Perry: Thank you for your continued vigilance and commentary on the goings on in City Hall. It’s high time that those of us who live in Ketchum realize that our town is being master planned by a vision that is completely non-sensical and that will destroy the authenticity of our town. Perhaps the lack of frustration you express in the minute numbers of the Comp Plan survey responses is best understood by the difficulty one encounters in entering the survey site. If you survive this initial exasperation, the survey is set up to put you to sleep or have you give up in frustration as it is difficult for the common citizen to use.
The Comp Plan review period is intentionally calendared to limit participation. Why not run this survey at the busiest time of our winter season when most local residents have little if any time to fill out a survey while attending to serving the community or celebrating the Christmas season with family and friends. What’s the rush to judgement? One way streets, bike paths we do not need, crushing local businesses by removing 90 plus publicly owned parking spaces; it’s time to put this nonsense to a stop. Happy New Year. Keep up the good fight.
Last week I suggested the only way to STOP the City Council moving forward with the proposed Comprehensive Plan AND their support and approval for Work Force Housing that favors developers, and not the community, is to DELAY all of it. And the best and fastest way is to file a lawsuit ASAP to DELAY final approvals. Here is the information on how to set up a Go Fund Me to pay for an attorney who knows how to file the lawsuit and fight for the community. Whoever creates the Go Fund Me, can set up a separate bank account.
To set up a GoFundMe, go to the GoFundMe website, click "Start a GoFundMe," provide details about your fundraiser including a title, story, and goal amount, add a compelling image or video, and then share your fundraiser link with friends and family to start receiving donations; you'll also need to provide your bank information to receive the funds.
A lawsuit against Ketchum City Hall is the only way to STOP proposed approvals for the Comprehensive Plan and their current and future developments…AND agree to a settlement that will make 2025 and the future of Ketchum, a community that positively embraces its residents and businesses.
Hi Perry, this is a very well done piece of work, both well written and well-edited. Chapeau.
I wanted to ask a question and must be missing something here: Under the sub-heading, ‘Housing Director Pulled Another Fast One’, the subject of your first paragraph is the hourly rate increase of a BCHA employee; maybe the “without tracking” relates to the fact that they live in Brooklyn, but the second paragraph’s subject is an out-of-state independent contractor who’s getting paid in advance for services not rendered. I’m confused by the elision, as the two subjects appear to be unrelated but they’re under the same sub-head.
Thanks for being good at what you do and for getting better at it as you go along. May 2025 bring a little more peace, harmony and healing to this little planet than 2024 did! All the best.
I write pretty quickly as this is a side hustle to my day job, so not always as clearly as I would like. The housing director raised her school chum's hourly rate to $90. He is a contractor who lives in Brooklyn. What I found confusing is that the Council approved an unvoiced purchase order for 833.3 hours for him in advance of him doing any work. Hope that is clearer!
Thanks Perry. My third pass on that section a few minutes ago made it clear you were referring to the same person. My apologies. It reinforces the legitimacy of your question: why was $75k approved for an "...unvoiced" (sic) purchase order..." for 833 hours of work that has not been done yet? If this person were living and working in Ketchum that's one thing -- an advance on documented future expenses? -- but New York?
When the housing director's 'school chum' is on the East Coast, sending money to them with no itemized explanation is not good optics to say the least, especially given the parlous state of financial decision-making in City Hall these days. Thanks again for spending the time and effort it takes to track this stuff. Details matter.
Jack, insightful comments. Since Kura can't act as a developer, it would appear the citizens have a good legal case to stop this project. Is there anything we can do legally to ensure the taxpayers (not just residents) have a proper say?
KBAC is hosting a comp plan subcommittee meeting on Friday, Jan. 3rd at 1:30pm at Nourish Me. We'll be covering the topics Julie has listed in a comment on a previous blog post, and working on a plan to comment in a unified way. We'll most likely hold other comp plan focused meetings between now and January 17th..... Please come if you're available/interested, and please, please, please, make comments on the online comp plan. Community feedback is vital to this process. 2025 is the year to re-set, re-focus, re-invest, and re-comment to what makes Ketchum....Ketchum.
Perry: Thank you for your continued vigilance and commentary on the goings on in City Hall. It’s high time that those of us who live in Ketchum realize that our town is being master planned by a vision that is completely non-sensical and that will destroy the authenticity of our town. Perhaps the lack of frustration you express in the minute numbers of the Comp Plan survey responses is best understood by the difficulty one encounters in entering the survey site. If you survive this initial exasperation, the survey is set up to put you to sleep or have you give up in frustration as it is difficult for the common citizen to use.
The Comp Plan review period is intentionally calendared to limit participation. Why not run this survey at the busiest time of our winter season when most local residents have little if any time to fill out a survey while attending to serving the community or celebrating the Christmas season with family and friends. What’s the rush to judgement? One way streets, bike paths we do not need, crushing local businesses by removing 90 plus publicly owned parking spaces; it’s time to put this nonsense to a stop. Happy New Year. Keep up the good fight.
Jack Bariteau
Well said, Jack!
1,000%, Jack.
Deliberately terrible/odd commenting process on the comp plan. Designed to bore, keep people away, and in the dark.
Last week I suggested the only way to STOP the City Council moving forward with the proposed Comprehensive Plan AND their support and approval for Work Force Housing that favors developers, and not the community, is to DELAY all of it. And the best and fastest way is to file a lawsuit ASAP to DELAY final approvals. Here is the information on how to set up a Go Fund Me to pay for an attorney who knows how to file the lawsuit and fight for the community. Whoever creates the Go Fund Me, can set up a separate bank account.
To set up a GoFundMe, go to the GoFundMe website, click "Start a GoFundMe," provide details about your fundraiser including a title, story, and goal amount, add a compelling image or video, and then share your fundraiser link with friends and family to start receiving donations; you'll also need to provide your bank information to receive the funds.
A lawsuit against Ketchum City Hall is the only way to STOP proposed approvals for the Comprehensive Plan and their current and future developments…AND agree to a settlement that will make 2025 and the future of Ketchum, a community that positively embraces its residents and businesses.
Hi Perry, this is a very well done piece of work, both well written and well-edited. Chapeau.
I wanted to ask a question and must be missing something here: Under the sub-heading, ‘Housing Director Pulled Another Fast One’, the subject of your first paragraph is the hourly rate increase of a BCHA employee; maybe the “without tracking” relates to the fact that they live in Brooklyn, but the second paragraph’s subject is an out-of-state independent contractor who’s getting paid in advance for services not rendered. I’m confused by the elision, as the two subjects appear to be unrelated but they’re under the same sub-head.
Thanks for being good at what you do and for getting better at it as you go along. May 2025 bring a little more peace, harmony and healing to this little planet than 2024 did! All the best.
I write pretty quickly as this is a side hustle to my day job, so not always as clearly as I would like. The housing director raised her school chum's hourly rate to $90. He is a contractor who lives in Brooklyn. What I found confusing is that the Council approved an unvoiced purchase order for 833.3 hours for him in advance of him doing any work. Hope that is clearer!
Thanks Perry. My third pass on that section a few minutes ago made it clear you were referring to the same person. My apologies. It reinforces the legitimacy of your question: why was $75k approved for an "...unvoiced" (sic) purchase order..." for 833 hours of work that has not been done yet? If this person were living and working in Ketchum that's one thing -- an advance on documented future expenses? -- but New York?
When the housing director's 'school chum' is on the East Coast, sending money to them with no itemized explanation is not good optics to say the least, especially given the parlous state of financial decision-making in City Hall these days. Thanks again for spending the time and effort it takes to track this stuff. Details matter.
Jack, insightful comments. Since Kura can't act as a developer, it would appear the citizens have a good legal case to stop this project. Is there anything we can do legally to ensure the taxpayers (not just residents) have a proper say?
Yes Kevin, go to KURA, City Council and P&Z meetings.
A lot of these meetings are hard to follow. The line items aren't always easy to understand the full implications of future decisions.
Government policies can be very confusing.
We citizens need to get our heads wrapped around their thinking pattern.
There are simply some lines that will not be crossed. Join our efforts.
KBAC is hosting a comp plan subcommittee meeting on Friday, Jan. 3rd at 1:30pm at Nourish Me. We'll be covering the topics Julie has listed in a comment on a previous blog post, and working on a plan to comment in a unified way. We'll most likely hold other comp plan focused meetings between now and January 17th..... Please come if you're available/interested, and please, please, please, make comments on the online comp plan. Community feedback is vital to this process. 2025 is the year to re-set, re-focus, re-invest, and re-comment to what makes Ketchum....Ketchum.
Thank you. I will make every effort to be there.
Thanks