Late Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam embodied ‘compassionate conservative’ | Opinion
Idaho lost a very good public servant Wednesday night with the death of Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam.
I first met Rick about 11 years ago after a candidate forum that I moderated as editor of the Idaho Press-Tribune. I can’t remember which candidate he was helping at the time, but after the forum, Rick introduced himself.
I think we talked for half an hour about politics and government. We could have talked longer. To say that Rick was a policy wonk would be an understatement. He loved thinking about and talking about government policies and how they affect people.
I was so impressed with Rick’s views and the way he thought, and just the way he comported himself, that I kept his number handy, and the next time we changed community members on our editorial board, I called Rick immediately and asked if he would join the board. I’m glad he said yes.
I was able to get to know him much better, and the level of depth, understanding and compassion that he brought to our discussions and editorials was immense.
He embodied the idea of “compassionate conservative.” When I met him, he was the senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Nampa and had founded the nonprofit Lifeline Pregnancy Care Center, where he was the director, and had founded a maternity home called The Nesting Place, a support home for pregnant women in need of stable housing and support.
He was staunchly opposed to abortion, but he recognized that if you’re going to oppose abortion, you need to provide support for the mother after the baby is born. He walked the walk.
He was a longtime Nampa resident, a husband and a father of five, and my heart and condolences go out to his family. They had a wonderful husband, father and role model.
Before he was elected Nampa mayor in November, he spent two years as Canyon County clerk, four years as chief of staff to Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling and two years as a Nampa City Council member.
After I moved to the Idaho Statesman, Rick and I kept in touch and would meet for coffee, where we talked about property tax levy rates, growth paying for itself and the proper role of government.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him in October while he was running for Nampa mayor. Our recorded interview is only 38 minutes; we talked for another hour and a half after that, mostly, of course, about government and politics.
Our editorial board easily endorsed him for mayor, a race that he won handily.
After he took office, I couldn’t help but chuckle at his weekly newsletters, which became decidedly cerebral and philosophical.
“Cities don’t exist merely as clusters of buildings or as providers of services,” he wrote in one of his last newsletters. “They exist to form the kind of environment where human beings can actually flourish. The Hebrew idea of shalom gets at this. It’s not just the absence of conflict — though that matters — but the presence of wholeness. It’s the steady, everyday work of building people up, strengthening relationships, and knitting together a community that’s more than the sum of its parts.”
Rick, who was just 47 when he died, was one of the good ones: genuine, authentic and compassionate. I had hopes that he might run for the Legislature some day, and I think he would have made a great governor.
In so many ways, he exemplified the Idaho Way.
My hope now is that his style of thoughtful and compassionate governance, especially in this day and age of coarse and base political discourse, might inspire others to take up the mantle of the leadership that he demonstrated.
May we all be more like Rick Hogaboam.
Scott McIntosh is the opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman. You can email him at smcintosh@idahostatesman.com or call him at 208-377-6202. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter The Idaho Way.
