1. What is the greatest challenge facing Hailey today? What specific steps would you take to solve it?
2. What is your vision of Hailey's growth? What strategies would you employ as mayor to manage the city's expansion?
3. Where does regional planning rank on your list of priorities for the city of Hailey? What are the advantages or disadvantages for the city?
4. What can the city do to increase the ease of setting up a new business in Hailey? How can the city government assist existing businesses?
5. How important is past experience in city government to the city's top position?
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Rick Davis
Age: 58
Occupation: Sun Valley Title Co.
Government experience: 16-year veteran of the Hailey City Council and current council president.
Why running: "I have some ideas about how to achieve economic stability and ideas about water conservation that I would like to put into action. As mayor I want to make Hailey a better place to live for those who live here now and want to live here in the future."
I believe the largest challenge facing the city of Hailey is domestic water. We need a new source and we need to conserve what we have.
I look at the city of Hailey's growth as that of infill in both residential and business zoned areas. Let us use the Comprehensive Plan as a guide for land within our Area of City Impact that may want to be annexed.
Regional planning is of high priority for my administration. However, all entities must have an equal part and no entity should have its own agenda. If this is done right, there should be no disadvantage for the city.
I will increase the ease of which new or existing businesses set up and operate by forming an ad hoc committee of business people to look at our existing ordinances and suggest changes that would ease the burden and lessen government involvement in business.
Experience is crucial for the Mayor of Hailey. The last 10 years have been very trying for Hailey government, as growth increased and so did the challenges. The mayor must know what those challenges were and how they were mitigated. The mayor must have knowledge of how each department functions and their responsibilities.
Erin Dunn
Age: 28
Occupation: Account executive, Edge Wireless. Bartender, Sun Valley Brewery
Government experience: None
Why running: "Returning to Hailey after school, I began to complain that "I can't afford a house" and "everything's so expensive." Finally, it hit me: stop complaining and do something about it. My personality has always been to go for the top, so here I am with a new perspective."
Water. We need to work as a regional coalition or team to implement conservation measures that will reach far into the future. Environmental incentives and greenscaping are some of the many means to that end. Without water, we have nothing.
Hailey's growth is strong and strategies to manage that expansion are best approached as a team. We will continue to grow and working as a community with groups like the BCHA, the Nature Conservancy and the Wood River Land Trust will help ensure expansion and growth of which our future generations will be proud.
We are all in this together and at times the line will be thin between regional planning and local planning, but if we don't consider our neighbors while making decisions we will isolate ourselves. We must do what's best for our residents while weighing the impact our decisions will have on our neighbors.
The ease of setting up a new business can't be greatly reduced, but how we work with people through the process of starting a new business can make things "feel" easier. For example, community housing solutions will help struggling businesses find long term employees, in turn encouraging more businesses to set roots here.
A person will never know everything, no matter how much experience they have. It's critical to be collaborative and willing to learn. The higher the post, the more important it is that you "surround" yourself with experienced people. Experience doesn't make a good leader.
