V2N11: KURA and Ketchum Council Are Massively Raising Taxes
In a very very very slimy way that transfers locals' money to tourists
But First: I Need to Apologize to BCCF
In V2N6 I said that Ketchum provides money to BCCF to be spent outside of Ketchum. Mary Fauth, the Executive Director of BCCF, sent me this on 2/12. I share it with her approval.
Hi Perry,
It's come to my attention that you are stating that the funds the City of Ketchum provides us is all going out of the city. This is not at all true.
Of those that we served in 2024, 32% report working and/or living in Ketchum, and another 18% work valley wide. Since the 50K that the City of Ketchum gives for housing stability represents 15% of our housing stability expenditures in 2024, I can confidently say 100% of the City of Ketchum $$ are going to Ketchum workers or residents.
Also I know you keep saying a Bluebird unit went to a BCCF employee, but that is no longer accurate. One of our staff was offered a unit but declined so she can remain close to her child's elementary school and family in Hailey. However if she had taken the unit, given 50% of our work is serving Ketchum workers & residents, she would be a tenant serving Ketchum. .
I'd appreciate it if you stop mis-representing our organization in your writings and comments. Feel free to reach out to me in the future if you'd like more clarity.
Mary
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My misrepresentation was based on my misreading a Ketchum City Council meeting and materials created by BCHA.
I got this wrong. Thank you Mary for the facts.
Your Taxes are Going Up
The City of Ketchum wants to assure you that your property taxes will not increase from their density upzoning plan. They made a point about this at the last council meeting.
That is not true, and they know it is not true. It is a lie.
The LID (above) is just one part of their tax increase program. They don’t do it just by raising your city property tax—they also add entirely new taxes to your property.
In fact, they just got you to agree to a tax increase for 2026—you got a little postcard from the City about that in your mailbox in October. Did you know that is what you voted for? You thought you were voting for fire consolidation, didn’t you? Silly you.
Fire Consolidation is a HUGE Tax Increase—And a Huge Transfer of Wealth From Ketchum Locals To Tourists and Non-Residents.
If you voted for Fire Consolidation in the last referendum, you voted for a large property tax increase. You probably didn’t know that because they weren’t transparent about it in the referendum language. Here’s how it worked. The City of Ketchum provided fire services via the Ketchum Fire Department and charged you for those services in your property tax. But with the creation of a new Fire District, that new fire district will now tax you for fire services. That tax will appear as a new line on your annual property tax bill.
Will the City of Ketchum reduce your city property taxes for the loss of this funding obligation? Of course, they will…won’t.
This is a slimy property tax INCREASE.
The loss of the LOT to pay for Ketchum fire services is fiduciarily indefensible. One of the irrational rationales for fire consolidation was increased calls for fire. According to the union, a consolidated fire department will do a better job at responding.
Guess who drives that increase—tourists. The way the Ketchum Council has done fire consolidation, TOURISTS get service for free, PAID FOR BY LOCALS. Okay, not entirely by locals. All the AirBNB owners will also chip in a little via their property taxes. But the tourists will no longer pay for their burden on the first responder system via the LOT. Which was one of the rationales for the LOT.
The theme of Ketchum under Bradshaw has been to tax locals to subsidize tourists and the tourism industry. They found yet another slimy way to do it.
LOT Tax That Went to Fire Will Go To…What?
It may get worse. A lot of Ketchum’s LOT tax goes to the police and fire departments. Given that the new Fire District cannot charge LOT and that the City of Ketchum will no longer provide fire services, where will that LOT money that went to the KFD go? It’s almost $2mm a year. No one talked about that when they sold you fire consolidation, did they? I asked the City how they would spend this money. They haven’t decided yet. I think they have decided—more corporate welfare.
LID Tax on Every Inch of Land in Ketchum
But wait, there’s more! The City, is working on a new Local Improvement District (LID) property tax to pay for the parking structure on the Washington Lot in conjunction with KURA’s plan to put a housing project on that site (see ad above).
As proposed, the LID will tax every piece of property in Ketchum. They will even tax empty land that has no use for a parking structure. What will you do when that comes up for a vote? Oh. Wait. You can’t vote on that.
The Ketchum City Council is working on imposing a LID tax on you without a referendum.
You can register your interest in being taxed in a KURA survey (see the ad at the top and please answer the survey). The survey link is (intentionally?) pretty hard to identify on their website. It is the classic Ketchum City survey, which forces you to choose between options you don’t want so that they can say there was community support for the option they will choose regardless of what the community supports. Use the “other” choice to tell them what you think.
Why can’t they leave Washington Lot a parking lot, relocate the development to a better location, and end all this divisiveness?
And…I Think Upzoning WILL Increase Your Property Taxes…Here’s Why
If you live in an area of Ketchum that is zoned for light density and you get rezoned for medium or high density, the number of units on your property can increase from one to as many as 30. Upzoning, while a massive cost to the character of Ketchum, greatly increases the market value of the upzoned lots. (Your single-family residence will also become a non-conforming use of your own lot under the current proposal—see V2N10 for what that might mean).
Property in Blaine County is taxed based on its market value. If your value increases, your taxes will increase, regardless of whether you plan to develop your property.
I love to hear someone argue the opposite side of that.
This is How Aspenization Works
With all of these new taxes, Ketchum is starting to look like a town in Colorado or California. This might be fine if the Bradshaw Troika were transparent about the plan and taxes and let us vote on what they are doing, but that’s not how they work.
Here’s what their plan will do:
Replace middle-class locals with high revenue tourists and wealthy second home owners.
Tax everyone in non-transparent ways.
Invest the proceeds in corporate welfare housing projects for underpaid tourism industry workers who will never be able to escape public housing. They will all vote for the Mayor who buys their vote with their housing.
Push essential workers down the valley along with families.
Keep upzoning density to pack in more tourists.
Provide corporate welfare from taxpayers to grow the airport and to promote tourism growth.
Slimy, slimy, slimy.
More People Seem to Be Figuring this Out
Given the recent subscriber surge, I think people are waking up to what the Bradshaw regime is doing to Ketchum and are looking for an explanation. The surprise upzoning in the Comp Plan, which was never asked for by anyone in any public meeting, is a wake-up call of how the Troika operates.
Thank you for reading and commenting, and more importantly, for engaging with Ketchum's governance. Remember: We get the government we let them do to us.
Ketchum City Council looks more and more like the Los Angeles City Council.
In L.A., "LID" was called "EFID." Additional property taxes are imposed on a subset of property owners to secure bonds for (or otherwise fund) so-called "improvements" that directly or indirectly relate to disproportionately large affordable housing projects that are exempt from density limitations, parking requirements, traffic studies and such.
Perry's work is amazing -- and we are truly fortunate for his articulate voice and deep expertise -- but in my view, he is wrong in one fundamental respect:
This is not just about corporate-welfare recipients and "Aspenization."
It is also about NGOs and craven bureaucrats taking advantage the affordable housing fetish to manipulate clueless elected officials and commandeer municipal and county governments to reshape hapless communities from top to bottom according to their blueprint.
Ketchum is by far the worst, but expect Sun Valley, Hailey and Bellevue to follow suit in short order if something doesn't change soon.
My platform when I ran for Sun Valley City Council in 2023 was "Prevent Park City 2.0." The way things are going, "Park City" would be a good outcome ....
None of what you write about is a surprise. You might also add in the costs of infrastructure to support all of the new demands on existing supports. Roads are obvious, as is sewer capacity, and, of course, the limited water supply from the BWR supply.
The irony here is that the very people who do not support the Aspenization of Ketchum will soon be forced to pay for it! Think about that!