LOT needs to happen. I think it's important to go for what's 'within reach'. It seems that City Council, if you have enough smart people on it, can indeed effect meaningful change.
I've watched them repeatedly vote to enact projects with devastating consequences. ( i.e. the main street 'modernization project' --- I believe Tripp opposed? )
Had a 3rd person with a brain been on the council for the last few years, most of these insane projects would have stopped right then and there. So there IS power in the council !
Perry, you can all me a lamebrain for saying this, Perry, but if you think a recall of the mayor would be effective, forget about it. It would be nothing but a waste of time. So what if you get Bradshaw kicked to the curb. Then what? You don’t have someone specific in mind to replace him and there’s no way he’s going to get re-elected in any case. The same goes for someone like Amanda Breen. She’s done.
The more I think about it, the more I think you need to take the fight to Boise whether or not you recruit people from other Idaho resort towns, which would be helpful but probably not worth the time. Forge ahead on your own and let them come to you, which they will if you get enough traction and momentum in the press. Much of this is about swaying public opinion statewide. I believe enough people will understand and and at least listen to your argument that the laws related to short-term rentals in Idaho are far too restrictive with respect to resort towns.
Perry seems to think that Bradshaw has created a tacit understanding with other councils, a kind of cabal of power brokers who are pro big development solutions and growth. I doubt it. Neil isn’t devious in that way nor is he intelligent enough. He’s got a short-term mindset with blind spots of which he is unaware not unlike all of us, except he’s a mayor of a small town at the moment so he can do a lot of damage. And he has succeeded because of the state’s laws and market forces. He's a very small a cog in a larger framework of thinking. At the moment it’s Neil (1), Perry (0) when it comes to measuring what is happening on the ground.
Perry thinks a lawsuit at the state level is a fool’s errand? I’m not so sure. Even if you lose you would have brought the issue into focus, and quite possibly at the national level if you handled it well. The $100,000 or whatever it might cost would be well spent for that reason alone. The money is there. Ketchum may not be Aspen but it's not McCall, either, when it comes to available capital. There’s also the requisite intellectual capital in that town with some very articulate and progressive thinkers that often keep a too low a profile, imo. Why? Maybe they don't want to get shot (or audited), who knows. Repression comes in many forms.
Don’t underestimate yourselves or your chances of prevailing in court. You need to make life a little difficult for Brad Little and his merry band of self-satisfied, cocksure, pin-headed, patriarchal, ideologically-driven whiteboys.
The impact of short-term rentals on resort towns in Idaho (and nationally) is disproportionately severe. A town the size of Boise has more capacity greater socioeconomic elasticity. Its economy is more diverse, the tax base is broader, the population has a wider distribution of skill-sets and opportunities, and the decision-making processes that result in development involve more people. It’s a little harder for one little guy with an MBA and some relatively low-level experience at Goldman Sachs to have his way unilaterally, even if he might be well-meaning in his own mind. Neal is a good person but his blind spots (we all have them) matter at the moment because he happens to be the mayor.
In Idaho, the residents of resort towns lack the ability to control their own destiny. The word “destiny” is nebulous but it shows up as quality of daily life. It's somatically felt and objectively measured more severely in small resort towns than in larger, more diversified economies. The erosion of social cohesiveness, greater polarization and general social tension is clearly a national problem. Putin and Xi love this kind of card play and Dorito Boy has leveraged it into a second term. With a nod to Neal Stephenson, "Smooth move, Ex-Lax". Ketchum is very much caught up in this game.
The inequality of wealth is a major driver as is tax policy and increasingly, and so is climate change. Small towns dependent on tourism (and snow) are especially vulnerable. Their economies are more brittle. Idaho state laws unfairly and unjustly hobble the ability of resort towns to manage short-term rentals in a way that is commensurate with the broader needs of their social, financial and environmental interests. This is the kind of issue that could go to the Idaho Supreme Court if it's managed well. It's also relevant nationally and it's an issue the NY Times and the Washington Post would potentially track. Stir up the hornets nest.
It’s obvious to most people who have lived in Ketchum for a while that the quality of life has deteriorated. Recalling Bradshaw is not the answer. Your chances are better if you take the fight to Boise and start from the top down. It seems to me that the damage being done is severe enough to warrant the effort. And if you think the next mayor will be able to chart a new path and solve your housing and parking problems, I’ve got a good deal on a bridge I can sell you. Elevate your game, good people.
OK, Perry, now you can call me a lamebrain if you want. Have at it man, I've said my piece.
Perry you've got to take it to the street!!
Perry, as a follow-up to my previous comments, it won't be difficult to construct legal arguments for filing a case based on three broad categories: financial, social, infrastructural. Remember, what you call the Troika is largely a function of supply-side economic thinking. The people who are making these decisions are the merely tools of a much larger systematic way of thinking about public policy. The problem is, they are largely unaware of this fact because none of them are old enough to have lived in a era (pre-Reagan in 1984) where a different ethos was in play with respect to how the public and private sectors were taxed.
I've said it to you before: Trickle-down economics is one of the most cynical concepts (and bitterly ironic names) ever foisted on people in the history of how socioeconomic engineering. Fifty years on, it has become encoded in the nation's DNA but it didn't have to be this way.
You're swimming upstream in a state like Idaho, especially with pin-headed ideologues like Raúl Labrador and Brad Little at the controls, but that doesn't necessarily mean a consortium of resort towns filing suit wouldn't prevail in court.
Public opinion is your friend and it will drive your efforts forward. You need more communities, more people and more money. Keep your powder dry, build momentum systematically and don't let them wear you out. Be professional rather than hysterical. Call in the reinforcements lest you go down in flames. Go for the jugular with a strategy, not a series of febrile rant sessions.
You really need to get better informed. The mayor already rounded up the resort cities into a lobbying group that he controls—so nothing is going to happen there. I have spent an outrageous amount of money on legal fees challenging this stuff. If you paid attention to the last elections, the legislature got even more Ketchum unfriendly. As for the Troika being supply sides, you could not be more off base. They are socialist redistributionists.
Perry, this problem is very much market-driven and it's framed by tax policies that do not contribute to the greater good. It's got nothing to do with "redistributive socialism", whatever that means in a right-wing white-boy state like Idaho. It's about mechanics, and only in an intellectual sense is it about -isms. Fyi, you don't get to call me out because I'm not living in Ketchum at the moment. I lived in that little town from 2003 to 2017 and I stay informed. No, I don't go to the Council meetings like you so I don't get as frothed up. I take a very different approach with the work I'm doing to contribute to the progressive way of thinking in specific, targeted areas with specific people in the press. Nobody is accountable to your standards, Perry. Remember, you're just one little meathead floundering along, like all the rest of us and that matters because it means you can enlist the support of people without worrying about your reputation.
Perry, exactly!
Labels aside, Bradshaw may think he controls this "lobbying group", but that doesn't mean there aren't people in local government positions and and residents who think otherwise. No, I think you lack a sense of perspective and of agency, ironically. Also, I beg to differ: this has nothing to do with socialism, if it did the developer of Bluebird would not have been a prime mover and sole beneficiary of that project. You sound like you're prone to taking things personally.
Yeah, I know "the legislature got even more unfriendly" in the last election. That's obvious. What's not so obvious is the potential for forming a collective of people in multiple municipalities that think along the same lines as you. Would it be easy" No, the mechanics of doing that are challenging but it could be done. As I said, you are swimming upstream in the state of Idaho. Nonetheless, the voice you need are out there and so is the money, IF you can calm down a little and take a slightly different tack. At the moment, you are not exactly a steady hand on the tiller and you're not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed.
Andrew, I don't know you. And I don't know Perry. But I do follow this blog, and he is a highly dedicated person. Perry has put forth a TREMENDOUS amount of effort following and challenging the city council. We've got to stay unified in our efforts. The stakes are high.
Hi Annie, Perry is a very good person who obviously feels very strongly about the ways the quality of life in Ketchum is deteriorating. He's good at what he does but that doesn't mean he has all the answers.
If you think electing Spencer or Tripp as mayor would change the trajectory of Ketchum's demise in any significant way, think again. It won't, there's too much momentum and it's systemic. That's the main problem.
There is a formal definition of what is a "resort town" in Idaho and a consortium needs to formed with more people than just Perry leading the charge. Perry has an accountant's mindset more than a strategist's. It's a necessary skill. but it's NOT sufficient. All credit to him for speaking up though. It's a good effort and he's good at what he does.
With a suit filed, the next Bluebird project could quite possibly be put on hold while the lawsuit progresses. Plus, if skillfully handled, the effort could generate news on a larger scale. This is necessary, imo. The "powers" that be in Boise are far too entrenched.
I'm not saying it would be easy to get people in other resort towns organized but Airbnb is everywhere. The state laws that prevent resort towns from controlling short-term rentals need to be changed. Until that happens, there isn't a mayor in the state, present or future, who will succeed in any significant way.
Annie, as a quick follow-up, it's significant that there are now 838 people signed on to Perry's Substack account. He needs 10,000 people, enough money, collective will ans skill-sets to take the fight to Boise. Make the national news. Bradshaw as his crew are a symptom of a way of thinking made possible by tax policies and a laissez-faire approach to shaping how government's responsibilities to protect the environment are applied. Bradshaw doesn't have as much control over the other resort towns in Idaho as Perry thinks he does. He just a small-town mayor with an MBA from a second-rate business school and some experience with Goldman Sachs. Would a lawsuit succeed? The odds would not be good but the issue would be raised on a broader public stage than the the microcosm of the WRV and you might be surprised: Airbnb has done enough damage -- with COVID-19 being one of the catalysts, the inequality of wealth being another -- and tax policy at the state level makes amplifies it, that there might be some progress. Short-term rentals need to be regulated and taxed. A significant amount of that tax (i.e. all of it) needs to be used by the resort towns to help solve the lack of housing in each resort town that is being disproportionately affected. Electing a new mayor is not the answer.
Andrew: I see your point. My question is WHO is going to take this on? It’s a monumental task
Who, that you know, would do this? Are you interested in leading the charge? If so, I'd do my best to support. But I am a teacher and parent and have almost zero spare time.
I’m all for exploring all the options but they have to be workable and approachable, and within the grasp of local people, many of whom also have jobs and families and other daily obligations.
The whole situation is so beyond maddening-- Beyond frustrating, aggravating and painful to watch each new bad idea unfold. And at such breakneck speed. The town is unrecognizable. I saw an online photo of Ketchum the other day, and honestly didn't know where it was. With the Limelight Hotel on its horizon, and all the other big boxy buildings, I thought it was some shitty town in Colorado.
Bradshaw, Breen + Hamilton really do need to go. At each council meeting, I watch them repeatedly just totally steamroll over the people of Ketchum. They are awful.
Anyone (with GUTS) would be better than them.
Hey Annie, thanks. I couldn't agree more. It's pretty damn tragic and I understand why Perry is so angry. It's a rational emotion in this context.
You're right, taking the fight to Boise would be a massive effort and a very expensive one. Somehow, Perry and his crew have to develop a set of legal arguments that have enough weight and substance to get traction at the state level. It's not going to start at Ketchum's City Hall with the next small town mayor. Sooner or later, the WRV will look like a another cookie-cutter American suburbia of haves and have-nots...it already does if you compare it with what it was like as recently as the 1990's when I first started spending time in that town.
Factor in climate change and sooner or later it's going to stop snowing in Idaho and the valley's way of life will collapse like a dying star. It's not that far away. That's one reason I think Perry needs to be very bold, find people with resources (both intellectual and monetary) and take the fight to a higher level. It's not really about The Troika. The Council is a symptom not a cause.
I'm thousands of kilometers from the US now and probably won't ever return but that doesn't mean I couldn't help...and I would, and could, probably most effectively by helping to review and edit the materials to be presented in court.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Perry but I don't want to see him get worn out tilting at windmills like Don Quixote, not that he is, exactly, but at the moment he's not being very effective when you look at what's happening on the ground. They don't care what he thinks at City Hall. Change needs to come from higher up the food chain and that's the Idaho State Capitol.
Annie, it occurs to me that one of the good effects of Perry's Substack efforts is this: He has tilled the ground for debate and he has taken a reading. This issues of housing and good governance have some traction and there are at least some people who sympathize with his cause. The number 838 is not nothing...and there enough people with the monetary resources and skill-set in Ketchum to bring a suit forward. Why can't Ketchum do what Canmore, BC, or Barcelona, or Mykonos, or Lisbon, doing to control the metastasis of short-term rentals? It's partly because a bunch of patriarchal white-boy right-wingers in Boise have bought into the idea that government needs to out of interfering with the rights implicit in a free-market economy.
Yet, they have no problem spouting off about government control of abortion based on some childish, abstract notion of morality derived from a religiously-grounded belief in the sanctity of all life. Meanwhile, the planet is burning up. Hypocrisy comes in many forms and we're all complicit to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how granular and detailed you want to get with your enquiry. Nonetheless, The Troika is an example of a few people who think they know what's best for the rest of Ketchum ride rough-shod over the people they are meant to protect and serve. Will a new mayor and a few new council members help stem the tide. Maybe but probably not in the long-term (that being about 15 years in this case), and in 25 years, climate is going to tip the scales and everyone will be asking "how could this possibly happen to us". No, I personally think it's better to start at t he top and work down. File a suit, get a stay on the construction of the next Bluebird. The destructive effect of each new Bluebird will be logarithmically more severe.
There needs to be a Vacancy Tax, an LLC requirement, standardized insurance requirements and a registry of all short-term rentals that forms the basis for reasonable taxes. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Airbnb is laughing (globally) all the way to the bank and in Idaho, it's because Brad Little and his boys drank too much American free-market-flavored Kool-Aid.
...*that government needs to stay out of interfering*...
...* think they know what's best for the rest of Ketchum riding rough-shod*...
Perry, I have to say that this vituperative approach you're taking is pretty much failing, miserably. I said this in an earlier comment: You can't fight City Hall. That might be an anachronism from the old Tammany Hall days but it still holds, especially in this case. You really are risking looking like Cervantes' Don Quixote with this approach. You will most likely fail.
You'd be better off forming a consortium with every other resort town in Idaho that's suffering from the virus-like invasion of poorly regulated and anomalously taxed Airbnb's.
Running a short-term rental property is a business venture that needs to be a registered as an LLC and that's taxed/regulated accordingly. Get a larger effort going with multiple towns and file a broad class-action type lawsuit. Construct your arguments and present them publicly against the State of Idaho.
At the moment, all the energy your putting into this effort is starting to resemble a tempest in a teapot, with you on full boil.
Look at the subscriber base growth. The teapot is getting bigger.
If you lived in Idaho, you would understand that none of your suggestions are feasible (or legal). You are 100% right that you can’t fight City Hall. Elections matter. We need better candidates who care about the community to run.
The way to fight this City Council is to initiate a recall petition. It's that simple. These people need to be confronted with substantial and unambiguous petitions that clearly demonstrate that their actions do not reflect the communities desires.
Many of us prefer his approach, adding a recall, than the approach you suggest. Do you even understand the issue? As I understand it, you don't even live in the state, not to mention the WRV - the stakeholders in Ketchum. As you belittle a Red state, be advised that Ketchum and the area is quite Blue... You sound like an attorney seeking an engagement....
Sometimes it's better to do an end-run around your opponent. Think in terms of first principles.
Absolutely horrid. How do we initiate this meaningful recall effort? They are out of control and have been for a long time.
One suggestion would be to first get a meeting of interested parties and explain the process (which many are familiar with as one was initiated not so long ago), have a local (supportive) lawyer present to discuss alternatives and outline the steps to be taken. It just might take a lawsuit on this current Council action to stem the tide until a recall can be completed. Perry would know who should attend to get this started. Since nothing like this has been started, I suspect that the community actually supports this City Council....
I am a member of that "Old School Ketchum" group on Facebook, which is pretty great by the way, to see all the historical photos and hear peoples' stories. The group has 7,000+ members/followers.
I doubt many of the 'nostalgic' people in that group are happy with what's happened to Ketchum. I see lots of people commenting on how sad it all is.
I'm not versed in this lawsuit process. Who pays for the lawyer? How does that work?
Sign me up. Happy to help (in my small/limited way)
Annie, thanks for your support! I don’t do FB, but feel free to share this blog with your group when it comes out. I think KBAC is the logical group to sue KURA and the City as they have been demonstrably harmed. KURA is particularly vulnerable as they are IMO violating their statutory mandate.
Good point. How does one get in contact with the leaders of KBAC.
Hi Annie-please email us at ketchumbusinesscoalition@gmail.com.
And I thought Hailey was bad. Local governments have devised ways to exclude the public and victimize the public with endless tax increases.