{"id":10866,"date":"2019-03-22T18:26:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T18:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=10866"},"modified":"2019-03-22T18:26:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T18:26:56","slug":"hailey-political-karaoke-yields-zero-candidates-for-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/22\/hailey-political-karaoke-yields-zero-candidates-for-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"Hailey \u2018Political Karaoke\u2019 Yields Zero Candidates For Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Town hall draws large crowd, huge concern about climate<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Hailey resident Erin Sweeney speaks her piece at a town hall session outgoing Mayor Fritz Haemmerle dubbed \u201cpolitical karaoke.\u201d Photo credit: Eric Valentine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No one declared their candidacy for mayor at the City of Hailey\u2019s town hall Monday night, but a number of residents declared their concern that climate change is already impacting this tiny Wood River Valley town and it will take a community-wide effort to do anything about it.<\/p>\n

Nearly 100 residents filled the Minnie Moore Room at Hailey\u2019s Community Campus to take part in Mayor Fritz Haemmerle\u2019s so-called \u201copen mic political karaoke.\u201d The mayor set up the special town hall session after announcing he would not be seeking re-election for the city\u2019s top post. It was designed, the mayor said, to let him outline where he believes Hailey currently is in its evolution and to open the floor to the public so it could address how the city should now evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a European background and towns in Europe are gorgeous,\u201d Haemmerle said. \u201cI always wanted Hailey to be the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the mayor\u2019s talking points centered on everything from town aesthetics and historic preservation to more wonky topics like public safety and funding challenges, the meeting kept dovetailing back to one theme: How will Hailey deal with the impacts of climate change? And it wasn\u2019t just the adults in the room who were asking the question.<\/p>\n

Multiple teenage members of W.A.T.E.R. (We Appreciate The Earth\u2019s Resources) attended the town hall and two of its members addressed the audience, calling for the City of Hailey to create a so-called Department of Environmental Health. The department, Abbie Heaphy, one of the students who spoke Monday night, said, could focus on increasing general knowledge of any project\u2019s impact to climate change and on using development practices that align with clean-environment goals.<\/p>\n

W.A.T.E.R. members were followed by Amy Aranda, representing a group of teenagers in attendance called Nosotros United (we are united). Aranda said the group was established to, among other things, blend Hispanic culture and American dreams. Aranda called for city officials and residents to consider developing a multi-use facility where youth could safely hang out. Right now, Aranda said, so many teenagers do their socializing in the parking lots of places like movie theaters or fast-food joints. It\u2019s not always safe and it\u2019s not the optimal way to develop connections to culture, Aranda said.<\/p>\n

Attendees, including the mayor, seemed invigorated by the testimonies of the teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only have to be 18 to be mayor,\u201d Haemmerle quipped. \u201cBut if you can\u2019t run, make sure you at least vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although nearly every topic on the table circled back to climate and environmental concerns, residents made their opinions on other issues very clear.<\/p>\n

Town Square<\/b><\/p>\n

People who spoke up Monday night were in support of the city\u2019s so-called town square concept where a centrally located city-owned plot of land could be used specifically for community events from farmers\u2019 markets to live music days. But where should it go\u2014both in terms of location within Hailey and placement on the city\u2019s priority list?<\/p>\n

Consensus started to develop on the idea that a town square should be near the heart of town, but away from Main Street\/Highway 75.<\/p>\n

Paying for the town square, regardless of location, would likely require a levy.<\/p>\n

Livability and Workability<\/b><\/p>\n

Erin Sweeney, a resident of five years, expressed her concern that Hailey is seen as a \u201cbedroom community\u201d and is losing out on some opportunities for what she called the \u201ccreative class\u201d\u2014entrepreneurial artists and alternative health professionals who live here and need office space. Currently, Sweeney estimated, we lose 20 percent of our workforce to Ketchum and an unknown amount of business patronage to the north part of the Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow amazing would it be if we captured those people here,\u201d Sweeney said.<\/p>\n

Funding<\/b><\/p>\n

Vision for Hailey may be large, but budgets are rather small. In addressing what one member of the community called a bottleneck in funding, Haemmerle called attention to the state law that prohibits cities from increasing their budget by more than 3 percent from one year to the next. Nonetheless, the mayor said, between grants and levies and bonds, there\u2019s always a way to pay for something. What\u2019s not always present is political and public will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Town hall draws large crowd, huge concern about climate By Eric Valentine No one declared their candidacy for mayor at the City of Hailey\u2019s town hall Monday night, but a number of residents declared their concern that climate change is already impacting this tiny Wood River Valley town and it will take a community-wide effort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,90,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-municipal","9":"category-news","10":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}