Growth in the Treasure Valley brings both opportunities and problems.
Ada County Commissioners hosted a get-together to hear the concerns of residents.
The people CBS 2 News spoke with at the meeting all live in the northeast part of Ada County. This is what they’re worried about: lack of money in budgets, poor management, and public transportation.
“The way we’re doing right now,” said resident, Dave Hibbard. “There’s no money. There’s no money, and it’s just going to get worse. And, we can sit here and play games and talk to each other and tell us how wonderful it’s going to be. But, the reality is, it’s not. We’re in trouble. We’re in trouble.”
“The problem is in the budgets,” said resident, Jack Peterson. “That’s what’s going on, whether it’s Ada County operations, whether it’s the highway district, whether it’s Boise city, whether it’s the school districts, or whether it’s the peripherals. We add up property taxes, they’re increasing at an unrealistic rate. And, that’s not just for some people, this is across the board for everybody.”
“I would rather see Boise move towards better management to protect that quality of life that really so many people I talked to and definitely me very deliberately moved here for,” said resident, Betsy Hammar.
“It seems kind of counterintuitive that we’re talking about growth, but it doesn’t seem like that the public transit system in Idaho is growing,” said resident, Dylan Thompson. “It seems like it’s actually shrinking, and I know that a lot of other routes have been cut as well.”
This is only the second in a series of four town hall meetings hosted by Ada County Commissioners.
The other two meetings will be in the western end of the county.
The meeting for Northwest Ada County, northwest of Fairview and Maple Grove, is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on March 5. The location has not been set.
The meeting for the Southwest Ada County, southwest of Fairview and Maple Grove, is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on March 19. The location has also not been set.
