The Fly Sun Valley Alliance sent an email out on March 2 with some fascinating statistics. In the past 10 years, the number of people arriving by plane at SUN has doubled. Airline load factors have reached a record 79% in 2022.

So why then, in the May LOT referendum, is the city of Ketchum asking its citizen to vote to continue to subsidize tourism promotion if we want to subsidize workforce housing? Yes, our economy is built on tourism, but when is enough enough? Why does the council feel residents should have to keep taxing themselves to promote even more tourism? We already don’t have enough workers to service the tourists who come here.

The way the Ketchum City Council has set up the referendum makes little intellectual sense. It does nothing to improve the quality of life for the people who live and work here, but it does serve the interests of non-local hotel owners and short-term rental speculators who make money off of our community.