For the week of January 15 - 21, 2003

Housing comes
home to roost

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The housing chickens have come home to roost in Ketchum.

City officials say recruiting employees is difficult because of the mismatch between wages and local housing costs.

That’s no surprise.

The city faces the same problem local businesses face each time they recruit.

Yet, Ketchum Mayor Ed Simon tried to duck the larger issue last week when he moved to gut funding for the Blaine County Housing Authority. He wanted to spend the savings to create housing strictly for city employees.

Had the City Council gone along, businesses—the ones who generate the revenues and collect the taxes that make up half the city’s budget—would have been left to swing in the wind with no relief and no resources in sight.

The mayor’s call to provide housing for public employees is on target, but the target is too small.

The city needs good employees and those employees need housing. Otherwise, streets don’t get plowed, fires aren’t suppressed, criminals aren’t apprehended, water doesn’t flow, waste doesn’t get treated, buses don’t run, and development isn’t planned.

Yet, for the city to buy itself out of the problem while letting the people who cook the food, wash the dishes and sell the gear swing in the wind would have been grossly unfair.

The city has done nothing but make excuses about why it cannot create attainable housing within the city. Yet, when it comes to housing its own employees, the way and the means suddenly appear?

The City Council did the right thing by killing the proposal. Now it’s time for city leaders to find a more equitable solution.

 

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