I just want to share my opinion; I feel that Ketchum needs new leadership.
Streamlining the development process (as well as other council procedures):
The job of the P & Z (Planning and Zoning committee) is to make sure the development meets the zoning code and that it takes into consideration other master plans (such as the Ketchum Downtown Master plan) adopted by the town. They are the trusted individuals (hopefully some architects/construction experts on the P & Z) to critique the design. If you are a citizen that is passionate/concerned about the town's aesthetics, than these are the meetings you should attend.
When the project gets approved at the P & Z level, it continues onto the council.
A. If there are no variances from the city code requested (such as height), then the city council should rubber stamp the project. No need to spend another minute on it. It is NOT a councilman’s job to insert personal opinions or make up new code changes to prevent a project that has in good faith followed the predetermined criteria with respect to their project.
or
B. If there are specific variance issues that need to have the pros and cons weighed, and the final decision made by the council, then the council members need to look at the P & Z proceedings. Most of the issues will have been vetted at the P & Z level (it should be common knowledge what is being asked by the developer that is beyond the standard code allowances).
Yes, there are many guidelines and public notice parameters that need to happen and these cannot be "sped up". But, what doesn't need to happen is the dismissive attitude by some council
members of the well thought out P & Z's recommendations and the misguided practice that it is ok to drag the public (and developers who are spending a lot of money in this town) through multiple more months of duplicate hearings as a power-play/control issue.
As a councilmember, it is your job to be informed prior to a special vote on a project that is requesting to deviate from the code (a date you know well in advance) of the pros and cons (do your own homework to get your questions answered BEFORE the meeting) . . . and obviously listen to the important public comments before rendering a final opinion. Because, you are mistaken Baird when you say, “
We are the owners of your property, OK as a city council”.I am scared of Baird. I think he isn't able to remove his personal feelings, emotions, and predetermined judgments from his decision making process on the council.
As a valley that depends on tourism, we all need to work with the entities that are trying to build hotels. Not grandstand and cause divide. There is a middle ground. Hotels create jobs, fund the city’s coiffures, support businesses, bring in the money that will continue to feed the great infrastructure we all enjoy and introduce the valley to new future residents. There are only about 10 sites with-in the city limits that can even (according to the code & are big enough lots to make a hotel feasible) become hotels. We haven’t had a new one in over 25? years . . . and we’ve lost 300+? rooms from the “heyday” of the 70’s. In this economy, we cannot afford lose cannon city councilmen.
Please see the quotes below and I hope it will play into your decision this election period.
I think there are some great new people running and I’m excited to continue to hear what they have to say.
What do you think Ketchum voters?
Ginny
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Baird’s Comments taken directly from the Audio Clip at the Tom Hudson Warm Springs Village Town Hall Meeting 2007.
"
One man has done a very good job of dividing us. Look- the city council knows we need hotels, O.K.?
We asked Burnstead to remove his application so we could talk to him. I don’t think you all understand, but when we’re sitting up there, we’re judges, all right? That means that -once an applicant goes to pre-application design review- I cannot talk to that person, Randy [Hall] cannot talk to that person, Steve [Shafran] cannot talk to that person. The only way we can talk to them is through staff. We asked Mr. Burnstead to pull his application. I called him on Monday after he pulled his application and told him that we were interested in his project, that there were possibilities -possibilities that five stories was something we’d look at. We know that three stories versus four stories versus five stories, you can get better-looking buildings you get the design to accomplish it".
"What did I get in reply?" I got an email through staff an ultimatum.
These are not the people I particularly want to deal with, O.K.? We have nine other people that are coming to us with hotels."
"We need to make a choice on the people that we want to develop in our community. A If you owned a piece of property and you had 9 different people who wanted to rent from you, you wouldn’t take the first one if he told you he had ultimatums and you had to build a building this way or you had to build a building according to the way he wanted it to be build and then he would rent it from you.
We are the owners of your property, OK as a city council. So we have to be very careful and have to evaluate everything….Â
Please try not to divide us.. I am trying to pull us all together…don’t let one man divide us".
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