In a civil and mostly cordial gathering Wednesday, 11 candidates for Ketchum City Council set forth their ideas about economic development, regional collaboration and forms of government.
The Wood River Economic Partnership, a valleywide business advocacy organization, sponsored the candidates' forum, asking council hopefuls how they would address the city's woes and why they are the best to do so.
Approximately 30 people attended the meeting at the Wood River Community YMCA, including some Sun Valley residents.
Thirteen candidates have filed for election to council seats: Challengers Chip Bailey, Mickey Garcia, Bob Kesting, Bill Marshall, Neil Morrow, Phyllis Shafran, Jim Slanetz and Bill White—and incumbents Baird Gourlay, Larry Helzel, Curtis Kemp, Nina Jonas and Mayor Randy Hall.
Bill White has since declared he is no longer seeking a seat, so was not present at the forum. Bill Marshall also was not present.
WREP executive director and forum moderator Doug Brown first asked candidates if they support the current strong-mayor form of government or the council-manager system. The question will be up for a vote Nov. 8, along with council seats.
Shafran, Bailey, Garcia and Morrow said they are in favor of switching to the council-manager form. Slanetz said he is "slightly for it."
Shafran said it would provide more stability in municipal government.
"It's run more like a business," she said. "The council is free to take care of policies."
Bailey said that form of government—in which a hired city manager oversees administration—would "depoliticize" city departments and city services and would offer greater openness of government to the public.
"I'm excited to be a part of that change," he said.
Hall, Kemp, Kesting, Helzel and Gourlay are in favor of the current strong-mayor form, in which an elected mayor wields important powers.
"I'm afraid of the council-manager form of government," Helzel said. Countering arguments that the council-manager would be a more professional system, Helzel said Ketchum already operates with a highly trained professional, City Administrator Gary Marks.
Giving an administrator more functions and 100 percent of executive responsibility puts too much authority in one individual—someone who is not elected by citizens, he said.
Jonas said she is unsure which type is right for Ketchum.
"I'm a little bit on the fence on this topic," she said.
A question posed about how much the city should compromise with hotel developments prompted some sitting council members to answer only in general terms so as not to run afoul of public meeting laws regarding applications that may come or are before the council.
Gourlay was cagey.
"I like to play poker," he said. "Dealing with hotels and developers is like having a poker game in front of you. There's tells and there's bluffs. Hopefully, we both get winning hands."
Morrow said he favors finding new approaches to enabling hotel development, particularly with sticking points such as employee housing.
"I think we need to reduce the cost of development creatively," he said.
Kesting said the city should embrace development.
"We need to fuel our economy," Kesting said. "We are simply not sustainable as we are today. We need to be as aggressive as we can possibly be."
Brown's question regarding how the city should foster economic development valleywide elicited a call from Slanetz for residents to do their spending in town.
"We need to get more people to shop locally," he said. "Twin Falls is a huge drain."
A collaborative effort encouraging people to spend money locally also would make the area more vibrant, he said.
Jonas noted the collaboration between Sun Valley and Ketchum with the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance. She hoped that would be a model for other cooperative efforts, perhaps between the Ketchum Community Development Corporation and Sustain Blaine.
Kemp reiterated the notion that Ketchum needs to court tourists through marketing. He cited the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance as a regional economic development tool.
"We are a tourist community," he said. "We must be aggressively proactive in our pursuit of the tourist dollar."
Garcia agreed that the area is dependent on tourism but the economy would benefit by diversifying.
"Metrics are important so we know where we are and we're not guessing," he said.
Candidates pointed to their skills, experience, knowledge and understanding of Ketchum as qualifications for the job.
"I feel like I get this town on a visceral, on a cellular level," said Hall.
Business owners, civil servants and professionals of various stripes want to leave their imprint on the city's next phase.
"We may not all agree all of the time," said John Sofro, WREP board member. "But we all love this community and want what's best for it."
Rebecca Meany: rmeany@mtexpress.com