Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Preserve city’s downtown core

---

I am surprised that the Ketchum City Council is attempting to amend present zoning to permit a grocery store in Ketchum's Light Industrial zone.

Ketchum needs to do everything it can to revitalize its downtown core. Atkinsons' Market is the anchor store in our downtown. Its presence there is what draws people into the core. To place a grocery store outside of the core would bleed off whatever vitality we currently have in the center of our town. If a grocery store goes into the light-industrial area, the flow of our town would change dramatically and the core would become even less populated.

I doubt that a third grocery store would do anything to entice more tourists to visit our valley and would probably detract from tourism, as tourists like to visit thriving communities.

The land where Anderson/Stock Building was located is a large parcel that could be used to draw new businesses with employees to town. Instead of trying to bring a new grocery store to Ketchum, we should be doing all we can to entice new businesses to Ketchum. A new grocery store would only provide temporary jobs to the valley during the construction phase. As far as the number of employees working in the grocery stores, it would probably be net-neutral.

I encourage the City Council to not approve the amendment.

Marybeth Flower

Ketchum

comprar viagra
buy viagra
acheter viagra