For the week of  Sept. 26 - Oct. 2, 2001

Ketchum establishes ‘90-day plan’

End-of-term wish list under way

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Ketchum is drawing a blueprint for its next few months of operations.

With only three months remaining in his term, newly appointed Mayor David Hutchinson convened the city’s elected and appointed officials and staff members Monday afternoon to iron out a 90-day action plan of issues the city can initiate or finish before year’s end.

Calling the city’s past stance on issues "reactive," Hutchinson said it is time to become more proactive on important, inevitable topics facing the city.

"What I really want is to hear what’s on people’s minds," he said. "That’s what this is about: creating the political will to get it done."

Nearly all of the city’s leaders and staff were in agreement.

Negotiating electricity and cable television franchise agreements, choosing a replacement for retiring City Administrator Jim Jaquet and expanding city office space to accommodate the growing local government were at the top of lists.

The only break in the otherwise positive demeanor resulted because of the meeting’s short notice, which was issued Friday morning, just 25 work-day hours before the meeting.

"You would have had this room filled if people had known about it," Ketchum resident and mayoral candidate Janet Dunbar criticized.

Ketchum has been without an electricity franchise agreement with both Idaho Power Co. and Cox Communications since fall of 1997. Negotiations to arrange new agreements have come to impasses on several occasions with both utility providers.

The utilities must have franchises to work freely in city rights of way, and the city must have franchises to take a slice of residents’ utility bills.

On the electricity franchise, the city has been pushing for Idaho Power to help underground the city’s power lines. On the cable franchise, the city has been pushing for a government access channel and assurances of high quality service.

"Yes, I’ve gotten direction to make this a priority, and yes, we are going to hammer on this for the next 90 days," Ketchum City Attorney Margaret Simms said following the meeting.

Simms pointed out that Idaho Power Area Leader Jim Bell has been central to bringing Idaho Power to the table for negotiations. "He’s been a very reasonable, helpful person who has helped create a working relationship," she said.

Jaquet’s pending retirement, scheduled for early in 2002, is also an issue city leaders said they will adamantly pursue.

"This is something we need to get done quickly," Hutchinson said. "The city administrator is the nuts and bolds of the day-to-day activity in the city."

Replacing Jaquet was at the very top of priority lists for many officials and staff.

Fire Chief Tom Johnson, Police Chief Cal Nevland, City Clerk Sandy Cady and Planning Administrator Lisa Horowitz all stressed that Ketchum City Hall is running out of room to fit all of their departments.

"The priority is space," Nevland said. "I think everybody realizes that."

Nevland said he also realizes, however, that finding property to expand to or drawing up plans to expand existing city hall will take time.

Other issues raised at the meeting include:

·  Hutchinson said planning for key, open properties in Ketchum is of growing importance. The parking lot adjacent to Mountain West Bank, the three-block Simplot property in West Ketchum and the Warm Springs golf course were all on his list.

The city should consider options for acquiring or helping to plan the properties’ futures, he said, with the goal of retaining them as open space.

"I know we’re not going to accomplish these in 90 days, but I hope we can initiate them in 90 days," he said.

·  Councilman Maurice Charlat said traffic circulation, the proposed Bill Janss Community Center for Ketchum’s Park & Ride lot and Warm Springs bike path right of way issues are near the top of his priority list.

"We have to include a real understanding of traffic circulation," especially as Highway 75 is developed and widened, Charlat said.

"The highway will dump people in greater volume at our door, and we have done nothing to get them through town," P&Z Commissioner Rod Sievers added.

He said the city needs to help the community better understand the proposed Janss recreation center and to ensure that taxpayer money is well spent.

On the bike path, Charlat and Sievers agreed that the city must protect its Warm Springs Road right of way.

"We’re reaching a point where every square foot of ground within the city infrastructure is increasingly valuable," he said.

·  P&Z Commissioner Baird Gourlay said controlling the size of residential homes is important, too.

"To me it’s ludicrous that somebody needs a 10,000-square-foot house when there are two retired people living there," he said. "If we’re going to allow this, they need to pay more."

Gourlay proposed that the city look at other cities as models. Aspen, for example, requires homes over 10,000 to provide deed-restricted housing to offset the workers, like plumbers and electricians, the homes help generate.

The long wish list left residents impressed and skeptical.

"Wow," Dunbar said. "I think all of these things are terribly important. If we could get started on that in the next 90 days, I think we would be excited."

Ketchum resident Mickey Garcia, another mayoral candidate, was also impressed, though skeptical of what the city can accomplish in the short term.

"I would be really impressed with all this, but I’ve been to all the meetings the past year and a half," he said. "This 90-day thing you said you’re going to do almost sounds like a campaign speech.

"Where are you going to get the money? How much open space to we want, and how much money do we have to buy it?"

The next 90 days will tell.

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