Mayoral elections, city council races, school board seats, two bonds on Nov. 2 ballot
By Eric Valentine
To the polls!
Early voting started Monday in Blaine County and all voting will wrap up at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 2. At stake are everything from contested mayoral seats, city council positions, school board trustee-ships, and millions of dollars for fire stations and town squares.
Yes, from Sun Valley to Carey, the entire Valley is affected by this off-year election, a voting day that happens between midterm and presidential elections and has historically resulted in low voter turnout. Whether the jam-packed ballot of November 2021 changes that remains to be seen.
A full sample ballot can be found at tinyurl.com/bx7da268 and what follows is a deeper dive into the two bond measures many voters will be eligible to yae or nae.
Improved Fire Protection
Wood River Fire & Rescue (WRFR) is asking voters to approve a 25-year bond that will be paid by property tax revenues collected on residents who live in the area from the Greenhorn bridge to Baseline Road, not including the cities of Hailey or Bellevue. All residents of the fire protection district are eligible to vote, and it takes 66.7% of those who do to pass.
Fire district officials have spent the last several weeks offering up the bond’s selling points. They say the current two stations in Hailey are antiquated, too small, and do not allow a fast, effective response to emergencies. And that by increasing a property owner’s taxes by $72.60 per $100,000 over the next 25-year period, district residents will get a new fire station to replace its two old ones in Hailey. Additionally, Station 3 south of Bellevue would have its systems updated to last another 20 years.
Visit woodriverfirebond.org for more details and to see a number of images showing the constraints of the current confines.
A Town Square?
In Hailey, city leaders are asking property owners to reimburse the city for the nearly $1 million used to purchase 116 S. River Street—prime downtown real estate that could one day serve as a town square or other pedestrian-friendly communal purpose. The site has been dubbed the “Heart of Hailey” over the years.
A yes vote means that you are OK with a property tax increase of $21 per $100,000 of property value over five years. That pencils out to be a less-than-$100-a-year difference over the next five years. And it will take 66.7% of voters to say “yes” if the city is to ever be reimbursed.