No Plans to railroad streetcar through

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October 24, 2009

Boise task force: no plans to railroad streetcar through

Not everyone is on the same page on a Boise trolley, but Mayor Dave Bieter has confidence that evidence will sway them.

BY CYNTHIA SEWELL - cmsewell@idahostatesman.com

Copyright: © 2009 Idaho Statesman

Not everyone is on the same page on a Boise trolley, but Mayor Dave Bieter has confidence that evidence will sway them.

Boise Mayor Dave Bieter is unwavering in his support of a Downtown streetcar.

But the task force he created - made up of powerful business leaders and Downtown landowners - doesn't intend to be a rubber stamp.

Several members said Friday they were taking their role seriously and asking some hard questions about whether the streetcar is right for Boise.

The task force has met monthly since it was formed a year ago, but Friday's meeting was the first the Statesman has been allowed to attend. Since the task force is composed of business and civic leaders, it has considered its meetings private.

The task force will not present its findings and recommendations to the City Council until late January or February - at the soonest.

But as of Friday, there was no consensus. The task force is still struggling to answer the questions it set out to answer: Is the streetcar the right project for Boise? Can the city do it? And how?

Bieter said that is to be expected and is part of the process.

"This is an information-intensive project that requires a robust discussion," he said in an e-mail after the meeting. "I've found that the more people learn about the streetcar the more they support it, which is why 57 percent of the people who visited the open house wrote comments of support. I appreciate the task force's efforts and look forward to receiving its report."

Last month, the city held a public open house on the streetcar project, and on Tuesday it will consider awarding a streetcar public relations contract, even though the task force has not decided whether the streetcar is right for Boise.

"Are we doing this in the wrong order?" asked task force member Scott Schoenherr, who works with Rafanelli & Nahas, a firm that owns several Downtown blocks.

He said that after months of studying the issue and being ready to make a recommendation by the end of the year, he was taken aback by the open house and the city's discussions of hiring a PR firm for what Schoenherr called a "marketing campaign."

"I kind of felt like, 'What am I spending all this time on?'" he said. "If the decision has been made to do this and we are starting public outreach É let's just say what it is."

"I don't want to call it a marketing campaign," City Council President Maryanne Jordan responded. "I don't think that's the intention of the city. Any large infrastructure project that is done in this Valley É there is always enormous public outreach with all of the stakeholders."

Bieter told the task force members that he does not dismiss their work.

"The work of this task force is vital to the whole thing. I just couldn't feel any better about all your work here," Bieter said. "There's no reason to push this group toward a decision before we have a pretty vital piece of information, and that's the stimulus."

The city is banking on a $40 million federal stimulus grant to pay for about two-thirds of the streetcar's estimated $60 million cost. Grant recipients will be announced by the end of January, but about 1,500 applications have been submitted from around the country for a pool of $1.5 billion.

But whether Boise gets the money is just part of the whole question, St. Luke's CEO and task force member Ed Dahlberg said.

"Frankly, it doesn't matter to me yet whether we get $40 million," Dahlberg said. "We ought to be looking at whether this is the right way to spend 65 million bucks. I'm just not convinced yet that this the right project."

Cynthia Sewell: 377-6428