V2N40: Ketchum--A Mess That Will Get Messier on August 4th

Time to hit the reset button.

The Bradshaw administration has created a mess in Ketchum. The best possible outcome for the residents of Ketchum is for the City Council to do the bare minimum until a new Council is sworn in next January. While there is no guarantee that the next crew will be better than the current crew, it is hard to imagine them doing a worse job.

On August 4th, the Council is expected to approve the Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map (FLUM) following one of the most contentious planning processes in Ketchum’s history. They have almost no support for this FLUM, yet they will likely adopt it anyway. Why? Because they need to for their next step: turning the zoning code into a tool for developing more tourist condos and second homes.

Ketchum Has Been Hijacked

I will list their litany of disasters, but they all stem from a combination of bad vision, bad leadership, and bad process. The Mayor and city staff have hijacked the government to impose their vision of Ketchum, which is at odds with what is in the interests of the residents. We don’t want to live in Zermatt, Aspen, or Jackson. Closing the price per square foot in real estate values with those towns is not our collective goal. They are aware of this, so they operate with the legal minimum of public participation in government and stack city boards with individuals (sometimes who do not live or work in Ketchum) to drive this outcome.

The community goal is clear: it was the top priority of our 2014 Comprehensive Plan. Preserve the character of our small Western mountain town. One needs only look around to see that the Bradshaw administration has not only ignored that goal, but has actively conspired against it.

They Treat Us Like We Are the Problem

Which brings us to how they do it. In the least transparent way, with the illusion of transparency and inclusiveness. Bradshaw has run a master class in doing the legal minimum of public input, and his methods have infected other bodies such as BCHA, SVASB, VSV, FSVA, and any other organization with which he is associated. Take public meetings, for example. While public comment has been arbitrarily limited to three minutes, if he doesn’t like what a person is saying, he frequently interrupts or chides the speaker. This is a man who claims to be for transparency and wants public meetings to be safe spaces. Ignore what he says—watch what he does.

Is This a Legitimate Council?

The legitimacy of the Council is questionable. Yes, they were all elected, but perhaps under less than compelling pretences?

• The Mayor was returned to office after 65% of the town voted AGAINST him. We need to revise our election process to prevent such an outcome in the future.

• Ms. Breen has openly stated that she doesn’t care what people want, that the Council was elected, and they get to decide.

• Ms. Hamilton recently came close to tears when she realized that the community does not trust her. Because she cannot be trusted to represent their interests.

• Hutchinson’s ideological crime against the First Amendment renders him unfit for office. An honorable person would take accountability and resign.

• Mr. Cordovano advocates for raising his council pay by 2.5 times in a way that squeezes the raise in under a technical wire.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

One way to understand what they are up to is to ignore what they say and watch what they do. No administration has done more to “Aspenize” our town than this regime. Every action they take results in replacing low-revenue locals with higher-revenue tourists and second-home owners. To wit, a list of transgressions:

Hotelization of Ketchum

This crew stood aside while over 400 housing units for working people were converted into short-term tourist rentals (that is the number BCHA cites). They did nothing. They made it worse by authorizing more STRs under the guise of additional dwelling units. They claim they want to preserve housing for what the Mayor has called the “lifeblood” of Ketchum: teachers, first responders, and healthcare workers. Yet their actions displace those people. They recently bought a workforce housing building and evicted the workers living in it (located on 2nd Street).

Upzoning for Tourist Condos and Second Homes

And now we have the infamous Future Land Use Map (FLUM), which magically appeared halfway through the public comment period on the Comprehensive Plan, just before Christmas. It calls for a 60% increase in housing density in medium-density zones in residential neighborhoods near the Baldy bases. The Mayor claims this will make housing more affordable—he knows it will not, as almost every incremental unit of housing \will likely become a tourist condo or second home. The Planner has said so in multiple meetings. I call this the “Big Lie.” They try to force this down our throats by saying it’s not as bad as we think, while failing to address the FLUM’s expansion of high-density zones.

Loading up on Debt

No administration has put so much debt on the people of Ketchum. When Bradshaw came into office, Ketchum was eventually debt-free. By the time we are rid of him, municipal debt will be about $25mm.

Hijacking KURA for Housing Instead of Infrastructure

They hijacked KURA to turn it into a low-income housing developer. The Mayor stacked KURA with people to get the Washington lot turned into a housing project. This included two city council members (on what is supposed to be an independent agency) and at least one person who did not live or work in Ketchum. None of the KURA members represent business interests in the commercial core. The only thing that stopped the Washington project was the ultimate expense.

At their latest meeting, they decided to revive the development of the lot. They seem to want to commit to a housing project before the next Council takes control of KURA and the Washington lot. They are budgeting a multimillion-dollar contribution to the triple-size Bluebird the City wants to build at Lift Tower Lodge, part of which will be used as a dorm for Sun Valley Co. workers.

The City has used KURA as a piggy bank to keep certain expenses off the City’s budget. Meanwhile, according to the City, we should allocate $20 million for sidewalk repair and maintenance over the next decade.

Using Fire Consolidation to Raise Taxes Was SLIMEY

They used Fire Consolidation to raise taxes in one of the sleaziest maneuvers I have seen out of a city government. In a referendum that was borderline fraudulent (possibly actually fraudulent), the Ketchum Council promoted consolidation as a step toward countywide consolidation, in full knowledge that it isn’t happening, and has transferred all of Ketchum’s fire assets to the new fire district while retaining the liabilities, placing the sole burden on Ketchum taxpayers. Offloading the fire department may give the staff and Council more time to work on developing Ketchum, but it generates a significant tax increase for Ketchum residents, with no benefit. This is one of the most egregious examples of fiscal gross negligence I have seen from any municipality outside of San Francisco.

Using LOT for Air to Promote Tourism

They rejiggered LOT based on a lie. When the Council approved the referendum language to siphon half of the 1% LOT for Air to build more Bluebirds, they asserted the remaining 0.5% LOT for Air was to support air service into SUN. Less than 10% of the 0.5% LOT for Air goes to support air services. The most significant portion of it is allocated to purchasing Google ads to promote Ketchum as a tourist destination. The next most significant portion of it goes to Visit Sun Valley overhead.

Throwing Out the Zoning Code to Get a 6-Story Marriott

Despite 3,000 people signing a petition in opposition to the Marriott, the Troika of Bradshaw/Breen/Hamilton not only approved it, but they also overruled the zoning code provisions that were in place precisely to prevent such a building from coming to Ketchum. What did they get from the developer in exchange for all those zoning waivers? Nothing. Not one thing. Why not? Could it be that having a Marriott in Ketchum is consistent with their plan to turn Ketchum into one big hotel?

Promoting A Lie About Workforce Housing

They have built BCHA into a low-income housing machine that doesn’t address Ketchum’s workforce shortage challenge. The City merged its Housing Department into the Blaine County Housing Authority (BCHA) and has siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars of Ketchum taxes for use outside of Ketchum. The budget of BCHA, which is almost solely supported by Ketchum taxes, is slated to rise to nearly $1 million for staffing and consultants alone. Its housing efforts focus on building low-income complexes that incentivize the tourism industry to import workers at depressed wages, while prohibiting most teachers, first responders, healthcare workers, and city employees from living in these projects. They even advertised for homeless people from Twin Falls to move into Bluebird. We have a workforce housing challenge, yet BCHA is trying to solve the world’s housing challenges rather than Ketchum’s. Meanwhile, BCHA has upped its political advocacy activities and plans to compete with local non-profits in fundraising. No other WRV city is foolish enough to provide them with money. This self-licking ice cream cone should be allowed to melt.

Crumbling Infrastructure

They failed to maintain our infrastructure. We are fortunate to have a new City Treasurer. He has brought to light the gross negligence of the Bradshaw administration in failing to maintain our roads—a basic function of city government. The City’s solution to performing a primary function of government? Raise taxes! They did it in the slimiest of ways as part of outsourcing the fire department, but retaining half of the taxes that we used to spend on the fire department. We don’t need to raise taxes for roads if we defund BCHA.

They have destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of on-street parking, pushing us toward a need for a parking structure that will cost on the order of $15 million. Meanwhile, parking in the commercial core has been pushed out into our residential neighborhoods.

They have mismanaged the visitor center building and the Starbucks lease. During the Bradshaw administration, the City has performed minimal maintenance on the building, and a $500,000 restoration bill is now due. This highlights the fact that the City probably shouldn’t be in the landlord business at all. Why does it subsidize Visit Sun Valley by owning this building? Place a deed restriction on the historical building and sell it. Use the proceeds to repair roads and sidewalks.

Mismanaging the Water Treatment Facility

The Council committed to the single largest expenditure in Ketchum’s history with a whopping five minutes of discussion and no examination of alternatives. Based on my analysis, they are spending a premium to rebuild a 40-year-old plant that could have been replaced for less money on a smaller footprint with more functionality. That would have freed up land in an ideal spot for workforce housing. The City Administrator maintains that land will be needed for a future expansion of the water treatment facility. Right now, we are under drought restrictions. Yet the City wants to increase water usage for development. What??

Budgeting for Personal Objectives And Ignoring the Comp Plan

They hijacked the budget process to serve their personal interests. They don’t even attempt to hide it. They posted a slide with each council member’s budget priorities during the budget process. They even get the City to fund their personal favorite non-profits. They never presented a slide linking the budget to the Comp Plan priorities. This is terrible governance.

They failed to implement the principles of the 2014 Comprehensive Plan. They pretty much just ignored it. As the Mayor recently said, their priority is low-income housing, and he plans for every city-owned lot to be developed into a low-income housing project. Where is that in the Comp Plan? This is part of his plan to replace local workers with imported, low-wage tourism industry workers who are often trapped in public housing.

Demonizing Dissenters

Perhaps the most unforgivable of their many sins is that they have pursued a divisive approach to government, where they have demonized those who disagree with their program. One of the most common complaints from the public is that the City doesn’t listen.

Several neighborhoods have formed groups in opposition to the FLUM and threaten legal action. One resident is threatening a class-action lawsuit if the City adopts the fire district MOU, which would transfer Ketchum assets to the new fire district without the liabilities.

In Almost 8 Years, What Have They Accomplished?

Instead of running Ketchum for the interests of the citizenry, what have they accomplished?

• A massive explosion in tourism, subsidized by LOT taxes on locals. Per VSV’s survey, this has degraded the quality of life for residents.

• They allowed STRs to displace hundreds of working people in Ketchum and replace them with tourists and second-home owners.

• They outsourced most of their functions to focus on development. Police? That’s BCSO. Fire? That’s the new fire district. What predominates their agendas? Development.

• They raised $8 million to purchase the dog park, but received none of the land allocated for community housing—they hadn’t even asked for it.

• They built a new City Hall, using a complex series of dubious transactions that included selling the Washington Lot to KURA at an arbitrary price and passing an ordinance that changed a footnote in a table in the zoning code to permit Bluebird to be built where the zoning code and Comp Plan expressly prohibited it.

• They built Bluebird, with $10s of millions of Ketchum taxpayer resources, on one of the most valuable pieces of land in Idaho, where half the tenants don’t work in the City of Ketchum, and they tell us that the nannies who live there are “essential” workers. Meanwhile, they squeeze teachers, first responders, and healthcare workers out of Ketchum.

• They built a new firehouse—but then gave it away, along with millions of dollars of assets and cash to a new fire district, while forcing us to keep paying for it.

• They instituted health and safety regulations for short-term rentals, but failed to enforce compliance.

• They got ITD to rebuild Main Street ahead of schedule by contributing $1.5 million of Ketchum resources to the project, destroying millions of dollars of on-street parking in the process, while refusing to fight ITD on the upcoming light at Serenade (which could have been a roundabout).

• I think we got some pickleball courts. Including a private pickleball court in the LI zone.

• A rebuild of the Water Treatment Facility with no evaluation of alternatives that could have been cheaper and more effective.

• They waived the zoning code to approve the Marriott, despite massive local opposition.

• They raised our taxes (in dishonest ways, like the fire district). Locals pay over 25% of the “tourist tax,” and a significant portion of that revenue is allocated to promote tourism.

What have they accomplished for the quality of life for Ketchum residents? According to a statistically valid survey by Visit Sun Valley, they have made everything that makes living in Ketchum great worse during their tenure. Indeed, I have never once read in a staff memo or heard in a Council meeting how their decisions impact the quality of life for residents.

What Should We Do?

We have an illegitimate Council, behaving in an illegitimate manner, doing illegitimate things. I wish they would follow the Hippocratic Oath: “do no harm.”

Just stop. Let the people elect a new Council in November. If Hutchinson does the ethical thing and resigns, we will be able to elect a new mayor and three out of four council members. There is no guarantee a new council will be better than the current one. That will depend on the quality of the candidates. But can they be worse than this Council?

Make your voice heard:

• Attend public meetings and ask them to prioritize only the bare minimum required to keep the town functioning.

• Send your thoughts to Participate@KetchumIdaho.org on what you think they should be doing.

• Write letters to our papers with the same message (lurie@5bgazette.com, letters@mtexpress.com)

• Run for office in November. Encourage pro-resident candidates to run. Support pro-resident candidates. Vote for them.

Elections matter. We get the government we let them do to us.