Issues

We all love Owyhee County and Owyhee County deserves to have the best leadership, so we can thrive together as a community. These are all questions that I think need to be answered, looked at and repaired.

 

I will be updating this page with new information frequently.

Transparency

I would like to see more government transparency within Owyhee County. More detailed meeting minutes, easier access to those details and documents. Less executive sessions. More detailed reports from all county officials so the citizens can understand where their money is going and what the County is prioritizing, or not.

Each elected official is 'in charge' of their own departments, but it is the commissioner's responsibility to set the organization and standard on how each department, elected or not, communicates their reports. Those reports can be progress reports, departmental updates, and THE BUDGET, etc. I believe when working with such important information, details are pertinent. 

THE BUDGET

As I mentioned above, I believe in budget management. I think most of us are on the same page when it comes to being conservative with the fiscal budget, and responsible. Did you know that since 2020 the Owyhee County budget has increased 59%?! That's a big increase. Is it normal? Meaning how does that compare to other areas in the Treasure Valley? Luckily budgets are those important documents that have to be made available to the public. Canyon County had a 22% increase from 2020-2024 and Ada County had an increase of 29% for those years. Why has Owyhee County's budget grown so much?! Out of curiosity what does that break down per person in the county? For Owyhee County that is approximately $1,395.99 per person. Canyon County is at $481.40, and Ada is at $704.70 all for the 2024 fiscal budget/population. Luckily, that isn't quite how the budget works, there are more forms of revenue and contributing factors that go into all departments and the county budget as a whole. It does lead the question though as to why Owyhee County has had such a large increase in budget. Are our roads getting maintained better than before 2020? Are we seeing more community benefits with the increased budget? I believe more detail would help us all understand. I understand that we as a county have to have a proper budget, but I believe in fiscal conservativeness and responsibility as a priority. As a commissioner I would ensure that each office was providing all information needed to keep a responsible budget. During departmental update meetings "no updates" will not be a response that suffices anymore, conversations will be had, and every budget and audit will be looked at and inspected.

OPEN DOOR POLICIES

I would make sure that the voices of Owyhee County are heard...without a large fee. What do I mean fee? Can you imagine if you went to a business and didn't have the experience you expected, so you wanted to talk to the owner or manager and you were told that would be $3,000?! What would you think? Would you support that business? If you look in the "Owyhee County Fee Schedule" on the county website it shows you all of the things that our commissioners expect fee for. An appeal is set at $3,000. So, if you have applied for some sort of permitting through the Planning and Zoning office, which the commissioners are supposed to oversee, and you didn't get the outcome you had hoped for or been led to believe, you would have to spend $3,000 to 'speak with a manager'.

What about if your neighbor got approved for something that you felt would harm your property rights, so you decide you'd like to talk with your commissioners...you would have to spend $3,000 to 'speak with the manager', at least in an official capacity. I for one do not believe this is the way any reasonable county should operate. I decided to research what other counties typically charge for an appeal. For a citizen to be able to escalate something to their representatives, typically, that amount is around $300-$500 to request to appeal a decision. Remember, counties aren't appealing a decision. You are. The citizens, and in my opinion having a fee of 500% more than most counties says, "I don't want to hear it" and "our commissioners are unavailable to help you." 

I would change that immediately, I want Owyhee County citizens to be heard and treated fairly.

RV ORDINANCE

The RV Ordinance has been a very important subject amongst our community. That's because it involves everyone in some way. Whether you're worried about a roof over your head, or your property values, the RV Ordinance discussion is important. The conversation was very biased from the beginning, lacking compassion and reeking of an agenda. Asking if you think Owyhee County should be a safe haven or "Are property owners willing to pay more taxes to subsidize "this type of population growth?"" In my opinion this was nothing more than a money grab opportunity to fund a department that isn't creating enough revenue. Was it constitutional? Was it ethical? Was it compassionate? If it were any of those things a resolution would have been met before over 4 years time had passed. Owyhee County Commissioners and the Planning and Zoning Commission and Administrators pushed this topic far beyond what was logical or reasonable. I believe in property rights, I believe in compassion, I also believe in safety and public well being. I believe that for the benefit of the community we should know who is living in RV's and where. I believe a neighbor has a right to know who might have just moved in next to them. I believe that someone living in an RV should be able to be located by emergency services in the event that they need them. I also believe that these are private property rights that should not require a conditional use permit through planning and zoning. A simple permit should be able to be obtained without a public hearing. Not one with a $1200 price tag attached. When conditional use permits are required our P&Z likes to describe the use as an "illegal use" that requires permitting. I do not believe that living in an RV should be considered illegal. I do not believe that letting someone live on your private property in an RV should make you a criminal either. RV's should be registered. A simple "RV dwelling attached to an address" permit should be available for a small fee. At that time the county would provide an informational pamphlet on some safety hazards that could accompany dwelling in an RV, and resources and information on sanitation. That way we know who is living where, the county isn't putting a financial strain on its citizens or making them feel as though they are criminals. We are a community, we should act like one.

Ethical Government

If there is an Owyhee County code of ethics, or code of conduct I have not ben able to locate it online. I believe every county should have a clear path for its government and government employees to follow. After that I believe there should be clear protocols available to all on what to do if you witness a violation and what the repercussions are for those who violate the code of ethics. Structure is important. Along the same lines of ethical government I believe that the boards or commissions that are created by Owyhee County should have fair and diverse representation for the people. 

Economic Stability

It is no secret that the place that holds our county seat is in an unincorporated town. A town that no longer has a gas station, convenience store, or a restaurant. I don't believe that our Owyhee County representatives are taking economic stability seriously. At the county level our housing market is at all time highs. The price tag on land itself is even higher than that. The average household income in Owyhee County is somewhere around the realm of $55,000 per year and there aren't many employment opportunities. According to Idaho.gov (Owyhee County Labor Force and Economic Profile) and according to the University of Idaho, the majority of people employed in Owyhee County do not actually live in the county. They commute into our county to work. That means most people in Owyhee County have to commute outside of our county for work, I'm sure for various reasons, one of which, to be able to afford to live here. At the RV Ordinance meeting I believe it was quoted in the newspaper that Mary Huff stated the term "bedroom community" as though we aren't already one. Agriculture is our biggest industry here, but the majority of residents, percentage wise, have to commute outside of our county for work. It's time to work together as a community to resolve this issue. Owyhee County has not prioritized economic stability in years. For years there was an economic development budget, since 2020 it has been removed. The county did a huge rezone, but never updated their development codes to help promote the growth in multi use, commercial, or industrial areas. We haven't created jobs. We haven't created stability, instead we spent four years working on an RV ordinance that finally (kind of) got laid to rest in 2024. Economic Stability should be a #1 priority for the people in charge of our county.

Protecting Ag Lands

One of the most important topics in all of Idaho right now. How do we protect our ag lands while upholding private property rights? I believe it is by supporting the families that are in operation of those ag lands. First things first I would like to say that all ag lands are not equal, especially in Owyhee County. Currently when it comes to our zoning codes, we just utilize a very broad spectrum of "Ag Land". I would like to see that broken up into categories. Some examples of that could be Rural Residential, Ag, Prime Ag, etc. When dry baren land is called ag, but then so is a producing field it means there is too much room for variables and opinions. For example, maybe there is someone who wants to build 5 homes on their 'ag land', but really that ag land is bare, doesn't have irrigation and hasn't been used for grazing. So, 5 homes on land that isn't serving an actual agricultural purpose really shouldn't be an issue. I think we could all agree that their homes wouldn't be hurting ag land, and it should be within their property rights to do so. But now that means the land with the crop that is in production on the same category of "ag" land should be allowed to build a 5 lot subdivision as well. By utilizing more categories we could help protect our ag land that is being utilized for agriculture purposes. When codes and practices are outdated and vague, it only hurts our community. It hurts our ag land.

Protecting Property Rights

Protecting private property rights is a big issue in Owyhee County. I have gone to commissioner meetings to get help with my own private property rights, I have listened to dozens upon dozens of other citizens issues and concerns with their private property rights in Owyhee County. Obviously, we had the RV ordinance that many felt was an intrusion on property rights. Are development rights considered a private property, right? What about just a single-family home on your land that you own? Should it be a right that you are able to get a permit to build a home? So many people are being denied permits to do that in Owyhee County, every day. They are told that would be "illegal" and they need to file for a conditional use permit. Or better yet a conditional use permit for a subdivision. For one home?! Yes, Owyhee County refuses to acknowledge or listen to the residents that we are not following our Comprehensive Plan and that it's hurting our citizens, and our county has blatantly lied for over 5 years about updating our codes to cohesively compliment the needs of the citizens. The only citizens in our county that have property rights right now are those who can shell out the most dollars. We are pushing our own citizens out of our county and shamefully refusing them their private property rights. Now there are commissioners up for election, there are sheriffs and prosectuing attorneys on the ballot as well. Who is talking about this? Why aren't we all working together to encourage our future as a community? Private property rights matter and if we aren't going to hold anyone in this county accountable right now, when are we going to? When home values exceed an average of $600,000 because the county has limited our rights to build so much that we have limited the market and priced ourselves out? Oh, that is right now. Look around at the price tags on these properties, these are not Idahoans purchasing them. Look at the availability in our county, there isn't much. Maybe available homes isn't your concern, but what about property values? All of these things massively inflates property values, it will only be a matter of time before what you once thought was a humble home is assessed at an inflated value, which creates higher property taxes. 

Road and Bridge

Road and Bridge concerns were brought up to me at the first public forum I attended. A citizen voiced concerns about road maintenance in our county. We had a nice discussion about it, I stated that I absolutely support our hard workers employed by the county, but stated that I too have witnessed roads that are subpar. I decided to take a little dive into how the our commissioners are handling these concerns voiced by the citizens, and it doesn't appear that any solutions are being made. Road and Bridge is actually a bit unique in the county budget. Earlier I talked about how the total county budget has increased 59% between the years of 2020 to 2024. The unique part about that is, the road and bridge budget is one of the few that has decreased from 2020 to 2024. It has decreased almost 3%. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but we are dealing in the millions, it is the highest expense in the Owyhee County budget, rightfully so since roads are pretty important. We have the most vehicles on our roads than ever before. Population has increased, traffic has increased, recreational activities have increased, and employee wages have increased since 2020, but yet our road and bridge budget has decreased? Interesting. By the way the commissioners expense has increased 37% in those same years, but not the road and bridge department. I'm all for fiscal conservativeness, but I'm not quite convinced that our road and bridge department should be one of the few without an increase in an operating budget. Roads are so important and if your citizens are coming to the commissioners seeking help because their road is unsafe and or damaging their vehicles, it is the counties responsibility to ensure it gets resolved. Not only do I have a strong voice that will help get the issue resolved, I have experience with working with other highway districts in Idaho and their operating crews.

Owyhee County Transportation Master Plan Update 01/2024

To follow up with some information on how serious our commissioners are taking their jobs, each commissioner signed off on a new transportation master plan update. Apparently the process for this was started in 2022, and completed recently. What I'm here pointing out is the survey portion of this document. When planning such documents public input is required. Surveys to get more information from the citizens is important. 6 people took the survey. I sure didn't take the survey, I wasn't aware of the survey, were you? I would have loved to provide some feedback, and I know some of you would have too. Owyhee County took information from 6 surveys, that's it. Oddly enough though, from those six surveys all of which were incomplete. 4 of them had 0 answers other than which city, and the other two only answered 4 questions each...the same four questions. Even crazier is that there were duplicate IP addresses, but with different listed cities. Interesting. Do you feel like this is a full effort put in by our leadership? Should the commissioners have allowed this? Is this ethical government? Feel free to view the document, I have it linked on my get involved tab. 

Subdivisions

We are going to become a county filled with subdivisions. I'd take that bet, well with the current commissioners and their administrations at least. Were you surprised by that statement? Well let's talk about it. We are gaining subdivisions in Owyhee County every month, and if you're surprised to hear that then you are one of the lucky ones. I'm not talking about giant subdivisions, I'm talking about what our county likes to call "single lot subdivisions" and minor subdivisions. Our planning and zoning department made county code about zoning and subdivision regulations in 2009. And they must have gotten it perfect, because from what I can tell they haven't updated or amended it once in the past 15 years. In that document is where they were able to come up with their definition of an "original lot" and "subdivision". That is significant, basically we've stated that a subdivision is required for a building permit if the land has been divided more than 4 times since 1979. Now this is where it get's tricky, we didn't have a planning and zoning department for all of those years. So that means, that people did what they wanted, they fully embraced their true American freedoms and divided and built and did what they pleased, and then in 2009 all of the sudden we have the regulations. I can go through lots of parcels and surveys that were allowed to skip these regulations, (remember this is the industry I'm in, if you have a survey or a subdivision in Owyhee County, I have probably seen the plat) but as of recently that is not the case. We are pushing out whole families because it has become so impossible to build. BUILD ON OUR LAND THAT WE OWN. So that is why there are so many teeny tiny subdivisions taking over Owyhee County. That is on our administration. We have every power to amend these ridiculous codes, and find ways to make living in Owyhee County reasonable. BTW according to the Owyhee County fee schedule available for viewing on their website, if a citizen would like to REQUEST an ordinance change, it's a hefty price tag of $4000. Again, another example of don't question us. Okay, so what's the big deal, just make a one lot subdivision...well that's where it gets unfair, unconstitutional. Subdivisions of any size require a conditional use permit and a public hearing. That means the county is saying it is "illegal" to build a home on your land, you need to pay a minimum of $1300 so we can view it as legal. And then IF it passes you need to hire a surveyor and an engineer and pay southwest district health and the highway district and whoever else needs paid to "create" this minor subdivision. Again, "one lot subdivisions" is something Owyhee County loves to do. BUT we aren't done yet. After that you need more public hearings and you need to pay another fee, this time of $1680 to see if it's approved. When all is said and done the fees can be 10, 20, 30+ THOUSAND dollars, and that's all before your building permit. Did you know that not one of our county commissioners has ever had to endure this painful process to live in their homes. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure none of the people on our planning and zoning commission has ever had to create a subdivision just to live in a home either. Is this what we believe in? Because the "4 lot splits before 1979" are coming to an end. Some of the only land that is left to split without having to make a subdivision is our ag land. And that is why there are so many divisions and homes going up on our ag land. Fix the broken codes Owyhee County. It doesn't have to be this way. And if you're still on the fence on if this is right or not, where are your kids going to build someday? Because you might just become the 'proud' owner of a one lot subdivision. Just another way to inflate our market and drive prices up. What are our county commissioners doing about this, because I have personally sat in front of them many times, asking for them to change this, to open their eyes, and every single commissioner looked the other way. Every one.

Traditions and Values

Fair, auctions, rodeos, the cattleman's association gathering at Silver City every summer. These are just a few of the traditions that help shape us all. When the community comes together to participate in clean up days or on sale day at the fair, it teaches our youth the same values at it taught most of you growing up. To protect these traditions and values we have to ensure that Owyhee County goes back to becoming a sustainable community for local families, who have grown up here. Let's face it, we are pricing ourselves out. It is up to the community and the leadership of this county to ensure that our kids and someday their kids, can remain in Owyhee County. That comes down to our property rights and community planning. The county did not have the foresight it needed to balance the current situation, and it created an even more inflated market and lack of jobs. Our comprehensive plan needs updated, quickly. Our departments need to update their codes and regulations to ensure they aren't burying local families in red tape. Our government needs to do everything they can to prevent a financial burden on our residents caused by developers, investors, and out of town recreationalists. If we don't know come together and pull our heads out of the sand our Owyhee County traditions and values will be lost. We must retain the people and their families in our county that helped make us who we are today.

Comprehensive Planning

Idaho Code 67-6508 discusses the law on comprehensive planning. Here's the quick, shortened run down... It is the duty of the planning and zoning department to work together with the community to design a document that is a guide for the whole county to ensure the needs of the community are met and have clear concise desirable goals. By law it has to include charts, maps and statistics. It has to include several components.

Property Rights, Population, School Facilities and Transportation, Economic Development, Land Use, Natural Resources, Hazardous Areas, Public Services, Transportation, Recreation, Special Areas or Sites, Housing, Community Design, Agriculture, Implementation, Nation Interest Electric Transmission Corridors, and Public Airport Facilities.

As you can see this is a very important guide that helps with long range planning. We have a comprehensive plan; it was adopted by resolution in 2002. And has since only been amended once, in 2010. Let's think of what home prices were in 2002, availability in the housing market, wages, population, etc. So much in our county has changed since 2002, and even since 2010. Let's face it, Owyhee County took a drastic change in 2020 and the fact is our government, has done nothing to mediate that. Yes, it is a long-range plan, but in the Owyhee County comprehensive plan it states, "the planning and zoning commission is also charged with recommending amendments to this plan and to zoning ordinances to the board of county commissioners where the final decisions on such matters are made." It also states, "the plan may only be amended once every six months." Well don't worry, it hasn't been amended in 14 years.

I have placed myself on the current commissioner's agenda, sat before them and asked when this document is going to be reflective of our community again. PZ defended it saying it's long range, it's fine. Mr. Hoagland agreed it needed updated, and after a lot of discussion PZ stated that it the process would start in the beginning of 2024. Well, it is already May of 2024, and the process is still not started. This is unacceptable.

On a final note, if a citizen of Owyhee County would like to formally request a change to the comprehensive plan the fee for that is $4,000. Interesting.

I believe that commissioners should do the job they are elected to do. 

 

BLM Land

Coming Soon

"Ambiguous"

Coming Soon

Housing Crisis

Coming Soon