Here are a few observations that have come

up in various conversations I've had this past week. Many of us are wondering "What's going on around here?"    

1. What exactly does the Sun Valley Marketing Alliance (SVMA) do? Its recent meeting with Ketchum and Sun Valley elected officials, reported in the Mt. Express, adds little to our knowledge. The SVMA's outcome criteria include increased potential visitor clicks on its website, growth in sales and LOT receipts, and dollars spent on marketing. But unless, for example, you can connect the dots between real-life New York City visitors and SVMA actions, its success criteria are meaningless. In fact, increased visitor numbers may more likely be due to Sun Valley having better snow than other Western ski areas, good early season skiing, and more flights into our area.   

If New Yorkers do come to our area, they will find The Visitors Center in a 20' x 10' space in "the Starbucks building" where they can peruse the small brochure rack and talk with someone usually engaged on an I-pad. The Center is typically empty. 

And would a New Yorker be taken with SVMA's website, Visit Sun Valley, with its utterly forgettable logo; an awkward and uninspiring layout; lodging listings that lack pictures; Stanley and other out-of-town rentals mixed with Sun Valley rentals without regard to geographics? Would they catch the Freudian misspelling in the Sun Valley Inn description: "Dinging options at the hotel are numerous..."?

Nor would anyone give a high rating to SVMA's booking process. I called Visit Sun Valley on the website's phone number. A voicebot answered and gave me some menu options. I chose "information about Sun Valley," waited x 2, and got another voicebot that asked me to leave a message - or to press a number to reach Visit Sun Valley.  But....I was already on the Visit Sun Valley line!! 

I re-called the number and chose the voicebot's "make a reservation" option. A nice woman answered who lives in Colorado and had no first-hand knowledge about local lodgings. She'd been to Sun Valley several years ago. What she could tell me she drew haltingly from prepared materials at hand.

2. Why does the Idaho Mountain Express fail to report any of the egregious misuses of money in north valley governments and NGOs, or the problems with the URA, or non-transparent school district budgeting, or anything else that is problematic in the valley? I know the paper's management isn't ignorant. I do often sense that it is part of "the club of political elite." Even then, why not do some factual digging? Perhaps it has run its course of community utility? 

We need a local newspaper of record. I can sympathize with today's tough publishing economics but I'm quite sure that, with a fresh outlook and an effort to use new methods and create new opportunities, the Express could remain both valuable and viable.

3. What is the purpose of Sun Valley Economic Development (SVED) beyond providing local economic statistics and an annual economic conference?  So far, its proposed projects pertain only to Ketchum: e.g. the Air Barn, the Culinary Institute, and the Paralympics Training Center; its project portfolio claims assistance to Fly Sun Valley and the Ketchum Innovation Center, programs the groups generated themselves. Yes, those groups may want data of some sort and maybe SVED is the place to go. But there's a lot of non-productive redundancy here.

4. When will the Mountain Rides Board get its act together and think through what it's doing, rather than repeat the same mistakes over and over?

5. And what about the County's Outcome Based Budgeting (OBB)? After my Insight Weekly commentary a couple of weeks ago, a Commissioner challenged some of my points. I can only say that it's a good thing the County has advertised for a good human resource specialist. Hiring criteria should include that the person understand how to write measurable budget objectives, effective performance appraisals, and an exciting vision statement, among other things. A specific place to start would be to reduce the County's 45 strategic objectives - yes, 45 (not including department objectives) - to a more practical number. And to have plans for each objective. I've asked for the plans for the 45 objectives, by the way, but haven't heard back yet.

Until next week...Jima Rice