Monday morning in Ketchum, the officer who shows up is a Ketchum police officer. Mostly the same nine people who showed up last week wearing a sheriff's star. New badge, new patch, new chain of command, and no permanent chief. It's the biggest change in valley policing in years and it lands in four days.
Also this week: the district wants to tear down Hailey Elementary, the feedlot gets a second opinion on the aquifer, the county is under an air quality advisory with open burning banned, and the Big Wood is down to 192. Here's the week.
Top of Mind
Ketchum's police department starts Monday. It starts without a chief.
On Aug. 3 the city stands up its own department and the Blaine County Sheriff's Office stops policing Ketchum, five months after the council cancelled that contract. Ten positions are filled: nine sworn officers, three women and seven men, an administrative specialist, and two and a half community service officers, with about 65 years of experience between them. All of them trained and served under the sheriff. The faces at your door Monday are the faces that were there Friday.
What the city doesn't have is a chief. A nationwide search is running, and until it finishes the department is managed by Brian Lee, a consultant who's worked law enforcement in Twin Falls, Boise and Texas. Hiring came with $5,000 signing bonuses paid out of a $200,000 reimbursement from the sheriff's office. Read that twice. County money helped Ketchum hire the county's deputies away from the county, which tells you how the divorce went.
The case for doing this was always accountability, that officers should answer to the mayor and council rather than an elected sheriff in Hailey, and it's a fair case. Monday isn't the test. The test is the first February week when three people are out and a ten-person department has no bench, and you'll see the answer in next year's overtime line before you see it in a press release. Meet them Tuesday at 5:30 at Forest Service Park, ahead of Ketch'em Alive. There are popsicles.
Sources: Idaho Mountain Express and the city of Ketchum
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Town Hall
HaileyThe school district wants to tear down Hailey Elementary and build a smaller school on the same ground. The buildings go back to the 1930s: roughly 60 exterior doorways, roof leaks, water lines that freeze. About 300 K-5 kids rattle around 88,000 square feet, which Superintendent Jim Foudy calls oversized for what it serves. The replacement runs 50,000 to 60,000, built for 450, open fall 2028. There's $14.5 million of state money in hand, no cost estimate until December, and the gap goes to voters. [IME]
CountyThe Yale Road feedlot is getting a second opinion on the water. The state's siting team rated it "moderate risk" overall, which DEQ hydrogeologist Allison Vincent says is common. Underneath that average: groundwater reaching Minidoka's public water system in under three years, and slopes of 30 to 40 degrees. County P&Z ordered an independent hydrogeological study first, which is the right instinct on a first-of-its-kind permit. Commissioner Pat Murphy said the quiet part: if this one is approved, there could be others. [IME]
KetchumThe local-option tax increase cleared its first reading 3-1 last Thursday, Tripp Hutchinson the lone no on raising anything on retail. Retail and building materials go up half a point, lodging up two, worth about $2.2 million a year locked to streets, sidewalks and pathways. It's aimed at the hole that opens when the urban renewal agency dissolves in 2030. Second reading is Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 4 p.m. Then it needs 60% in November. [IME]
HaileyHailey audited its three license-plate cameras on July 7 and mostly liked what it saw. Assistant Chief Todd Peck pulled five searches at random and all were lawful. The miss was paperwork: searches run without a logged case number, corrected after the fact. The catch is the audit's reach. Records delete at 30 days, so nothing older can ever be checked by anyone. Chief Steve England says immigration alerts are off and footage goes only to Idaho agencies. [IME]
BellevueThe Howard Preserve is getting its last 1.34 acres. The Wood River Land Trust is buying a 0.55-acre parcel from the Meyers family, appraised at $311,000, and the council voted to vacate an adjoining 0.79-acre right-of-way. That brings the preserve to about 36 acres with a half mile of Big Wood frontage under one easement. Friends of the Howard Preserve call it the last piece of the puzzle. Five years ago the ask was $500,000. [IME]
KetchumHousekeeping that costs you ten minutes. The city moved its website from ketchumidaho.org to ketchumidaho.gov, which is correct for a government site and breaks every bookmark you have. The old address forwards, but only to the homepage, so a saved link to an agenda or a permit page now dumps you at the front door. Re-save the ones you use. Also unanimous last Thursday: the Sun Valley Visitor Center at 491 E. Sun Valley Road is now historic. [IME]
Out & About
This weekend
Tonight, Thu Jul 30 Hailey Rocks: Deltaphonic at Hop Porter Park, 6:30 to 9, free, all ages. New Orleans blues-funk, which is not a thing Hailey gets much of. Afterparty at the Liberty. [info]
Thu Jul 30 and Fri Jul 31 Sun Valley Music Festival at the Pavilion, 6:30 both nights and free both nights. Tonight is Orion Weiss with festival musicians on Tchaikovsky and Dohnányi. Friday is Strauss and Mozart. [info]
Sun Aug 2 John McEnroe and Mats Wilander play pickleball and you can watch for nothing. Free exhibition 10 to noon at the Sun Valley Tennis and Pickleball Club, closing a weekend that raises money for Men's Second Chance Living in Hailey. [info]
Sat Aug 1 Composer Anna Clyne talks with Alasdair Neale about the piece the orchestra premieres two days later, 11 a.m. at the Community Library in Ketchum. Free. [info]
Every week
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 Ketch'em Alive, Forest Service Park, Ketchum. Free. Two left: Christie Huff Aug 4, the Pisten Bullys Aug 11. [Visit SV]
Wednesdays, 5 to 8 River Run Summer Series at the base. Music, food trucks, a bar outside, and the gondola runs until 7. Through Aug 26. [Visit SV]
Sat 10 to 2, Wed noon to 4 Wood River Farmers Market. Hailey Saturdays at Roberta McKercher Park, Ketchum Wednesdays at Forest Service Park. [info]
Thu, Fri, Sat, 5:30 to 7:30 Live Music in the Pasture, Hotel Ketchum's backyard. Different artist each night. [info]
Wednesdays, 6 to 9:30 Wicked Wednesday at the Wicked Spud in Hailey. Free music, a different local nonprofit every week, 23 years running. [Visit SV]
Coming up
Mon Aug 3 Stravinsky's Firebird at the Pavilion, 6:30, free, paired with the premiere of Anna Clyne's Woman of the Mountain. Free seats open an hour ahead and unclaimed reserved seats go at 6:15. [info]
Tue Aug 4 National Night Out at Forest Service Park, 5:30, right before Ketch'em Alive. The new Ketchum Police Department's first day in public: officers, the new patrol wraps, free popsicles while they last. [info]
Thu Aug 6 The Music Festival's gala, an evening with Sutton Foster at the Pavilion, 6:30. This is the one night of the season that isn't free; it's the fundraiser that keeps the other thirty free. [tickets]
Fri Aug 7 First Friday at the Sun Valley Museum of Art, 5 p.m., featuring Ian Janco. Free, as always. [info]
Over Galena
Tonight, Thu Jul 30 Lake Effect closes out July at the street dance on Ace of Diamonds, 6:30 to 10, free. Earlier, 6 p.m. at Redfish Lake Lodge, a talk on bootlegging and Prohibition in the Sawtooths. [info]
Fri Jul 31 Push2Play on the lawn at Redfish, 6 to 8, free, and the Lakeside Grill serves through it. Kenny and Dave play the Sawtooth Hotel at 7 if you'd rather be indoors. [info]
Sat Aug 1 The Sagebrush Soirée at Redfish Lake Lodge, 5:30 to 8:30. Ticketed, 20 years running, and it pays for a lot of the trail work you use up there. Buy ahead. It's a lodge, not a stadium. [tickets]
Sat Aug 1 The Whags at the Kasino Club, 8 p.m., free. Stanley's oldest room that still books bands, and it's a five-minute walk from where the street dance was Thursday. [info]
Tue Aug 11 and Wed Aug 12 Perseid Palooza at Pioneer Park, the fourth one, and it now has a building. The Stanley Observatory opened July 18: a log cabin with a roll-off roof and a donated 14-inch telescope, built by two guys who salvaged the logs themselves. [info]
Also standing: Music on the Lawn Sunday 5 to 7, free (Matt Bolton). Trivia Wednesdays at the Kasino, 7:30.
Mark it down
Fri Aug 14 to Sun Aug 16 The Sun Valley Arts & Crafts Festival, 57th year, 126 artists from 27 states in Atkinson Park. Free to walk in. Park early or walk from town. [info]
The Dirt
River and fish. The Big Wood is 192 cfs at Hailey, 63% of normal, down from 238 last week. That chocolate-milk water a week ago was thunderstorm runoff, not fire: flow jumped 130 cfs in a night. Project Big Wood's Amanda Bauman had it back to kombucha by Friday. Wading is easy. Fish mornings for Tricos, caddis and spruce moths, then hoppers once the bugs quit. Afternoon water runs warm down low, so go north. Silver Creek holds 109 cfs, 98% of normal, and touched 70 degrees Tuesday. [Silver Creek Outfitters]
Fire and air. Open burning is prohibited across Blaine County as of Wednesday, under a DEQ air advisory covering us and seven counties south. The smoke is mostly eastern Oregon, where the Big Grass Fire has run to 280,000 acres. Ketchum's monitor read a clean 33 Thursday morning against a forecast of 55 today. Three fires here in five days, all out: lightning near Corral Creek, grass off 75 in south Hailey, and 34 acres off North Picabo Road Wednesday from an irrigation pump that arced. Fire danger is Very High valley-wide and there are still no restrictions. [Sawtooth National Forest]
Bears and the mountain. Fish and Game is fielding more black bear calls than usual and the drought is why: less food up high, so they come down, and July is when a bear eats everything it can find. Kenzie Baratti's line is worth keeping, that one unsecured attractant brings a bear back again and again. Trash inside, feeder down, fruit off the ground. On Baldy, lifts run Wednesday through Sunday 9 to 4, and Lookout Lodge is closed all season. [IME]
Over Galena. Highway 21 reopened Tuesday after a week shut between Grandjean and Banner Summit, where flash flooding off the 2024 Wapiti burn scar buried mileposts 94 to 105. Grandjean Campground and its trailhead are closed through Dec. 31, and the debris took trails with them. Galena itself is clear. The Salmon below the Yankee Fork is 648 cfs, 89% of normal, dropping fast and still floatable low down. Valley Creek at Stanley reads 127. [IME]
Open House
Ketchum P&Z got its first look at four townhomes off Warm Springs Road, across from Greyhawk: two buildings, 11,215 square feet all in, five bedrooms and five full baths apiece, about 35 feet tall on an 8.5-acre lot with four acres left in a landscape easement around the existing trail. It sits in the Avalanche Overlay District, so architect Mike Allaire designed boulder walls, stone veneer and roofs that can hold extra snow. Commissioners mostly wanted it pushed further back into the hill. Design review is tentatively September. Separately, the Guyer Hot Springs hearing that got continued from July 16 comes back Aug. 6 at 4:30 at City Hall, and that's the one to show up to if you have a view on density up there. [IME]
Table Talk
Second week running with nothing opened and nothing closed that we can confirm, so here's something you can actually use this weekend. Liza Green, who co-founded Café Della, now runs an online market that aggregates southern Idaho farms and producers into one weekly order. Ordering opens Saturday at 7 a.m. and closes Sunday at midnight. Pickup is free in Ketchum, Hailey and Bellevue; delivery anywhere in the valley is $15. It's the boring infrastructure problem nobody solves, which is that loving local food and buying it from six farms are different amounts of work. [IME]
If you know about a new spot or a shuttered one, hit reply. Tips beat press releases every time.
The Party Line
The valley's anonymous board. One tap, no name, and the link's at the bottom.
- Twenty-two years I've called the sheriff's non-emergency line from my kitchen in Ketchum. Monday I have to learn a new one. Somebody put it on a magnet.
- They're going to tear down the school my mother went to, my sister went to, and my kid goes to. I've read the roof report. Tear it down.
- Overheard on the bike path near Hulen Meadows: "is that smoke or is that fog." In July. Sir.
It's smoke. It's always smoke. - To whoever left a full bag of trash on the deck at their rental on Warm Springs: a bear will find it, the bear will get relocated or shot, and you will fly home Sunday.
- Ninety-five on Saturday and my swamp cooler is a box fan pointed at a bowl of ice. Ketchum has never needed air conditioning and this is the third summer it has needed air conditioning.
- The city spent a year building its own police department and hired nine deputies who were already policing Ketchum. I'm not saying it was wrong. I'm saying I recognize everybody.
Got one? Submit anonymously → (one tap, no name required)
One from last week. We wrote that the county P&Z had staff filing the Yale Road feedlot as high risk on the aquifer. The state's siting report rates the site moderate risk overall; the high-risk marks are on two specific factors inside it, groundwater travel time and slope. Both things are true, but we printed the scarier one as the headline number and should have printed both.
If you do one thing this weekend, drive down to the tennis club Sunday morning and watch two men with fourteen Grand Slam titles between them play pickleball for free. It's a fundraiser for a Hailey house that gets men out of addiction and back to work, and it costs you nothing but ten o'clock.
Bring the trash in. Don't burn anything.
See you next Thursday.
The Bigwood Brief
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