Government officials often get a bad rap—even local elected officials who are ordinary people who put themselves into the public eye to serve their communities.
By and large, local officials are well-intentioned, hard-working, civic-minded people who strive to create healthy and livable communities.
They don't do it for money, and they don't do it for power. Members of city councils, boards of county commissioners, planning and zoning commissions and school boards would realize far higher salaries for their efforts in large corporations than as public servants in Idaho's small towns.
And power? If control over water and sewer systems, streets, sidewalks, lighting, buses, development and schools is power, then elected and appointed public officials have it. But it's doubtful this kind of power really goes to anyone's head.
By and large, local public officials work hard to please, and it should go without saying that they can never please everyone, especially if they are watching out for the public interest.
Two recent decisions, one by the Sun Valley City Council and the other by the Blaine County Board of Commissioners should be viewed in this context.
The Sun Valley City Council rejected annexation of a proposed 12-home subdivision in Independence Gulch, a very steep and narrow, sage-covered canyon.
The council had to balance the desire for the project against the ongoing financial burden on all taxpayers of providing emergency services to an isolated area and the risk of fire to both subdivision residents and firefighters. The council was also bound by the city's own prohibition on building homes on very steep slopes.
The developers still have the option to pursue development of an estimated four homes in the county.
Developers weren't happy about the decision, but the council and the members of the Planning and Zoning Commission, which had rejected the development, did their jobs in weighing public with private interests.
Blaine County commissioners did the same when they refused to exempt St. Luke's hospital from proposed ordinances that require new developments to include affordable community housing in the McHanville area south of Ketchum.
The hospital was not the issue; it was equity and fairness. The commissioners could not exempt one developer without penalizing others.
Instead of exemptions, the real question may be how a radically changed economy will affect worker housing in the future.
No matter what the question may be, good public officials bear the burden of balancing conflicting desires—and for better or worse, they do it to be of service. That's a quality worth admiring.
