For the week of July 4 - July 10, 2001

Budget shows 9 
percent increase

Bike path design meeting slated

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Budget meeting scheduled

The Ketchum City Council will begin leafing through the city’s proposed $9 million budget for fiscal 2001-2002 on July 12 at a noon meeting at Ketchum City Hall.

Further meetings will be scheduled at that time.

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

The city of Ketchum is continuing to collect—and spend—more money.

Mayor Guy Coles and City Administrator Jim Jaquet have proposed a tentative city budget of $9.2 million for the 2001-2002 fiscal year It represents a 9 percent increase over the current fiscal year.

"This increase is consistent with recent years," Jaquet said. The previous fiscal year was up 8.2 percent over that of 1999-2000.

Coles and Jaquet released the proposed budget at a council meeting Monday night.

City sales and property taxes are projected to generate almost half—47.2 percent—of the budget’s revenues. That compares to 49.7 percent for the current fiscal year and 48.6 percent for the 1999-2000 fiscal year.

The largest expenditures, at $3.5 million, are slated to be street maintenance and police and fire operations. They constitute 38.2 percent of all spending.

The budget includes $857,000 in land acquisition and development funds to build a bike path along Warm Springs Road in two phases.

A separate land acquisition and development fund also includes $230,000 for street trees, street lights and overhead power line removal along Sun Valley Road.

Jaquet said the budget should be scheduled for preliminary adoption at the council’s Aug. 20 meeting, after which it can only be reduced.

A final budget vote would be taken at the council’s Sept. 4 meeting. The fiscal year budget deadline is Sept. 10.

Under state law, local budgets must be balanced.

Proposed for the fiscal 2001-2002 are increases for employee salaries and benefits, recreation and chamber of commerce funding.

Funding of the chamber has, in the past, been contentious. The chamber has requested an increase of $22,100, or 6.7 percent, in its cash allocation, from $331,500 to $353,600. With an in-kind rent contribution of $31,000, the total allocation to the chamber would be $384,600.

"I think it is important to continue to contract with the chamber for visitor information and marketing services at a level that makes a significant contribution to our tourist-based economy," Coles wrote.

Other significant, projected expenditures include a transportation and traffic circulation plan estimated to cost $82,078.

"This plan will give us guidance on how to solve our traffic congestion and parking issues in our downtown including steps to be taken to implement a transportation management plan, one element of which will most likely be the implementation of a paid parking program," Coles wrote in a letter to the city council.

The budget also proposes a new planning position and three new city Water and Sewer Department positions.

"Both of these departments have been understaffed for some time, and with a modest increase in water and sewer user fees, we can add a sewer collection systems operator, a water operator and an administrative clerk with no reliance on the property tax," Coles wrote.

 

Bike path discussions

A new bike path out Warm Springs Road will be built this fall, if the council can figure out a suitable design.

Options are limited, Jaquet told the council, because the city doesn’t own much width along the Warm Springs Road corridor.

Safety of the new path is at the front of everyone’s minds. The council discussed the merits of a raised, curbside path (like that on Saddle Road) versus expanding the road’s shoulders and striping them as a bike lane.

Because of the limited width of the city’s right of way along Warm Springs Road, generally accepted width standards will be impossible to meet, Jaquet said.

"Is the bike path going to be safer than people riding on the road? The answer is going to be yes," Ketchum resident Mickey Garcia said. "This is a long time coming."

The council scheduled a meeting on July 11 at 11 a.m. at Ketchum City Hall to attempt to solicit design alternatives.

That’s something that doesn’t sit well with Mayor Coles.

"This issue has been kicked around for 15 years, and you want to have another workshop to figure out how you want this thing designed?" he chastised.

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