Boise City Council Member Patrick Bageant makes a ‘painful’ decision about the election
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Boise City Council Member Patrick Bageant will not seek reelection this fall, ruling out a potentially competitive campaign season between two sitting council members in the district that covers the North End.
In announcing his decision, Bageant noted that he and his wife, an officer in the U.S. Army, had a child in May. He said his decision not to run was “difficult, even painful.”
“Public service is a bedrock value for Jennifer and me — my oath to our city, and hers to our nation, has meant compromise and sacrifice,” he said in a Wednesday news release. “We’ve been honored deeply to make those choices, but for now we are not going to put their costs on little Parker, too.”
Bageant will leave the council after serving one term, having been elected in 2019. He is an attorney and former firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service.
This November, Boise will transition to a fully district-based system for City Council elections, after the Idaho Legislature passed a law implementing the change in 2020. The requirement affected all cities with populations of over 100,000.
That would have meant that Bageant, who lives in the North End, would run against Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton, who has already announced he will seek reelection.
Bageant donated $1,000 to Hallyburton’s campaign last month, and he has also donated $1,000 to Council Member Luci Willits, who is running for reelection in West Boise.
“I’ve never met someone as steady and dedicated to their commitment to public service,” Hallyburton said in Bageant’s news release. “It’s hard for me to imagine Patrick not on council, but I know he won’t be far, leading in some other arena.”
Council President Holli Woodings also announced last month that she is leaving the council after two terms.
In his announcement, Bageant touted his work on the recent zoning code rewrite — which passed the council unanimously earlier this month — as well as Boise’s investments in recycled water and Micron’s plan to build a new multi-billion dollar fabrication plant in Boise.
“I’ve learned that the national news isn’t the local story,” he said in the release. “Congress may impeach the president, play games with the federal budget, or politicize the Supreme Court, but your local government is getting the trash collected, your kids to school safely, applying the laws fairly and predictably, and leaving you free to live the life you choose. That’s what people want, and I think we do a pretty good job in Boise.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 1:07 PM.
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