14 candidates on Tuesday will vie for 11 south Valley seats
The high-stakes election—in terms of voter turnout, media uber-coverage, and a barometer check of how a majority of Americans want to see their country go—isn’t until November 2020. But if you ask Hailey mayoral candidate Martha Burke, it’s every single local election that impacts daily life most.
“There’s something very nonpartisan and pure about local politics in that everyone knows you,” Burke said. “It’s about priorities, not party.”
Burke, a current city council member, is running unopposed for the Hailey mayoral seat. And since there is no voter turnout criteria for the election, Tuesday, Nov. 5, will be a mere formality for the next benchmark of her political career. So for residents in the south Valley, their biggest impact will be felt in two Hailey City Council races and a school board election that could reshape the district’s board of trustees.
Hailey City Council—The Incumbents vs. The Millennials
Two council seats are at stake for the Wood River Valley’s most populous city. Both have an incumbent aged 60-plus. Both are being challenged by a candidate 30 or under. And no one is getting a formal endorsement by Burke.
Hailey’s next mayor says she’s ready to work with any of the four men vying for a council seat, although she has direct and positive experience, she says, working with the incumbents: Jeffrey Engelhardt and Pat Cooley.
Engelhardt, 64, is a local real estate broker who was appointed to the council in 2018 when Councilmember Colleen Teevin resigned. He has been a member of the planning and zoning board for Hailey and a member of the local chamber of commerce.
Cooley, 61, who works as superintendent of the Ketchum Water Department, has served on the council for eight years. Burke said he was instrumental in reviewing Hailey’s sewer plant projects and has learned a lot from him over the years.
Opposing Engelhardt is Sam Linnet, a 30-year-old lawyer with a master’s degree in environmental science. His campaign reported nearly $2,400 in total contributions—not exactly a small fortune, but far and away more than any other Hailey candidate.
Opposing Cooley is Juan Martinez, a 27-year-old youth sports coach and director. Martinez, like Linnet, has received an endorsement from a prominent environmental group called Conservation Voters for Idaho. Campaign finance records show that board members from that group also contributed money to their campaigns.
Blaine County School Board
Meanwhile, over at Blaine County School District, only one race will need voters to choose. Zone 1, which represents the southernmost section of the district, has Amber Larna facing Alexis Lindberg. Both would be new trustees, replacing Trustee Ryan Degn, who elected not to seek another term.
Zones 3 and 5 have only one candidate each, so that means attorney and former Hailey mayor Keith Roark will replace Trustee Ellen Mandeville, who decided not to see re-election on account of her moving out of her current zone. And, it means Lara Stone will replace Kevin Garrison, now a former trustee after resigning last week over his DUI arrest.
Both Mandeville and Garrison were appointed to the school board in recent years, and critics of the district have claimed that made them representative of the administration more than its constituents. Whether that’s a fair assessment is each voter’s personal opinion, but what’s not a matter of perspective is their task ahead.
One of the first matters the new school board will have to manage is the facilities levy it figures to place on a near-future election where voters could be asked to fund up to $40 million of school improvements and construction over the next 10 years.