For the week of November 21 - 27, 2001

Mayors agree to work toward regional transportation

Sales tax would be a component

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By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer

The mayors and mayors-elect of the cities in Blaine County pledged to work together in the future at a luncheon Mond;ay hosted by Sun Valley Mayor Dave Wilson at Gretchen’s restaurant in the Sun Valley Lodge.

Blaine County’s mayors and mayors-elect held a roundtable luncheon Monday. From left to right are Bellevue Mayor John Barton, Sun Valley Mayor Dave Wilson, Ketchum Mayor-elect Ed Simon and Hailey Mayor-elect Al Lindley. Express photo by Willy Cook

Joining Wilson for lunch were Bellevue Mayor John Barton, Hailey Mayor-elect Al Lindley and Ketchum Mayor-elect Ed Simon.

Carey Mayor Rick Baird was away on business as the manager of Friedman Memorial Airport.

Wilson opened the roundtable discussion by telling his guests he no longer is against providing a valley public transportation system, nor a sales tax to pay for it.

His change in opinion came after a two-day fact-finding trip last week to Aspen, Colo., with Sun Valley Councilmen Latham Williams and Lud Renick.

"Aspen is unbelievable," Wilson said. "Its public transportation system is packed."

Wilson said that one of the big reasons why public transportation is working in Aspen is because the highway leading into the resort town has a high-occupancy-vehicle lane.

He said that an hour-and-a-half commute to Aspen for single occupancy vehicles took buses only a half hour.

He added that vehicles with three or more occupants were considered HOVs.

The four Wood River Valley officials agreed to work together to support four lanes along State Highway 75, a public transportation system and a sales tax to fund a regional transportation authority.

Public transportation and traffic were not the only problems brought up by the four city leaders.

Barton said 2,000 cars pass through Bellevue in a day but most didn’t stop to visit.

He also said Bellevue’s and Hailey’s fire departments had a mutual aid agreement, "but we’re more reliant on Hailey than I am comfortable with."

Lindley brought up the opportunities fiber optic cable could bring the cities for working together for the fast exchange of information and teleconferencing.

He said that Syringa Networks may have a fiber optic cable laid through the Wood River Valley by September or October 2002.

The four mayors made a more general pledge of meeting at least monthly in each others cities.

Simon said that the cities may have cooperated on issues in the past, "but not with the same urgency as today."

The urgency, he said, is that the valley’s cities "need to take action now" on their common problems because those problems are not going to get better.

 

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