Idaho Falls Mayoral Race, Pt. 1 – The Issues (According to Me)

So, a little disclosure to start: I was seriously considering running for mayor this year. So yeah, I have some strong opinions about some very specific things. These are problems I’ve been chewing on for years. I reached out to both mayoral candidates I could actually find contact info for (still no luck with Ashcraft’s email) to ask what they thought about these issues.

Now, talking to politicians—or even regular folks trying to sound political—is tricky. You’ve got to drill down past the talking points and empty language. I have always found that true and it was present here too.

Here, I’m just going to share the main points and ideas I’ve been wrestling with, so you have context for the questions I asked them. Part 2 will cover Jeff’s responses and my commentary; Part 3 will tackle Lisa’s. This is all just my opinion, so feel free to ignore it all—but I hope it helps someone.

The Issues (According to Me)

1. Diversifying Good Jobs

We have the lab, sure—but leaving INL for any comparable job in Idaho Falls is (most often) a financial death sentence. Our next mayor needs to actively recruit new businesses that complement INL’s skill base, creating competition and better options for residents. The city is far too dependent on INL and, by extension, federal funding. We need to diversify before that dependence bites us.

2. Schools

The city should do everything it can to help schools get built. Yeah, there are some legal quirks with cities directly funding schools, but if the city worked more closely with districts, maybe we could find creative ways to bring costs down.
These schools don’t have golden toilets, so spare me the outrage that Shelley’s bond was “too high.” Everything is “too high” now—have you been to the grocery store?

3. City Departments That Actually Matter

I asked both candidates: what are the top three city departments for the next 5–10 years?
My take:

1. Parks and Rec – We need more recreation options to reduce crime, build amenities, and just be a real city. Not everyone is LDS and plugged into those built-in youth programs. Recreation is inclusion.
2. Public Works – Because everything, everywhere seems to be broken all the time.
3. Municipal Services – As the city grows, it all falls to MS to hold it together. We need a more innovative, advanced, professional team there.

4. Jobs and Apprenticeships

Being young in this city is rough—crappy wages, worse landlords. “Idaho Launch” and all the hype around apprenticeships? Totally undefined. I asked both candidates how they’d design a system that connects workers to good jobs and gives businesses incentives to train people.
My approach: require every company bidding on a city project to have a training or apprenticeship program with trackable outcomes. Then build a public employment toolkit so young people can actually find jobs that match their goals—instead of playing economic whack-a-mole.

5. Traffic

Traffic sucks.
There’s a clustering of businesses—medical, professional, and retail—on the east side, so everyone else has to trek there for basic needs. My fix: offer preferred zoning and tax incentives to similar businesses that open on the north or west sides.
We can’t rebuild the roads overnight, but we can shape behavior. Let’s get people off Sunnyside, 17th, and Hitt before someone loses it in a Target parking lot.

6. State Representation

Our state reps don’t really advocate for Idaho Falls. They’re too busy chasing whatever the latest culture-war hot topic is (looking at you, Barb). I asked how each candidate would engage with our reps and keep them accountable to local needs. My approach would be regularly, like monthly, engagement with our state reps and communication to the city about what they are working on that directly impacts us.

7. A Mayor for All of Idaho Falls

I asked how they’d be a mayor for all of Idaho Falls—not just the Sunnyside corridor. If you know, you know.

8. Public Safety

The sleepy Idaho Falls of the ’90s is gone. Crime’s going up, and it’s not the petty stuff anymore. I asked how they’d address the root causes.
My opinion: more officers, higher standards, more transparency, and stronger community services. Simple, but not easy. Also, we have some tremendous mental health clinicians in town. The City should contract with some of these businesses to have on call 24/7 access to mental health providers that can be dispatched to incidents in town. Cops are not mental health advocates and we don't want our own version of Victor Perez.

9. Development and Incentives

This one’s big for me. Ask anyone who knows me.
I asked how the city should incentivize or disincentivize development projects—like car washes.
Maybe I’m just old-school Idaho, but washing your car in winter? That’s not a thing. It’s wasteful, bad for your car, and yes, I will judge you.
Beyond that, these things are water hogs and economic sinkholes. When they fail—and many will—they’ll leave behind concrete tombs that can’t be reused without full demolition. It’s a long-term drain on the city.
My approach: Some may think this is communism, and if so go away, but I think the city should review building permits with a careful eye and when someone wants to build car wash #65, we say, "Hold on, I think we have enough of those." Yes, I know "I should be able to do what I want with my property! Bah! Gadsden Flag!" But no you can't and you haven't been able to ever. You can't put a waste processing facility next to an elementary school either. The City should have an office that participates in the reviews of these permitting applications and evaluate them from an economic and market needs perspective. If we are full up on car washes but Cali Dan has cash money in hand and has already bought three houses, we can work with him to find a business idea that our city actually needs.

10. Communication

City communication sucks. Try finding info about a construction project or even basic department contacts on the city website.
That Anderson Street “upgrade”? Would have been nice to have some warning about that abomination.
Half the departments’ pages are empty, and good luck finding the CIO in the staff directory. (Seriously—try it. Try to find anything helpful on the website actually.)
My approach: We need to throw, hard and far, the website into the dump. CivicPlus isn't an Idaho company. They sell canned websites for cities. We have some very talented local developers and designers. I would open an Request for Proposals to have those local businesses bid on a new platform and website for our city. So our city's money stays in our city. And we get something functional.

11. Public Transportation

As the city grows, we have to face this. Traditional public transit doesn’t make sense yet—but programs like GIFT are great. It’s innovative, flexible, and local. The trick is keeping costs under control while expanding smartly. We need to be thinking about what our transit needs will be in 5-10-15 years and start planning now. Our city should go to other similarly sized, maybe slightly larger, cities and see what they do. That's called benchmarking and we need more of it.

12. A Recreation Center

Remember the last rec center idea that died in the mid-2000s? Let’s bring it back—smarter.
My approach: Look at the WYO Sports Ranch in Casper: nonprofit-run, donation-funded, with city land and infrastructure support.
We’ve got a few billionaires floating around—time to put their money to use.

13. Representing the Working Class

Most of Idaho Falls is working-class or lower-middle class—that’s the world I grew up in. I asked how the candidates would serve those residents.
In my opinion, city council should sometimes meet in the community—at parks, not just City Hall. Central Park, Bel Air Park, not always Community or Tautphaus.
The “poors” won’t bite, promise.
It’s ridiculous that the most important civic meetings are held in one of the least accessible parts of town. Maybe that’s the point?

I originally planned this as a single post, but it got long—and I’d actually like you to read it.
Part 2 will cover Jeff’s responses.
Part 3 will get into Lisa’s.

Stay tuned.