When it comes to Boise’s growth, quit blaming the Californians
Boise’s growth is again center stage following a story this weekend by former Idaho Statesman reporter Maria La Ganga, who is now a metro reporter with the Los Angeles Times.
Among the raw edges detailed in the story is an anti-California sentiment here, as evidenced by the mayoral campaign of Wayne Richey, whose top goal was to stop growth by building a wall to stop the California invasion but whose candidacy achieved only 847 votes in this city of 226,000 people, and in a race where the top two vote-getters received nearly 40,000 votes.
The L.A. Times article also highlighted a business card that was placed on former Boise State placekicker Tyler Rausa’s windshield in September that told him to “Go back to California.”
The article also quotes Bill Roscoe of the Boise Rescue Mission, a California transplant himself, warning other California transplants not to fly their California flag or put a Santa Cruz sticker on their car, or else “there’s going to be some hard feelings.”
No doubt, there’s an anti-California sentiment here for a couple of reasons.
But California-bashing is not a good look for Idahoans. This is not “the Idaho way.”
While Californians make up a good percentage of those who are moving to Idaho, they’re certainly not all of them. We have lots of people moving here from Utah, Washington, Oregon, the Midwest, even New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Californians made up only 26 percent of the 80,000 people who moved to Idaho in 2018.
As well, Idaho isn’t even Californians’ top target for relocation. Heck, Idaho barely cracks the Top 10. According to a recent story by SFGate.com, 691,000 Californians left the state in 2018. Texas was the top destination with 86,000 California transplants, followed by Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Florida, New York and Virginia. Idaho ranked No. 10 with 21,000 transplants in 2018.
Growth brings positive impacts, and there will be positive impacts of even more growth, and we welcome those changes.
For those who remember the bad old days of a dead downtown and little to no shopping, dining or nightlife amenities and few employment opportunities in the Treasure Valley, when your children went to college and moved to another state rather than return to Boise, you know the positives that Boise’s growth over the past 20 years has brought. Business is booming for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival and other local arts groups, Bogus Basin and more.
It’s also important to acknowledge how much newcomers add to the social fabric of the Treasure Valley. They volunteer, they join Rotary Kiwanis and Lions clubs, they serve on nonprofit boards, and they donate to causes. They make our community better and stronger.
Negative impacts
But we also recognize that our rapid growth, particularly in the Treasure Valley, has brought about negative impacts that are driving a lot of the anti-California sentiment.
Affordability, low taxes, access to world-class outdoors recreation and nonexistent traffic are all hallmarks of what drew people to move here.
Ironically, as more people move here, those tenets of Boise life are being challenged. We absolutely need to recognize that when people sell their houses in California for $700,000 and move to Boise, Meridian, Nampa or Kuna, they can afford to outbid others on a $200,000 house with a $300,000 cash offer, pricing many people out of the market. Rents and the cost of buying a house have skyrocketed in the Treasure Valley.
We need to acknowledge that traffic on our local roads has gotten worse. It’s harder today to secure a campsite at popular Idaho campgrounds than it was even 10 years ago. Business is booming at Bogus Basin, but it’s harder to get a parking spot. Property taxes are going up to unsustainable levels for some homeowners. When schools become crowded, the local school district needs to ask taxpayers for a bond to build a new school. All of that serves to anger longtime residents who say, “This is not what Idaho is all about. The things I’ve always loved about Idaho are going away because people are moving in.” And they’re not wrong. We have to acknowledge that.
But the anger at California transplants is misplaced.
Sure, even if we could stop people from moving here, that would stop the need for new schools, alleviate traffic and keep property values flat. But we have to recognize that people are going to move to Idaho, they’re going to come from all over the country and we can’t — nor should we try to — stop them. We should welcome the growth and we should welcome all the positive aspects that come with growth.
But we should attack those problems with creative and bold solutions. We should be looking at how to address rising property taxes, lack of affordable housing, increased traffic, crowded schools and reduced access to recreation areas.
Instead of blaming the people who move here and trying to stop them, let’s work together as Idahoans to come up with ways to accommodate those who share our love of this great state and all that it has to offer.
This story was originally published November 11, 2019 at 1:59 PM.
