Bus barn draws fire in Hailey
Mayor delivers state-of-the-city address
By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
Hailey Mayor Brad Siemer drew applause a couple of times
from a vocal and sometimes hostile audience during his state-of-the-city
address at the Liberty Theatre.
The address on April 24, sponsored by the Hailey Chamber
of Commerce, included presentations by Jim Lewis, superintendent of the
Blaine County School District, and Scott Boettger, executive director of
the Wood River Land Trust.
About 60 people attended and seemed mostly interested in
only one of the evening’s topics—a proposed school bus barn and city
maintenance project to the west of Lion’s Park at the mouth of Croy
Canyon.
Nearly all of their questions were about the bus barn.
Most members of the audience were polite, but at one point
a number of people got worked up.
"Why did we have to first hear about this in the Twin
Falls newspaper?" one man asked.
Then, "Don’t busses belong at the school."
"Yeh," another man added loudly.
Anger seemed to build in the theater as more questions and
remarks peppered Siemer and Lewis, who had moved to center stage.
And then Siemer took the microphone and said, "Do you
want an answer to your questions, or do you want to keep talking?"
A man, who identified himself as a resident of Croy
Canyon, asked the mayor what his zoning priorities were—more residential
or more light industrial?
The mayor responded that he thought "the priority is
to get our kids safely to their education and to maintain the equipment
used to provide you services.
"The priority should be to effectively provide
services, and education is one of them."
Lewis pleaded with the audience to allow the school
district, the city and the Land Trust time to complete their designs and
to make a public presentation. He said people would have "the
opportunity to respond in the process."
The mood of the audience can be summed up with one last
loud remark from the back of the theater.
"When we go to the polls next time, remember these
people."
·
Applause during Siemer’s state-of-the-city address came
before the question and answer session about the bus barn.
It first erupted when he praised departing Chamber of
Commerce executive director Sallie Hanson.
"I think special thanks should go to Sallie Hanson
for her contributions to the chamber and our community," he said.
"We all owe her."
Siemer also praised the city’s staff, calling them the
"finest city staff this community has ever had work for it."
Next to be applauded was the mayor’s statement that the
city was getting close to building a family park in Woodside.
He said the Hailey was going to buy 10 lots from Sprenger
Grubb and Associates in Woodside, east of Ironwood Tennis Club and
abutting the hillside.
City planner Kathy Grotto said the property still has to
be appraised before the purchase is completed and that Sprenger Grubb had
agreed to sell the lots at 50 percent of their value.
The issue of water did not draw any applause, but Siemer
emphasized it is the biggest issue facing the city, especially water
conservation.
One way to conserve, he said, would be to meter everyone’s
water use. Metering would allow users to know how much they used, and it
would allow the city to bill according to use.
At present, many but not all commercial users are billed.
Residential users are not metered and pay a flat rate per month.
It was also time, he said, for the city to bury the water
mains deeper in Old Hailey.
Last winter, as in previous winters, residents of Old
Hailey were instructed to leave a water tap dripping to help keep the
water main from freezing.
(Old Hailey refers to the original town site bounded by
River Street on the west, Fourth Avenue on the east, Myrtle Street on the
north, and the dogleg of Highway 75 on the south.)
Siemer told the audience that while running water kept
pipes from freezing, it wasn’t an efficient way of handling the problem.
Even though water isn’t actually wasted in this process
since it goes back into the aquifer, the expense of pumping and purifying
the water just to pour it straight back into the ground is wasted.
He also told the audience that the city would begin
odd/even watering days on May 1 in anticipation of a summer drought.
