{"id":18034,"date":"2022-06-01T01:16:40","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T01:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=18034"},"modified":"2022-05-31T20:22:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T20:22:57","slug":"now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/now-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Election losses refocus city, fire district, citizens on new approaches<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\"\"
Eric Parker addresses a crowd of Blaine County voters during his recent Republican primary bid for what would eventually be an unsuccessful attempt at garnering the nomination. The Bellevue resident says he\u2019s still optimistic about the political future. Photo credit: Eric Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While many articles in the news have been focusing on how the midterms are shaping up now that primary season is wrapped up, the issues and the candidates that did not win enough votes shouldn\u2019t be overlooked. Because when you take a look at three particular Valley losers, you may be seeing what Valley challenges won\u2019t be going away any time soon.<\/p>\n

A LOT Of Disappointment<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Starting up north in Ketchum, an effort to inject funds into development of workforce housing coffers failed. Specifically, Ketchum leaders placed a tax increase on the ballot (called a local option tax or LOT) wherein revenues would be earmarked to subsidize the cost of affordable housing projects. There\u2019s no bigger issue in the Valley than the cost of and low inventory of workforce housing, and voters said \u2018oh well.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Mayor Neil Bradshaw did the only thing he could do after the election\u2014tried to see things positively.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile a majority supported the local option tax (LOT) housing initiative, we did not reach the 60% threshold for the measure to pass,\u201d Bradshaw said. \u201cI want to thank everyone who participated in this ballot initiative. We value your voice and your opinion. We will learn from this result and will work harder to craft a way forward to address our housing crisis in a direction that has broader community support.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ketchum leadership and city staff spent much of the past year working on the city\u2019s <\/span><\/p>\n

Housing Action Plan\u2014a guidebook that identifies several actions Ketchum can take to increase housing supply. Most require funding. With the ballot measure failing to pass, Bradshaw said the city will focus on the actions that have \u201csmaller funding requirements.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will consider revisiting this funding initiative a year from now, possibly without a retail tax component. In the meantime, we will work with the \u2018housing tools\u2019 that we have,\u201d Bradshaw said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bond Goes Down In Flames<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Extreme drought conditions and a potential rescue situation taking place, literally, on the morning of the primary, wasn\u2019t enough to convince voters in the Wood River Fire District to approve a bond that would build a new fire station for those crews and equipment. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to half a dozen folks personally in the weeks leading up to the election. They expressed concerns about the location, the zoning, the cost, other entities not participating, but no one mentioned in any of my conversations that the need for a fire station didn\u2019t absolutely exist,\u201d Chief Ron Bateman said in a letter to the public he posted on social media the next day. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bateman added that he had recently found a folder labeled \u201cStrategic Plan July 2014.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The two top goals on that eight-year-old document were: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 New Fire \/ EMS Facility<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Cooperative Efforts with KFD, HFD, SVFD and BFD.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, the success or failure of the election seems ancillary to the fact that district leaders have taken two overdue ideas and made them a significant conversation. What doesn\u2019t seem ancillary is that voters\u2014already stacked with across-the-board inflation and higher property taxes\u2014struggle to OK seeing more money taken out of their pocket no matter how good or important the cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly my hope that continues,\u201d Bateman said regarding the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bateman added: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to thank the Life Church for the opportunity to give this question a go, in almost exactly where the 2011 ESCI study said, \u201ca very desirable level of coverage [would be] achieved\u201d (p. 183). \u201cFinally, I\u2019d like to thank our membership. I told them that the success or failure of the election question wasn\u2019t an affirmation or rejection of their work. I think it\u2019s human nature to conflate these things. I reminded them that they do remarkable things every day, I am very proud to work with them, and the community truly values that work.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Parker In Overdrive<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The disappointment in Eric Parker\u2019s voice was thick enough to cut with a knife when the conversation starts with, \u201cWere you surprised you lost again?\u201d But once the Bellevue electrician and Real 3% of Idaho founder started talking about how he\u2019d get to give his wife a much-needed break and spend more time with his kids, optimism took over.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the future is bright,\u201d said Parker.<\/span><\/p>\n

How so? For Parker, he looks at the statewide results and sees roughly a dozen Republican candidates he described as \u201cliberty minded.\u201d And in a state firmly embedded in the political red, that means the state legislature is positioned to move even a little more to the right. <\/span><\/p>\n

Parker doesn\u2019t know what, if anything, his next political campaign move may be. He failed to get 40% of his own party\u2019s vote. And he resides in one of only two parts of the state with a Democratic foothold. He does know he\u2019ll be vocal and active at the statehouse during legislative sessions and across the Valley on a variety of matters. Among other issues, his sights are set on the windmill proposal at Lava Ridge, which he opposes and wants to see county jurisdictions get to make zoning decisions rather than the federal government, who he points out just manages lands.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Election losses refocus city, fire district, citizens on new approaches By: Eric Valentine While many articles in the news have been focusing on how the midterms are shaping up now that primary season is wrapped up, the issues and the candidates that did not win enough votes shouldn\u2019t be overlooked. Because when you take a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15901,"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":[72,75,83,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-elections","9":"category-idaho","10":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18034"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18043,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions\/18043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}