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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
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Copyright © 2003 Express Publishing Inc.
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For the week of January 21 - 27, 2004

Editorials

Stuck in Hailey


Hailey needs to figure out how to handle snow.

The New Year’s storm that dropped more than 24 inches of snow in a single night strangled movement in Hailey for days afterward. Side streets were a slippery morass of ruts and drifts. Piles of snow slowed travel to a crawl.

The clogged streets contrasted starkly with the tidily groomed streets in Ketchum and Sun Valley.

Where were the snowplows and hauling trucks? They were broken, and city crews had difficulty fixing them.

With more than 6,000 permanent inhabitants, Hailey is the valley’s largest residential city and home to the majority of the valley’s work force.

The week after the storm, the Hailey Volunteer Fire Department asked residents to go out and dig out fire hydrants because volunteers didn’t have time.

No wonder.

Hailey’s rapid growth has not been accompanied by equally rapid growth in funding for city services. The city was strangled by snow because the Idaho Legislature has strangled city budgets and handcuffed the city’s ability to serve a larger population.

City officials have repeatedly expressed frustration at laws that blindly restrict adequate funding of essential services like fire protection and snow plowing.

It’s time for city officials to declare a moratorium on growth in Hailey. No one will be happy about it. Yet, it might convince the Idaho Legislature to quit crying about the need for a better economy and to change the laws that left workers in Idaho’s largest winter tourism market stuck in hip-high drifts in Hailey.

 

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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.