Blaine County should consider disbanding the Blaine County Housing Authority.
BCHA’s 2015 total revenue was $1,359,220, yet their reports state that they only are able to place about 5-10 low-income applicants in housing per year.
At the Ketchum P&Z meeting, Ketchum’s well-qualified staff recommended that BCHA’s conditional use permit for operating the Lift Tower Lodge not be renewed as BCHA had not provided the information necessary to prove that the public good was being served.
This property was originally allowed the CUP to provide housing for Blaine County residents who have trouble finding a place to live in Blaine County; it was meant as a bridge to allow them time to find permanent housing.
[David] Patrie [then executive director of the BCHA, who announced his resignation Monday] represented that the Lodge has not turned away low-income applicants, but he provides no record of applicants or lodging records to support this. Currently, 90 percent of the Lift Tower Lodge is being rented out to large out-of-town contractors to house their employees.
Patrie testified that he does not advertise the Lodge in the For Rent section of the paper as he is worried that there would be too much response for the units from low-income residents. Yet, BCHA has operated the Lodge for the past year without ever achieving full occupancy. At times in the past year, the occupancy rate has dipped to 35 percent.
One would expect 100 percent occupancy with Income Category I folks, people that Patrie testified it is really, really hard to provide for. Patrie did not provide the information requested by P&Z staff because “we are not able to develop an exclusive list because that would unnecessarily limit our ability to react and adapt to the changing needs of the community.” Yet, one can go online and look at the extensive data collection and reporting by BCHA on other metrics in their reports. Patrie is a civil engineer.
P&Z members Erin Smith, Betsy Mizell and Jeff Lamoureux ignored their own in-house experts and voted to allow BCHA to continue without oversight. P&Z members overriding their own experts last meeting looked very, very foolish.
Blaine County looks foolish by continuing to waste tax dollars on this runaway bureaucracy.
Kiki Tidwell
Blaine County resident