Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Hailey leaders outline goals

Future of rodeo grounds, safer crosswalks among top concerns


By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

Hailey officials gather Monday evening at the Community Campus to discuss city goals and priorities for the coming year and beyond. Around the three nearest tables, from left to right, are Hailey Councilwoman Martha Burke, Mayor Susan McBryant, Councilman Don Keirn, City Administrator Jim Spinelli, Councilwoman Carol Brown and, speaking, City Council President Rick Davis. Photo by David N. Seelig

At a Monday goal-setting workshop at the Community Campus in Hailey, the city's elected officials began to lay out plans and priorities for the upcoming year and beyond.

Topics discussed during the meeting included what should be done with the Hailey rodeo grounds and ways to improve the safety of pedestrian crosswalks in places like the Main Street and McKercher Boulevard intersection.

While the meeting was open to the public, the discussion was among city officials only.

No formal decisions on any of the issues were made. Rather, such decisions were put off to what will be a series of public workshops that will be held during the next few months.

Below are some of the key highlights and topics that arose from the meeting:

- The future of the Hailey rodeo grounds property should be determined. The lease governing the use of the Hailey-owned land as the city's rodeo grounds is not permanent. During Monday's meeting, Hailey officials discussed the possibility that the "highest and best use" of the site may be different.

Nothing was set in stone. Rather, Hailey Mayor Susan McBryant said the city owes the operators of the rodeo grounds better direction.

"We need to decide when the deed there comes up what we're going to do," McBryant said.

The mayor and City Council chose to defer any decision on the future of the rodeo grounds until after they hold a workshop at a future meeting. A date for that workshop has not been set.

· The prospect of improving pedestrian safety, especially at unlit Main Street crosswalks, was discussed. Lighting at the pedestrian crosswalk at Main Street and McKercher Boulevard is sorely lacking, Councilwoman Martha Burke pointed out.

"Right now that's a very dark intersection," she said.

Councilman Don Keirn suggested the city may need to add better overhead lighting and crossing lights to ensure greater safety at the increasingly used intersection.

"It gets darker and darker as I go up to McKercher," Keirn said.

The basic issue comes down to funding, they agreed. Nevertheless, the city needs to make better lighting there a priority, Burke said.

"We have to do something there immediately," she said.

· The city should develop a plan addressing Hailey's carrying capacity and future size. With the rapid growth of the Wood River Valley, the officials agreed this is an issue in urgent need of attention.

The core of it comes down to funding, McBryant said. State law only allows resort cities with populations of 10,000 or less to have a local option tax, she said.

The city is edging closer to that population figure every year.

"We need to determine how happy we are as a resort community and having an LOT," she said.

As part of the discussion, the topic of a possible new city being built somewhere in southern Blaine County was brought up repeatedly. Such a city might serve as a kind of pressure relief to direct new arrivals in the area to live elsewhere, the mayor and members of the City Council agreed.

Still, all agreed there might be detrimental aspects also associated with such a city. "The new town at least needs to be considered in a public forum," Hailey City Council President Rick Davis said.

- The city should consider ways of creating a covered public pool—possibly through a Hailey and Blaine County Recreation District partnership. Blaine County Recreation District Executive Director Wally Morgus has apparently indicated a willingness to discuss such a partnership.

Unlike certain other recreational facilities, the operation of a covered public pool is something the city could handle, Burke said.

"I don't want to do a golf course, but we can do a pool," she said.

- Evaluation of Hailey's participation with groups such as the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority and the KART/PEAK bus system is important.

McBryant said the city needs to determine what if any monetary role it should commit to with such groups. As an example, she said the city may be just as effective if it commits to building covered bus shelters for the KART/PEAK bus system.

Of particular interest are the new tax dollars coming into the city because of the recently approved local option tax, McBryant said.

"I just am not comfortable yet taking these new tax dollars and giving them to KART," McBryant said.

- Other topics discussed during the workshop included the need to hire a code enforcement officer, sidewalk and lighting improvements on Woodside Boulevard and the need to name new commissioners to the Hailey Planning and Zoning Commission and Parks and Lands Board.




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