Steve Wolper lives in Ketchum.
By STEVE WOLPER
First, let me say that I am strongly in favor of a healthy economy and vibrant community in the Wood River Valley. I would like to see Sinclair Oil and the Sun Valley Co. create a world-class resort at the base of Bald Mountain at River Run—one that in consort with a yet-to-be-developed competitive marketing program returns our community to the prominence it once had. River Run is certainly a far more appropriate location than the middle of a residential neighborhood in Warm Springs.
What is worrisome is the present sense of boosterism in analyzing development that seems to have overtaken both the business community and those public officials charged with protecting the community's complex interests.
The proposed development at River Run is arguably the largest project proposed for our community since Sun Valley was created and, at the developer's own admission, several years in the offing. Yet those whose responsibility it is to oversee the project are quoted in opposition to a more deliberative process that allows officials and the community a more reasonable amount of time—not an endless amount of time—to analyze the applicant's proposal.
In a city in which its economic development and planning and zoning departments are officially combined, we are told by city officials that it will be confusing or counterproductive to have too many facts or to take too long to examine the intricacies of the proposal.
In addition to the local Ketchum issues, there has been little consideration of the regional effects this project will have on, among other things, community housing, traffic on state Highway 75 south of Ketchum and public transportation.
We are exhorted by leaders of business development organizations that we should "trust" Sun Valley Co. to do the "right thing" because they "always build first-class structures." While no one can argue that the company has spent a huge amount of money on impressive large structures, one might argue that they may not function well for the purposes for which they were designed.
We are told by representatives of Sun Valley Co., in the old General Motors mantra of "take it or leave it," that what is good for the company is good for our community. Unfortunately, anyone who has lived here for a while knows that to be sometimes less than accurate. To make it deliberately very hard for guests to visit Ketchum to shop or eat, there was a time very recently when Sun Valley's buses were not allowed to stop in Ketchum. The Warm Springs Lodge did little to improve local businesses and après ski at Warm Springs. We must ensure that the development at River Run does not have the same effect on the downtown Ketchum core. Sun Valley Co. has a long history and questionable record of not providing livable employee housing and wages and the proposed project does not offer much promise to change those policies.
As a community, what we can do right now is to slow down—ever so slightly—and ask for more complete plans for the development. We can ask the Ketchum City Council to take more time to give our community time to examine the proposal.
Finally, the approval by the Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission has too many gray areas in which requirements are prefaced by "should" rather than "must." Promises by developers are often rescinded later due to "changing economic conditions." The Ketchum City Council must require written assurances that the promised public amenities and conditions for the annexation and planned-unit development will be met.
Done well, sensitive to the environment and to its neighbors, with very limited onsite retail establishments to protect the business core of Ketchum, with onsite workforce housing and a meaningful contribution to additional community housing, with an all-season connection to the downtown core, and other amenities that would be defined in a more deliberative process, Sun Valley Co., in cooperation with our community, has the opportunity to lead by example and do the right thing. Other world-class ski areas have done it and we can, too.
