For the week of  October 24 - 30, 2001

Seat 1 candidates tackle housing, parking

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Baird Gourlay:

"It basically comes down to experience. I’ve been on the P&Z for 2.5 years, and P&Z items make up 75 percent of city council agendas. My experience on P&Z gives me an edge."

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Anne Corrock:

"I decided to run for city council after attending numerous planning and zoning and city council meetings in which I felt the voice of the city residents and property owners had not been heard. I feel it is responsibility of the council member to do their homework and represent their constituents to the best of their ability."

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Millie Wiggins:

"My city council vote will try to represent what you people who live and work here want, how our community will deal with the inevitable balanced with the practical. I think we have things going better for us than most communities, and it is one of the most beautiful places in the world."

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Baird Gourlay said he deserves your vote because of his experience as a planning and zoning commissioner. Anne Corrock said she’ll truly listen to what Ketchum residents want. And Millie Wiggins said she’ll deal with Ketchum’s inevitable growth, balancing her approach with the practical.

Baird Gourlay, Anne Corrock and Millie Wiggins, left to right, are running for Ketchum City Council Seat 1. Express photo by Willy Cook

The race for Ketchum City Council Seat 1 includes three long-time Ketchum residents looking to give back to their community. At the Idaho Mountain Express’ annual political forum Oct. 17, the three candidates told Ketchum residents how they plan to work at city hall, should they be elected.

"I feel like you’ve invested in me for 2.5 years (as a P&Z commissioner)," Gourlay said. "I’ve made my agenda fairly clear about serving this town and community."

Corrock said she’s running because she wants Ketchum citizens to be heard.

"I feel it is the responsibility of the council members to do their homework and represent their constituents to the best of their ability," Corrock said.

Wiggins concurred.

"My city council vote will try to represent what you people who live and work here want," she said.

The only issue the candidates differed on considerably was the city’s affordable housing program.

Corrock said she was and is against the city’s first affordable project, The Fields at Warm Springs, because of changes the city allowed to its zoning ordinance, which permitted higher densities in a residential neighborhood.

She also said she’s against the city’s proposed Town Center project, which would be built at the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber of Commerce site, and provide about 15 affordable rental units, about five market-rate units and office space.

"I have a hard time with affordable housing on Main Street in Ketchum," she said. "We have other lots that might be more appropriate."

Wiggins said she would prefer smaller, more spread out affordable housing projects in Ketchum.

"We have to have it spread out, so it doesn’t look like a ghetto," she said.

That said, she added that The Fields was "a good thing," but she would prefer the city look at smaller options in the future.

Gourlay said he supports the Town Center proposal and, as a Warm Springs resident, supported The Fields.

"You have to give developers incentives to put affordable housing in," he said. "You have to get somebody to build it for you, and it has to be all over. It can’t be limited to one area."

The candidates fielded a number of parking- and traffic-related questions, and all three said the city needs to take more proactive steps to deal with the issues. Their approaches differed slightly, however.

Gourlay and Wiggins advocated public transportation and paid downtown parking as parts of the solution, though Wiggins pointed out that "there’s not any one solution."

Corrock said the city’s existing parking supply is insufficient, and she said she will work to create more.

All three candidates supported creation of peripheral city parking lots to help ease the growing problem.

There is not an incumbent candidate running for Seat 1. The seat was formerly held by Mayor David Hutchinson, who was appointed mayor in early September following the death of Mayor Guy Coles.

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