For the week of August 27 - September 2, 2003

While Ketchum’s Council fiddles ...

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The city of Ketchum is quickly running out of capricious ideas and ways to sabotage Brian Barsotti’s proposed new hotel on Main Street.

What else but sabotage could be behind changing demands and the foot-dragging on an important new addition to the community’s lifeblood, resort lodging?

First it was a matter of structure height, which Barsotti lowered. Now it’s seven feet over the height limit, a waiver allowed hotels under the city’s ordinance.

Then it was a question, brought up late in the game, of Barsotti providing affordable housing units as part of the plan. Housing isn’t required of commercial development, nor had the city asked for it.

Then Councilman Randy Hall, who’s become the principal obstructionist, insisted on mitigation of traffic impacts even though no significant impact would be created, two studies have assured the city.

Still, Barsotti is being held hostage to the new City Hall gambit--requiring him to play to rules changed in the middle of the game.

Had Barsotti invested his money in a building of retail shops and offices, or sought to build a fractional-ownership residential community on his Main Street property, those options really would have created traffic problems, engineers say.

As Councilman Hall has played out his delaying tactics in meeting after meeting, the awful truth is that Ketchum is losing ground as part of a premiere resort area.

The Sun Valley-Ketchum area has lost 313 hotel rooms in the past three years--25 percent of its capacity.

Make no mistake: Without lodging, a major source of Ketchum’s city budget, local option taxes on resort activities vanish, and city services are hobbled.

Would Councilman Hall like to shift those tax losses to Ketchum residents?

Barsotti has been diligent in submitting his planned hotel over and over to the city, and time and again he’s made changes or conformed to whims that weren’t part of requirements set out in city ordinances.

Now comes a crucial Sept. 2 council meeting. The council must approve the hotel project.

If it doesn’t, obstructionists on the council will be obliged to explain to the community why they reject a finely designed hotel that blends architecturally into the city’s downtown, that’s owned by a resident investor bending over backward to be a good citizen, and that can be a vital step toward restoring the city’s weakened accommodations inventory.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.