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Breckenridge backs off Breck365, a project featuring 100-plus apartments on the Block 11 property

This previously released rendering shows a planned workforce-housing project called “Breck 365,” which features over 100 apartments on the Block 11 property. Town officials had been looking at taking on the project using a modular-construction method but are revisiting those plans after getting back a high-than-anticipated cost estimate.359 Design LLC

Breckenridge has pulled away from the town’s next workforce housing project after estimated construction costs came in significantly higher than anticipated.

Eying a modular-construction method in which individual apartments would have been built in a factory off-site, hauled to Breckenridge and then put together on the property almost like Legos, town staff got their first estimates for the Breck365 apartments on Feb. 26.

Unfortunately, at $36 million the figure was simply “a non-starter,” said senior planner Laurie Best.

Breck365 was envisioned as the next phase of workforce housing in the town gripped by a housing crisis. The land on which it would have been built sits on the Block 11 property, north of downtown and just south of another workforce housing neighborhood, the Blue 52 townhomes.

Breck365 called for just over 100 rental apartments with a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units inside 11 buildings on the 5-acre plot. Initially, it was pegged as a $25 million project.

That forecast price tag had crept up to $28 million when the town received the last estimate featuring a traditional construction before council members and town staff considered taking on the project using a modular-construction method.

After touring a production facility in Boise, Idaho, late last year, town officials had hoped to save money and valuable construction time by going modular. As it turned out, though, the lowest estimate Breckenridge could get was $36 million all-in, Best said.

“It was disappointing, but we did learn a lot about the modular process, when it works and when it doesn’t work,” she told town council last week, explaining that modular construction might work better with something like a hotel, which doesn’t have so many architectural features.

Even though the town won’t move forward with its plans for Breck365 at this point, Best said over the phone Monday that Breckenridge has not abandoned workforce housing on the Block 11 property.

In fact, town staff are revisiting the project and pivoting back to a traditional-construction method, Best said. However, with the shifting construction method, some components of the project could change as well.

For example, Best said she could see Breckenridge reducing the project’s density and bringing in a new mix of housing types, including some for-sale units, as opposed to strictly apartment rentals.

Realizing the size of the project was driving the cost, the town could look to bite off smaller projects and fill in Block 11 piecemeal, she added. Most importantly, Breckenridge is committed to “building a community” on Block 11, Best said.

During last week’s discussions about Breck365, council expressed some concerns with the pace of the project and unit types. Additionally, Councilwoman Erin Gigliello said she would like to have a community forum and hear what residents feel like Breckenridge’s biggest housing needs actually are. There was also some talk about breaking up the architectural style compared to Blue52.

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People are fleeing Silicon Valley for Nevada, Texas and Idaho, report finds

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The heart of the nation’s tech sector, the astronomically expensive Santa Clara County, leads the state in residents looking to move out of town, a new report found.

Using property searches and census data, analysts at realtor.com found that a larger share of residents are leaving Santa Clara County — home to tech behemoths Google and Apple — than any other county in California. Nearby San Mateo County, where Facebook is headquartered, came in second, just ahead of Los Angeles County.

“They’re looking for affordability and not finding it in Santa Clara County,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com.

The Bay Area has long been a costly place to live, but a tight housing supply paired with an unprecedented economic boom pushed rents and real estate even further out of reach for all but the most affluent residents. Low- and middle-income families and younger workers unable to find apartments or houses they can afford have been forced further afield, a trend that has led to ultra-long commutes and perennially clogged freeways.

The crisis has inspired a flurry of state legislation to spur enough new housing construction to slow and eventually lower prices, including a sweeping proposal to add millions of homes by public transit. It died in April, but its author, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, has vowed to try again next year.

Instead of staying put, many Santa Clara County residents are decamping for Alameda, Sacramento, San Joaquin or Placer counties, looking at homes that are $509,000- $894,000 less than the Santa Clara median price of $1.28 million or leaving the state altogether and moving to Arizona, Nevada, Idaho or Texas for even better deals.

This was the first time realtor.com conducted such an analysis, which did not analyze the patterns by age. But Hale said it appears that the increased property searches outside of Silicon Valley are at least partly driven by millennials — roughly spanning the ages of 22 to 37 — determined to get a foothold in the housing market, even if it means moving.

While workers have flocked to the Bay Area for high-paying jobs, a recent report from the Joint Venture Silicon Valley think tank found that nearly as many people are leaving as are coming in.

If millennials and others continue to leave the Bay Area in search of affordable homes, Hale said, “It could eventually lead to the slowing of the frenzied pace of the housing market.”

The top out-of-state destinations for the South Bay exodus are the areas in and around Phoenix, Arizona; Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada; Austin, Texas; and Boise, Idaho — where homes are $750,000 to $965,000 less than the typical property in Santa Clara.

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The report also reveals the ripple effect of such migrations and their upward pressure on home prices. Take Alameda County, one of the top destinations for people fleeing the South Bay — but also #6 on the California exodus list: As prices in the East Bay city skyrocket, many are moving east to Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Sacramento and Placer counties in search of cheaper housing.

Meanwhile, the median home price in Sacramento County — $357,000 — has risen each month for the past six years, the Sacramento Bee reported last week, jumping by 12 percent in the past year.

Top 10 California counties that people are leaving

1. Santa Clara County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Idaho

In state destinations: Alameda, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Santa Cruz and Placer counties

2. San Mateo County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Washington

In state destinations: Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sacramento, and San Francisco counties

3. Los Angeles County

Out of state destinations: Nevada, Arizona, and Idaho

In state destinations: San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Kern counties

4. Napa County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Florida and Oregon

In state destinations: Solano, Sonoma, Sacramento, Lake and El Dorado counties

5. Monterey County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho

In state destinations: San Luis Obispo, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Sacramento and San Diego counties

6. Alameda County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Hawaii.

In state destinations: Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Placer, and El Dorado counties

7. Marin County

Out of state destinations: Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Idaho.

In state destinations: Sonoma, Contra Costa, Solano and San Francisco counties

8. Orange County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada and Idaho

In state destinations: Riverside, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and San Luis Obispo

9. Santa Barbara County

Out of state destinations: Arizona, Nevada and Idaho.

In state destinations: San Luis Obispo, Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside and Kern counties

10. San Diego County

Out of state destinations: Arizona and Nevada

In state destinations: Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial, Orange County and Los Angeles

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A historic Boise home for pregnant teens finally has buyers. Here’s what they plan

A historic Boise building that has housed and educated pregnant and parenting teens for generations is a big step closer to being saved.

The Salvation Army has agreed to sell the Booth Home to group of Treasure Valley investors who plan to keep it intact.

They want to turn the 97-year-old home into — you guessed it — condominiums. Just two, each taking up a full floor. One investor likes the building so much that he plans to live in the first-floor condo himself.

The buyers hope to save the property’s soaring trees and turn its 1960s-era chapel into a "bachelor pad," all while building 10 single-family homes on the nearly 2-acre city block — the largest buildable piece of land left in the North End.

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Importantly, the investors’ plan has the early support of the North End Neighborhood Association, which could help significantly as the proposal wends its way through local-government approval processes to come.

Jim Jones, a member of the association’s board, said he is “cautiously optimistic because George is willing to work with the community.” He was referring to George Cooper, the investor who wants to live on the first floor. Cooper is also the project’s builder.

“George has been working with the North End Neighborhood Association board," Jones said. "He has said all the right things. … We have to hold him accountable. He has said he will save the trees, save the Booth Home, and lower some of the heights” originally proposed for the homes.

The site, whose full name is the Booth Marian Pritchett School Program for Pregnant and Parenting Teens, is located in one of Boise’s most desirable, and pricey, neighborhoods.

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A look inside the Marian Pritchett School

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Social worker and program coordinator Lindsay Klein offers a quick tour of the Marian Pritchett School for pregnant and parenting teens. The school, formerly a maternity hospital for unwed mothers, will get a new home in West Boise. The fate of th [email protected]

Major Rhonda Lloyd, the organization’s associate Treasure Valley coordinator, confirmed that the Salvation Army has accepted one of the four bids received by the deadline at the end of April. She declined to name the successful bidder or divulge any details of the pending sale.

“We have not gotten the signature from our corporate offices yet,” Lloyd said Tuesday. “We do not consider it finalized. It is in corporate hands.”

But Jones said Cooper, president of Boise-based Westminster II, is the successful bidder. Cooper, whose company has built custom homes in the Treasure Valley since the 1990s, confirmed that.

Ron McDonough, president of McDonough Real Estate Group at Silvercreek Realty, and Brown Management Services LLC are the main investors in the property, along with Cooper and McDonough’s brother, George, who is also in real estate.

McDonough said the sale is pending and is scheduled to close on July 27. The property sold for $2 million plus a $100,000 donation to the Salvation Army, which plans to occupy the building for one more school year.

“We’ve made a deal to carry the loan with the Salvation Army,” said McDonough, who will sell the homes once they are built. “They have asked to stay there for a complete year. They’re staying there rent free…..

“We bid because other companies were going to put a higher density of homes on the property,” he said. “We’re trying to adhere to the North End neighborhood by building homes comparable to what’s around them and keep the historical feeling alive.”

Several 1960s-era buildings in various stages of disrepair will be torn down to make way for the houses. Jones said Cooper “has left quite a bit of open space on the plan, including in front of the Booth Home. He’s provided two alleys for garbage trucks and access to off-street parking. All of the units have off-street parking.”

An early proposal for the Booth Home campus calls for the main building to be turned into two condominiums and includes 10 single-family homes built around the property’s mature trees.

Courtesy of George Cooper

The fate of the Booth Home has been on preservationists’ and neighbors’ radar for a long time.

The Salvation Army began a major capital campaign three years ago to build a new campus and announced that it would sell the property. But it wasn’t until February that a commercial real estate broker sent out a 32-page “call for offers” on the organization’s behalf.

Neighbors feared that the Booth Home would be one more icon lost to development in this time of rapid growth and soaring real estate prices. Preservation, the magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, featured the campus in its winter 2018 edition in a segment called “Transitions: Places Restored, Threatened, Saved, and Lost.”

The magazine described the structure as combining elements of Colonial Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles and noted that preservation groups in the state “fear that the Salvation Army may sell the surrounding land to a developer who will demolish the structures.”

The campus, on North 24th Street between Bella and Hazel streets, is part of the Expanded North End Historic District and is zoned residential. After it was listed for sale, city spokesman Mike Journee said any “significant” changes to the building face “an extraordinarily high bar” and noted that “there will be an extensive public process” before the original 1921 structure is altered.

The interior will need extensive renovation, Cooper said.

Cooper said he has “always loved that building. It reminds me of England. … There’s quite a lot of work to do” to turn the well-used structure into two high-end condos. “I’d like to do the inside historical so it matches the outside, crown moldings, make it grand.”

The neighborhood association conducted an online survey in 2017 to gauge resident sentiment about the value of preserving historic places such as the Booth Home. Its board hired Idaho Smart Growth, a Boise nonprofit, to conduct workshops with neighbors and other stakeholders and build on that original poll.

Among the main findings in the Idaho Smart Growth report, which was released earlier this month: “Historic preservation of the original 1921 building is clearly desired by a significant majority both among nearby residents as well as the larger neighborhood. This support appears strong enough to allow slightly denser housing on the property with the building being converted to multifamily residential.”

McDonough said it will take around a year to get plans drawn up and secure approvals from city historic preservation officials, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council.

“Our goal is to get the lots subdivided and approved and then hopefully reserved, create the business and get things off the ground in about a year," McDonough said. "We can’t do anything to the grounds until the Salvation Army leaves.”

Once that happens, Cooper said, “I want to make it a really nice block. This would be a really great last venture. I want to leave my mark. I want to plan it really well, give it as much love and attention as I can.”

Maria L. La Ganga: 208-377-6431, @marialaganga

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Idaho has built homes faster than any state but Utah, Census says. But is it enough? | Idaho Statesman

Even as it struggles to shelter its rapidly growing population, Idaho built new housing units at a faster pace than all but one other state, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

Between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017, Idaho was the second fastest-growing state in the nation in terms of housing construction, with an increase of 1.7 percent in the number of single family houses, condominiums, apartments and other units.

Only neighboring Utah — where the number of housing units increased by 2.1 percent in the same period — grew faster. And in the seven years since the last census, Idaho was No. 4 in terms of housing unit growth, as the nation built itself out of the Great Recession. The state’s housing stock grew by 8.1 percent between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2017, according to the new federal data, lagging behind only North Dakota, Utah and Texas.

Such a rapid rate of home construction might come as a surprise to some residents of the Treasure Valley, the Gem State’s most populous region.

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This is where a lack of supply pushed the median price of a single family home to record heights this spring before cooling slightly in April. Where a house that sells for less than $200,000 is increasingly a pipe dream. Where rents are high and vacancy rates low. Where it’s hard to have a conversation that doesn’t turn – quickly – to real estate and the relative merits of sprawl versus density.

IndieDwell is a local company constructing modular homes out of shipping containers to help solve the affordable housing crisis. We took a tour through one of these modular homes to see exactly how a shipping container is turned into a suitable dw Kelsey [email protected]

Where just two days before the Census Bureau released its numbers, Mayor Dave Bieter and the Boise City Council convened a special strategy session to discuss affordable housing and the scant tools that exist in Idaho to help cities spur an increase in this most necessary of commodities. It was the second in a series of council strategy sessions that focus on how to address the need for housing. More housing. Lots more housing.

Underscoring Boise’s clashing needs, city government also is planning a series of workshops to focus on the contentious issue of growth in the City of Trees. In announcing that effort earlier this spring, Bieter said “we hope to create a constructive dialogue around dense, compact development and the effects of sprawl.”

Idaho is the fastest growing state in the nation, and in recent months a loud chorus has emerged, lamenting the loss of local landmarks and fighting proposed subdivisions that they say imperil agricultural land and the precious open space that makes this region special.

At an April town hall meeting convened by Bieter and the City Council to allow residents to talk about whatever was on their minds, only three of the 21 who addressed the officials brought up issues unrelated to growth. More than half were troubled by the pace of growth in the city. Two were unabashedly pro-growth. One wanted more open space, another, more affordable housing.

For those, including Bieter, who are proponents of the region’s growth, the census numbers offered a cautious sliver of hope.

Between 2011 and 2015, developers built more new houses, condos and apartments than were needed to shelter the people pouring into the state. The Census Bureau pegs the average household size in Idaho at 2.69 people. (Insert fractional person joke here). Between 2011 and 2012, for example, the state added 11,493 more people. It needed 4,272 houses to shelter them. Developers built 5,948.

However, during the recession, home construction slowed dramatically, even as the population continued to grow. Which means that there is pent-up need that must be met. And in the most recent two years for which statistics are available, population growth outstripped housing growth.

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You can still buy newly built Valley houses for under $200K. For now. But forget Boise.

Idaho’s biggest home builder says ‘we’re pushing’ to build more amid house shortage

And while “the nation’s housing stock grew by more than 1 million last year, reaching over 137 million units,” the Census Bureau said in a written statement, “…housing unit growth last year remained below 2007 levels in nearly all states.” Only five states managed to climb back to their 2007 housing growth rates, according to the bureau. Idaho was not one of them.

Looking forward, Derick O’Neill, the city’s director of planning and development services, told Bieter and the Council at the Tuesday housing strategy session that they will only see more people and the need for more housing in years to come.

“In 20 years, we will grow, and these numbers are conservative but it’s a good starting point, 50,000 new residents, 20,000 new households, and 1,000 living units per year,” O’Neill said. “We have really transitioned from a single family dominant housing world to a variety of choices and a lot of different products.”

Still, the planning staff told Beiter and the council on Tuesday that developers have been building below available density levels. Building codes were eased in January to allow for houses with smaller rooms and lower ceilings and to encourage so-called tiny houses in an effort to spur denser construction of more affordable housing.

Such construction is much needed, said city building official Jason Blais, because, “in the last decade, decade and a half, we’ve seen larger homes, not just in Boise, but throughout the country. There’s just not many small and medium single-family dwellings in that 1,100-1,500 square foot range that we used to see.”

Blais said he recently did an analysis of all new single family dwellings built in the city from March, 2017, to March, 2018. Of the 913 homes built, he said, the average was just shy of 2,200 square feet. His figures included townhouses and so-called accessory dwelling units, which are smaller structures built on the same lots as existing homes.

“If you took those out, I think the square-footage average would be even a little bit higher,” Blais said. “We have a lot of homes that, if you take 600 square feet off that 2,200 square feet, that could reduce the cost by $90,000, $96,000. … For a 1,600 square foot home, with that reduction, more people would qualify for a loan and afford to buy a home.”

The Census Bureau’s housing data only included information on the state and county level, rather than cities. Between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017, Ada County added 4,598 new housing units, for a growth rate of 2.6 percent. Canyon County added 1,857 units, growing 2.5 percent.

The new census data also included updated population numbers for cities of all sizes. The only Idaho municipality to make the list of 15 fastest-growing enclaves of 50,000 or more was Meridian, Boise’s rival in all things growth-related. Between July 1, 2016 and July 1, 2017, Meridian was the 10th fastest growing city in America. Its population grew 4.7 percent, adding 4,490 people.

Scot Oliver, executive director of Idaho Smart Growth, rues the fact that developers have largely stopped building smaller, affordable homes, instead focusing on “these giant homes on big lots with infrastructure that can handle four to five people in a house.” He worries about the pace of home building evidenced in the new census data – and the location of the state’s newest subdivisions.

“When you think about the land impacts and transportation impacts of that kind of growth in the long term,” Oliver said, “we’ll run out of farmland and any kind of open space. That’s where it really gets tricky.

“We’re building these houses further and further out,” he continued. “People will sit in their car to get back and forth to work. They’ll say, just add another lane of traffic. That doesn’t work.”

Maria L. La Ganga: 208 377 6431, @mlaganga

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Ada County passes new rules for drone use

BOISE — Despite federal and state legislation regulating drone use in Idaho, Ada County commissioners unanimously passed a stricter drone ordinance on Tuesday.

The county ordinance restricts drone use that creates a nuisance, is done recklessly or invades residents’ privacy.

District 1 Commissioner Jim Tibbs said the new rule is a result of multiple complaints about privacy invasions involving drones and one instance when a small child was nearly struck by a drone.

“People who were flying drones were trespassing on their property, they were parking on their property,” Tibbs said. “We had some situations occur in the county where we had several residents complain about people coming up and trespassing using the drones.”

Tibbs was unable to give the exact number of complaints issued to the county.

While the newly passed Ada County ordinance 833 affords residents protections already guaranteed under federal law, Tibbs said it localizes the legislation.

Professional drone pilot Matt Roderick, owner and operator of Rapid Aerial, says the ordinance disproportionately affects lawful drone operators.

“It is absolutely more likely to negatively affect a commercial operator than it is the hobbyist or the kid with a drone making his neighbors mad,” Roderick said.

Roderick’s business, which provides individuals and businesses with drone photography and videography, has taken hits from stringent drone photography laws in the past, he said.

“Idaho already has a law on the books about collecting information on people with a drone without their written consent,” Roderick said. “I get why that’s there, and you should have a right to privacy on your own property, but that law cost me a project with NBC Universal.”

Idaho code restricts the use of unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, to photograph an “individual or a dwelling owned by an individual and such dwelling’s curtilage, without such individual’s written consent.”

“You could never apply these ordinances to manned aircrafts,” he said. “You can do whatever you want with your airplane or helicopter.”

The first image, taken from the Ada County assessor’s website, was a picture of the front of Bayer’s house. The second, showing the top of Bayer’s house and the entirety of his property, was taken from a Google Maps search. The third was an “illegal” photo taken with a drone showing Red Tail Apartments in Meridian. Bayer’s house is seen far off in the distance.

Roderick said he never received a response from Bayer, but explained to Bayer that the first two photos, which he described as “completely legal” invasions of privacy, were easily accessible on the internet, while the third “illegal” photo hardly showed Bayer’s house.

Roderick said he believes state and county rules unfairly scrutinize legitimate drone users, though he doesn’t anticipate too many issues to stem from it, as he regularly notifies residents in the area he is shooting photos or video.

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A Boise developer wanted to build homes on a former community garden. What happened? | Idaho Statesman

A Boise company that planned to build five homes and a fourplex on the site of a former community garden west of Downtown has withdrawn its application.

The JD Co. was scheduled to appear before the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday, May 14, to answer questions and concerns raised during a hearing on April 2. Instead, the company withdrew its application for a conditional use permit and a final plat at North 19th and Jefferson streets.

"For the JD Company to pursue approval of the single-family PUD [planned unit development] application under several, seemingly conjured, outlined and vocalized restrictions brought forth on April 2nd at the Planning and Zoning hearing, would be a detriment," co-owner Jacquie Dadam wrote in a letter to the Planning Division.

Dadam did not say whether the company would draw up a new proposal. A call to Dadam on Friday was not immediately returned.

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The Salvation Army previously owned the lot where the community garden operated for two decades. It also owned an adjoining lot with a building housing its offices and a church. The building has been torn down.

The Salvation Army sold the properties to the Dadams two years ago and moved its offices to the Booth Family Care Center on North 24th Street. Those offices will move again after the Salvation Army builds its new West Campus near Emerald Street and Maple Grove Road.

The nine living units would go on the garden lot.

Developers of a proposed nine-unit housing project at North 19th and Jefferson streets withdrew their application for a conditional use permit with the city of Boise following concerns raised by neighbors and members of the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission.

John Soweell [email protected]

Neighbors and Planning Commission members said at the April hearing that drawings submitted by the company were inadequate to determine whether the homes would blend in with the neighborhood, most of whose homes were built between 1905 and 1952.

Commissioner Douglas Gibson, himself an architect, said the drawings gave no indication of the types of materials, colors or textures planned. Neighbors agreed.

"We’re not going to know what those houses are going to look like, and that’s a problem," said Kathy Stilinovich, who lives a block north of the proposed site.

"It’s important that we have a better understanding as to what it is that we’re approving," Commissioner Jennifer Stevens said. "I don’t feel really comfortable with what it is right now."

Stevens was among several commissioners who asked for a continuance until May 14 to allow for more complete drawings to be submitted and for the applicants to answer other questions.

Ben Semple, a landscape architect who represented Dadam and her husband, Jake, said the development would use quality components such as wood and brick and no vinyl siding. He said the JD Co. had a long track record of constructing quality buildings.

Neighbors, who were generally supportive of a housing project at the site, raised concerns about the density of the project and how that would affect parking congestion on the street. The homes planned for the site would have their own garages. A representative of the JD Co., the developer, said there was adequate street parking to comply with the city code.

John Sowell [email protected]

While the homes would have their own garages, the proposal called for one off-street parking space for each of the fourplex units. Neighbors said that wasn’t enough.

"Our house has only one bedroom and we have three-plus vehicles, said Margie Twitchell, who lives two door west of the site. "Believe me, those units will have at least two cars."

Stevens said as long as the proposal met the city’s regulations for parking spaces, the commission had no right to require a developer to add additional spaces.

None of the six commissioners present for the April hearing said they were ready to approve the project. Stevens and Commissioners Stephen Bradbury and Eileen Thornburgh praised the proposal, but said they needed additional information.

Thornburgh said the proposal seemed to pack too much housing into the space. "I’m having a hard time supporting it with this amount of density," Thornburgh said.

While city leaders including Mayor Dave Bieter support increasing housing density to guard against urban sprawl and provide more housing, some multifamily-unit projects lately have drawn neighborhood opposition.

John Sowell: 208-377-6423, @JohnWSowell

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Boise mail carriers dying their hair blue for Stamp Out Hunger campaign

Boise, (ID) – Starting Monday, you may notice your mail carrier rocking a new look.

Letter carriers in Boise will be dying their hair blue to help raise awareness for the "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive coming up May 12th.

On that day you’re encouraged to set out a bag of non-perishable food items near your mailbox. Your letter carrier will swing by at the usual time, drop off your mail, pick up your donations, and deliver them to the Idaho Foodbank.

It’s the 26th year for the annual food drive.

Copyright 2018 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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BSU football camp attendees’ personal information stolen

Copyright 2018 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BOISE, ID – Boise State University received notice recently from Fresno State University that a theft on their campus may have potentially involved some personal information that originated at Boise State, according to BSU spokesman Greg Hahn.

“At Boise State, we value the importance of protecting personal information and have sent additional notices to those affected to explain the incident, the measures taken and some steps they can do in response,” Hahn said.

An external hard drive stolen sometime in the last week of December, 2017, from a facility at Fresno State included personal information for some Boise State football camp attendees from 2007, 2008 and 2011 and others connected to the Boise State Athletics Department around the same time.

“Fresno State notified Boise State of the data security incident on March 6th and sent letters to individuals the university could identify as having been potentially exposed. Boise State officials worked through the data a second time to determine what may have been included and whether more individuals should be contacted,” Hahn explained.

Fresno State indicated some files included personal information, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, full or partial Social Security numbers and medical information including allergies, conditions, emergency contacts, insurance information and ID numbers.

In all, the Fresno State incident involved around 15,000 people. “Of those, about 3,000 are believed to be connected in some way to Boise State,” said Hahn.

Fresno State officials are investigating the origin of the Boise State information and how it ended up in their system, but that detail has not been shared publicly.

Boise State is sending a secondary notice to those individuals whose addresses could be determined, but the contact information of approximately 600 attendees of Boise State football camps from those three years could not be confirmed by either Boise State or Fresno State, “so Boise State is releasing this broader notice to alert anyone who believes they may have been affected and to outline the steps they can take to protect their personal information,” Hahn said.

Fresno State officials say they have no evidence that the device was stolen for the information that it contained, or that any of the information has been used improperly — but the university has taken several steps to protect individuals affected. Fresno State is providing one year of free credit monitoring through Experian IdentityWorks and has established a dedicated call center to answer any questions. The call center number is (877) 646- 7924.

Fresno State recommends that all individuals potentially affected review their account and credit card information. If they see suspicious activities or services they did not receive, they should contact their bank or credit company.

“Though this breach occurred in California, Boise State is reviewing its data usage policies to determine if they can be strengthened or better enforced. In addition, new encryption and security measures are being implemented on certain Boise State computers and new training opportunities are being developed. Even before this incident came to light, all State of Idaho employees, including Boise State employees, were required to take an online cybersecurity training in order to increase general awareness and education about the issue,” Hahn stated.

Copyright 2018 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Boise, Idaho, Feels the Growing Pains of a Surging Population

Traffic congestion has come to Boise in recent years. Cars travel in and out of downtown during rush hour Thursday.

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BOISE, Idaho—Laura Johansen has always loved the easiness of life in her hometown: The first-rate hiking and rafting a short drive from her front door. The quick commute to her job at a local hospital. The affordability.

But when Ms. Johansen, who was renting her home, decided to buy a house earlier this year, the Idaho native was shocked. The median price of a single-family home in Boise’s Ada County had shot up to almost $300,000, well-above the $200,000 homes she was eyeing when she first considered homeownership two years ago.

“It does make it tough on locals like us,” said the 57-year-old administrative assistant.

The same qualities that have kept Ms. Johansen here are drawing waves of new arrivals from other states, making Idaho the fastest-growing state in the nation last year, according to the U.S. Census. Low costs and a business-friendly government are luring new employers, whose workers relish the backdrop of forested mountains above cities like Boise and the easy access to an outdoor paradise.

“I just fell in love with Boise,” said Mac Harman, founder and chief executive officer of Redwood City, Calif.-based Balsam Brands, an online home décor retailer that has roughly doubled the number of employees at its new downtown office here over the past two years. “The people are so kind, and everything is so new and beautiful.”

But as Idaho—and its capital city—have boomed, the state is also struggling to cope with the byproducts of its success: soaring housing prices, labor shortages and worsening traffic congestion in one of the more wide-open places in America.

The shift is a far cry from a decade ago when Idaho’s economy collapsed during the recession, in part due to a housing glut. The state has since rebounded bigger than ever—with its population jumping 10% from 2011 to more than 1.7 million in 2017.

The rate of job growth has increased to the highest in the country, much of it concentrated in the Boise metro area, home to some 700,000 people. Construction cranes dot the modest-sized downtown, while new home developments extend into farm fields on the city’s outskirts. At a Hammett Homes subdivision, cows grazed lazily behind a row of new homes.

Idaho’s low crime rate, affordability and scenery have attracted Californians especially. According to U.S. Census data, 85% of Idaho’s 15,784 net new arrivals from other states came from California in 2016.

“We’re coming from California in droves, because it’s gotten to the point we don’t want to live there anymore,” said Toni Wolfe, 51, a Los Angeles police detective who expects to retire this year, as she toured the Avimor development in the foothills above Boise. Ms. Wolfe said the idea of raising her daughter in a safe community was appealing.

Boise’s newfound popularity has already led to a housing shortage, with locals bearing the brunt. Median single-family home prices in Ada County have doubled from $147,000 in 2011 to $297,000, according to Intermountain Multiple Listing Service, Inc. That is well above the means of many Boise residents, whose median household income is $52,249.

“People are saying, ‘How am I supposed to afford a home?’ ” said Dana Zuckerman, chair of the Capital City Development Corp., Boise’s redevelopment agency.

Newlyweds and Boise-area locals Mike Morrow and Saira Ortiz found so few homes in their price range of about $200,000 that they ended up settling in late March for a two-bedroom townhouse for $202,000. They preferred a single-family home with a yard and more space, but lost out on one to a cash bid from a California buyer, broker T.C. Warford said.

Workers install part of the frame of a new building in the Hammett Homes subdivision in Meridian, Idaho. Photo: Kyle Green for the Wall Street Journal

“The disappointment has been so great,” said Ms. Ortiz, 31, an accountant.

Rents are going up too. Debbie Morrison, a leasing agent for Wright Property Management, said her company has implemented rent increases of up to 10% in the past 12 months. By comparison, rents nationally went up 2.5% over the 12-month period ending in March, according to online research firm Yardi Matrix.

Meanwhile, once clear roads are often jammed each morning. Ms. Morrison said the 15-mile commute from her home in a Boise suburb to downtown, which two years ago took a half-hour, can now take as long as an hour.

Craig Shaul, research supervisor for the Idaho Department of Labor, said the growth has also led to a shortage of construction workers.

Subcontractor Jason Woods, for example, said he runs a crew of six carpenters on jobs in the Boise area when he needs a dozen, because he simply can’t find any more. Workers will jump ship to another contractor who offers to pay more, he said.

With projections showing that Idaho could add another 200,000 people by 2025, planning experts said city and state officials will have to move quickly to keep up with infrastructure needs—namely more roads and sewage connections.

Cattle graze in a field just beyond a new house.Photo: Kyle Green for the Wall Street Journal

Boise city officials say they are taking steps to address the growth issues. For example, the city is continuing to encourage more vertical housing development to take pressure off infrastructure, while working with other entities to expand mass transit and alternative modes of transportation, said a spokesman for Mayor David Bieter.

Longtime residents say the city they knew is becoming less recognizable, though some say for the better. The vacant lots that used to surround downtown are quickly filling up with hotels, a business center and grocery chains.

“The downtown core already looks and feels vastly different from what it was when I moved to Boise 12 years ago,” said Samia Islam, associate professor of economics at Boise State University. “It is more vibrant, more diverse, but it is also more crowded. You have to plan ahead for restaurant reservations now.”

For now, Ms. Johansen has put her house hunting on hold until the market cools off. The nest egg of about $10,000 she saved isn’t enough for her to buy anything but the very few $200,000 homes, which are going fast, she said.

“I don’t blame people for wanting to live here,” she said. “But I want to live here too.”

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Former Los Alamos National Bank exec Robert Gabaldon moves over to Plum Lending – Albuquerque Business First

Longtime New Mexico banker Robert Gabaldon has made a move.

After a little over three years as president of the Albuquerque metro market at Los Alamos National Bank and more than 20 years in the banking world, Gabaldon will move over to Plum Lending, a San Francisco-based firm that specializes in commercial real estate lending and loans from $1-25 million, according to the company’s website.

Gabaldon’s first day at Plum was Tuesday.

"For me, Plum Lending represents a fresh (financial technology) approach to commercial real estate finance, and benefits both the client-investor as well as the finance officer," Gabaldon wrote in a statement to Business First. "It places everyone in the transaction in a good process, and most definitely has the lending officer as well as Plum Lending itself on the client’s side. It forms a relationship."

Gabaldon said Plum, which was founded in 2014, has chosen the Albuquerque and New Mexico market, along with Madison, Wisconsin, and Boise Idaho, as good market fits for its commercial real estate finance process. He said Plum will use all local partners for title insurance, appraisals and inspections.

Plum conducts each transaction with regional officers like Gabaldon as the guide to the transactions, offering a clean focus to the customers, the company says.

"Plum Lending offers the seamless connection between CRE investor deals and the long-term funding partners that their portfolios need," Gabaldon said. "All of this with local presence and representatives like me."

Gabaldon is a Rio Rancho resident and a graduate of the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management. Before his time at LANB, Gabaldon worked at U.S. Bank’s Private Client Group for its New Mexico region. Before that, he worked for BOK Financial, according to previous Business First reporting.

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Idaho to set guidelines for adult scholarship fund for undergraduate degrees

Also on KHQ.com

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – The Idaho State Board of Education is preparing to set new eligibility guidelines for scholarship funds designed to help working adults finish their undergraduate degrees.

Officials announced Thursday that the board will finalize eligibility and award details when board members meet next week in Moscow.

Earlier this year, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed into a law a bill that would allow 20 percent of the state’s scholarship fund to be awarded to adult students who already have some college credits looking to finish their degree or certificate.

The proposal had previously faced resistance for several years from some lawmakers who said the state should be helping younger students and not funding handouts to adults.

Eligible adult learners will be able to begin applying for the fund starting July 1.

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty isn’t keeping up.

(Delphine Lee/for The Washington Post)

On a sunny afternoon, when deliveries at his Domino’s job got slow, Delonte Wilkins sat in his old white Chevy and thought of home. Not the place he lives now — a drab apartment block on a dead-end street behind a highway in Capitol Heights, Md., which he habitually refers to as “out there” — but rather the block where he grew up in the 1990s: a strip of stately turn-of-the-century Victorian rowhouses in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest Washington.

Back then, he couldn’t have imagined that he and his friends would eventually be traveling across state lines to hang out there. That they’d draw looks and “can I help you?”s and sometimes calls to the cops. That most of them would be living in Prince George’s County, where neighbors didn’t talk and apartments were hidden behind big thoroughfares and it just didn’t feel like the kind of place where you’d meet your friends. That their former houses would be selling for seven figures — and that their new neighborhoods would be the emerging epicenters of poverty in the Washington region.

Nobody imagined it, really. Certainly not the original suburbanites, the mostly white pilgrims who fled cities nationwide for peace, safety, space — and sometimes to get away from people who didn’t look like them. Not the federal government, which declared war on poverty in the 1960s but got stuck on an old version of the fight, still targeting low-income clusters in urban centers today rather than the diffusion of people who can no longer afford to live near their work. Not the nonprofit organizations that help low-income populations, which began in the so-called inner city and are largely still there, spending far more money per urban poor person than per suburbanite in need — 10 times as much in the D.C. region.

Nevertheless, nationwide, there are millions of people like Wilkins and thousands of towns like Capitol Heights. Low-income residents are disappearing from downtowns and becoming increasingly hidden from public view, scattered around the periphery of major metropolitan areas. And they’re growing ever more isolated from the government offices, social services, and networks of friends and relatives on which they once relied.

The trend has been as swift and sweeping as it has been overlooked. In 1990, Americans in poverty were 14 percent likelier to live in a city than in a suburb. By 2012, they were 22 percent likelier to live in a suburb. In D.C.’s suburbs, over the first 15 years of the millennium, the number of people in poverty grew by 66 percent. Elsewhere, the explosion was even bigger. Sun Belt cities led the way. The increase was 126 percent in Atlanta’s suburbs; 129 percent in Austin’s; 139 percent in Las Vegas’s. The Midwest wasn’t far behind: 62 percent in Cleveland’s suburbs; 84 percent in Chicago’s; 87 percent in Detroit’s. The suburban poor are likelier than their urban counterparts to be white and to own their homes, but otherwise they’re demographically similar, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Two-thirds of both groups work, about 15 percent have a disability and nearly half are in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line.

Fifty years ago, after race riots decimated cities across the country, the Kerner Commission, convened by President Lyndon Johnson, concluded that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” Ten years later, a team of University of Michigan academics published a paper titled “Chocolate City, Vanilla Suburbs.” D.C., 71 percent black in the previous census, was the Chocolate City, a name popularized by musician George Clinton that would endure for decades.

Today, cities such as Washington are still, in many ways, occupied by two different societies, separate and unequal. The only thing that has changed is which society lives where.

In some ways, the shift still hasn’t fully sunk in for Wilkins, 27. So one day, when no one was ordering pizzas, he went by his old block. The radio played ’90s hip-hop as he turned from First Street NW onto U Street and scanned the sidewalks and stoops for familiar faces. His black Domino’s visor cast a shadow over his fading smile. “Ain’t nobody out here right now,” he said.

He slowed in front of a handsome blue-gray Victorian with white trim. It still looked about the same as when he lived there. The whole block did, plus a few paint jobs and minus a few bars on the windows. But the people had changed, and the $930,000 the house’s current owners paid for it in 2015 was twice what Wilkins’s aunt got when she sold it in 2009. Back then, Wilkins’s mother, Yolanda, who’d grown up there, was already living with her two sons in a subsidized apartment nearby. In 2011, fed up with poor maintenance and bed bugs, they looked for other housing. The only affordable places Yolanda could find in the city were in outlying neighborhoods she considered unsafe. So the family decamped to Capitol Heights.

Wilkins was 21 then. He was certified as an electronic systems technician, but the available jobs involved making service calls, and his driver’s license had been suspended because, he said, “police used to always harass me, and I got a lot of tickets.” (He also had been arrested several times in connection with drug possession, pleading guilty twice.) He was unemployed, living in an unfamiliar place where virtually everything was a drive away.

That’s when things began to unravel. When he stopped sleeping. When his girlfriend got pregnant. When he had a mental breakdown a few blocks from his old home and, convinced that his friend was trying to kill him, pushed a woman and took her car. When he got arrested and sent to prison for three years. When his mother lost her customer service job at Comcast. When his daughter was born while he was locked up, and she and her mother ended up living at the D.C. General homeless shelter. When he got out and had few prospects, far from his daughter, far from his friends, far from the life he knew.

There was a time when moving to the suburbs would have been considered a sign of success for Wilkins: The legend of the American Dream was thoroughly intertwined with the crabgrass frontier in the decades after World War II. Making it meant escaping urban noise, pollution and crime for spacious yards and good schools. The federal government invested heavily in highways, mortgage subsidies and loans to make the dream come true. But the dream was realized almost exclusively by white America. Discriminatory practices by lenders, real estate agents and policymakers kept most black Americans from enjoying the fruits of those investments that their tax money helped make.

In the decades after the Kerner Commission’s report, the District was riddled with problems, from the destruction of the 1968 riots to the crack epidemic to out-of-control crime to fiscal insolvency. Housing affordability wasn’t generally one of them. These days, it’s different: Rent in the capital region has risen faster than anywhere else in the country since 1980. That year, according to the Brookings Institution, D.C. and the relatively urban satellites of Arlington and Alexandria accounted for about half of the region’s poor population. By 2000, the remaining suburbs housed 61 percent of this population. In 2013, it was 70 percent.

That trend played out across the country: Between 2000 and 2013, 92 of America’s 97 largest metro areas experienced an increase in suburban poverty. In metro areas as diverse as Boise, Minneapolis, and Cape Coral, Fla., the number of poor people in the suburbs more than doubled.

In Prince George’s County, home to Capitol Heights, the black population grew from a small minority in 1970 to a majority by 1990. Partly because of middle-class black flight from D.C., it became the wealthiest majority-black county in the nation and a bastion of black homeownership. Then came the crash. Prince George’s was hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis. Residents saw their assets shrivel, and they were soon joined by the exodus of low-income Washingtonians seeking cheaper rent to escape the glossy new city’s rising prices.

Elsewhere in the D.C. area, suburban poverty has been driven mostly by other racial and ethnic groups. Across the region, 81 percent of Hispanics in poverty lived in the suburbs as of 2013, compared with 70 percent of whites and 53 percent of African Americans.

Wealthier, whiter areas also have experienced rising suburban poverty. Montgomery County, among the wealthiest counties in the country, had the region’s largest increase in poverty between 2007 and 2010, when the census showed for the first time that it was no longer majority-white. In Charles County, Md., which has a median family income of $98,560, the poverty rate more than doubled between 2007 and 2015. And according to Elizabeth Kneebone, a researcher at Brookings and the University of California and co-author of “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,” the jurisdictions that experienced the region’s biggest increases in poverty last decade were farther-flung parts of Virginia, such as Prince William County and Loudoun County — the wealthiest county in America.

The shifting geography of poverty has left the nonprofit organizations that work to alleviate it scrambling to keep up. Another Brookings report showed that nonprofit spending per poor resident was significantly higher in D.C. and the counties that are home to Chicago and Los Angeles than in surrounding suburbs. In all three metropolitan areas, there were fewer organizations helping low-income suburbanites, and they had to stretch their services over much larger geographical areas than nonprofit groups in cities. In 2011, Kneebone and her colleagues found that nonprofit organizations in the District, Arlington and Alexandria had a combined budget of $9,996 per poor resident. In the other D.C. suburbs, that figure was just $945.

Poor people who leave the city face new disadvantages. Where they grew up, they tended to be familiar with housing, job-training and food-assistance programs. If they weren’t, they could turn to neighbors for guidance. “When people are in new neighborhoods, new counties, that sort of community knowledge that’s been built up is lost,” said Benjamin Orr, executive director of the nonprofit Maryland Center on Economic Policy. “And you have to start from scratch again.”

When Wilkins’s life spun into crisis, his old Bloomingdale neighbors were his lifeline. When he went to prison, inmates from the neighborhood took care of him and helped him avoid the trouble and violence other new arrivals faced. He can’t imagine his new neighbors doing the same — mostly because he doesn’t know them. “It’s everyone for themselves out there,” he said, sitting in his car in the Domino’s parking lot, waiting for orders during the slow hours before the evening crush. “It’s more like a lower-middle-class reality out there. I think everybody out there is just, go home, whatever, take care of my kids, and nobody wants to be bothered.”

Wilkins and his brother and mother spend much of their spare time together, in their apartment, bothering nobody, sometimes taking care of Wilkins’s 5-year-old daughter, Taylor. She’s at the center of Wilkins’s thoughts and of his apartment, which is cluttered with her toys. Yolanda has made her peace with her new surroundings. “It’s comfortable,” she said as Taylor watched cartoons nearby. “I’ve made it home.”

But being away from D.C. was making it harder to advance her career. She wanted to start a moving and maid service — she’d chosen a name: Moving Maid Just Right — but she was having trouble securing a loan and didn’t know where to turn for help. D.C., she believed, had more programs to aid startup businesses. “I don’t know nothing about Prince George’s, so I’ve got to do my homework on that,” she said. “You know where to go for everything in D.C.”

Wilkins was fed up with his job, but Capitol Heights didn’t have the same kinds of job training resources as D.C. — or at least he didn’t know about them. “There’s definitely a lot more programs in D.C. that you miss out on out here,” he said. The small nuisances of suburban life were also building. To combat his stress and insomnia, Wilkins was eating mostly vegan, but there were no good places to buy healthy food around him, so he usually ended up driving to D.C. for it.

Over the months, though, Wilkins’s prospects improved. He landed a part-time job with the nonprofit community organizing group ONE DC, and he settled eagerly into its offices in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood, where posters of civil rights leader Ella Baker and Che Guevara hung above his desk. He helped open a Black Workers Center in D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood to offer job training and assistance to underemployed African Americans. The promise of full-time work with ONE DC allowed him to quit his Domino’s gig. And the Black Workers Center gave him and his friends a new spot to convene. They felt increasingly out of place on the streets of Bloomingdale, where they continued to gather, but less frequently, and always under the suspicious gaze of neighbors. “They don’t like us hanging out,” he said. “ ’Cause we hang outside. We might chill in the carryout. They don’t like that at all.”

Wilkins’s old friends were scattered to the winds. None of them lived in Bloomingdale anymore. Some, he said, were in the Northeast and Southeast quadrants of D.C., but most were spread around Prince George’s and other suburbs. There was no obvious place to gather. So Bloomingdale, impractical as it had become, remained their home base, years after they moved away.

“I’m back there all the time,” Wilkins said.

Yolanda nodded. “That’s home.”

Twitter: @aaronwiener

Read more from Outlook:

The poor are treated like criminals everywhere, even at the grocery store

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Demise of Boise nonprofit makes aging in place harder

BOISE, Idaho — Boise at Home was designed to help the Treasure Valley’s older residents stay in their homes and be independent for as long as possible. But when the organization folded last fall, its members were left to fend for themselves.

Its demise is a sign of trouble ahead for the region’s growing senior population.

The nonprofit seemed like such a good idea when it began in February 2016. Older adults with no family members nearby could join Boise at Home and call for help with daily tasks whenever they needed.

The membership fee was $425 a year for an individual or $530 for a household.

“Our mission is to help people remain living at their own home as long as they wish by providing volunteer services and a handyman service and social activities so they don’t become isolated,” said Diane Ronayne, who helped create the organization.

Cynthia Brownsmith is a licensed psychologist whose daughter lives in North Carolina, more than 2,000 miles away. She’s 70, single, and joined Boise at Home as an insurance policy. When she needed back surgery and her cell phone died, she knew who to call for help getting it fixed.

“I really didn’t have anybody, and I felt secure,” Brownsmith said. “That was the most important thing, was the feeling of being truly secure and supported.”

“THEY TRIED HARD, AND I NEED THEM’

But after a year and a half of serving the region, Boise at Home closed its doors on Halloween, leaving members like Brownsmith without an important safety net.

“I’m heartbroken. I’m still …” Brownsmith paused, holding back tears. “Sorry. I’m still heartbroken, because they tried so hard and because I need them.”

Idaho is growing fast, and no group is growing faster here than older adults. The state has added 116,000 people since the 2010 census. More than 60,000 of those are 65 or older, thanks to aging and in-migration.

Melissa Radloff has seen this change firsthand. She’s the project manager for Legacy Corps, which provides respite for people caring for loved ones with ailments like Alzheimer’s disease.

“The retirees are no longer retiring in Florida and Arizona,” Radloff said. “There’s now quite a few places they’re going to retire, and Boise, Idaho is one of those top six places in the country.”

Radloff is worried about this growing population. Legacy Corps has a long waiting list, and the group is actively recruiting scarce volunteers.

WHERE WE WANT TO LIVE AND DIE: HOME

Gerontologist Stephanie Bender-Kitz is also concerned, because she knows how important it is for older adults to be independent. Bender-Kitz runs an organization called Honoring Choices Idaho, an advanced-care planning initiative. She has worked with seniors in Idaho for decades.

“Why is aging in place relevant? First and foremost, it’s because that’s where most people say they want to live and die — is in their home,” Bender-Kitz said. “Providing support to help people to live and die where they say they’d like to, that’s the right thing to do.”

Dorothy Millard knows the difference between aging at home and in an assisted-living facility. She and her husband tried out such an institution for two months before they returned to their home of more than 30 years.

“Hey squirrels, come on, it’s lunch time,” Millard calls out one chilly December day. “Where’s my lunch bunch? I give them black oil sunflower seeds and apple cores.”

Millard is 77 and loves her big yard in Boise’s North End. This is where she tends vegetables and feeds her favorite neighborhood squirrels. Her husband Steve used to help out, but then his Parkinson’s disease and dementia deepened. So she called Boise at Home.

“They cleaned up here, the pathways and along the edges,” she says, as she gives a tour of her wintry yard. Volunteers “raked the leaves and took out weeds, clipped some of the weeds, lots of the stuff that needed to be done around the edges.”

FUNDRAISING EFFORT FAILED

But Millard now has to do these chores herself since the organization ran out of money. The membership fees covered only a fraction of the costs for a director and handyman, and competition is fierce in Idaho for donations and foundation funding.

That’s because the need is so great, as Boise at Home’s Diane Ronayne explains: “You take an old person and you take a homeless person and try to compare the two … it’s hard to justify for those foundations giving money to people who already were in their homes when there were so many people who weren’t in a home.”

Ronayne and the group’s aging members hope the service can be revived. Similar organizations are flourishing in 200 or more cities around the country. But it’s too soon to tell.

What is certain, though, is that a big gap was left when Boise at Home shut down. And the need for such services is only going to grow as the Treasure Valley grows grayer.

Information from: Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com

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Three Minutes With Ronda McLaughlin

3 min

RONDA McLAUGHLIN

County employee

Ronda McLaughlin, 57, of Enterprise isn’t a Wallowa County native, and although she and Wallowa Countian John McLaughlin always planned to retire here, she enjoyed her life in other places.

Ronda went to school in Burley, Idaho, and graduated from high school in 1979 before going on to junior college in Hemet, Calif.

She went into banking in California and built a career that took her from teller to loan officer in Boise, Idaho.

One day a coworker and she took a trip from Boise to the Miner’s Jubilee in Baker City, and there she met John McLaughlin. She and John married a year later and settled in Wallowa County, where she got her real estate license with Wallowa Mountain Properties and created the property management arm of the business while husband, John, worked as a life-size welder at Valley Bronze.

They moved back to Boise in 1995 when their children, Cameron, (now 26) and Blake (now 25) were young because Wallowa County was going through hard times, there was talk of consolidating the school districts, and they became concerned about their children’s education.

Back in Boise, Ronda managed the Boise City ADA County Housing Authority Section 8 division while John worked in the maintenance department.

She branched out from there, doing real estate and managing a manufactured housing company sales center while John worked as a trucker delivering the homes.

Although they had meant to return to Wallowa County after retirement, the death of her sister-in-law, Maryann McLaughlin, helped them make the decision to come back in 2017.

She now works for Wallowa County as a department specialist for Wallowa County Building Codes and Planning. John is still driving truck, now for Farm Supply Trucking of Enterprise.

The couple is committed to working with the Wallowa County Humane Society, where she is a board member. Ronda recently negotiated with Disney Studios to bring “Homeward Bound,” part of which was filmed in the area, to the OK Theatre for a showing March 31 to raise awareness of the work of the society.

Q. Why do you live in Wallowa County?

A. When I was a little kid, my grandpa always used to take me to Wallowa County, and I have a lot of childhood memories. We always planned to come back here when we retired. When I left Wallowa Mountain Properties, they kept my key for me, knowing I would return.

Q. What has Wallowa County taught you?

A. I have been constantly reminded that I’m not a local and that’s a pet peeve. It’s different for those that were born and raised here.

Q. Can you recall an early book you checked out of the library for yourself, and can you recommend a book you have read recently?

A. “Old Yeller” by Fred Gipson. I was in grade school. And of course I saw the film, too. Right now I’m reading “Unknown Predator,” which is written by a Wallowa County writer, A. Dru Kristenev, about a rancher fighting the tangle of government regulations. (Available at The Bookloft.)

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Inventory Limits February Home Sales While Pushing Up Prices

(MENAFN Editorial) DENVER, March 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ –One word sums up February home sales across the country – inventory. The lack of homes for sale continues to be the key factor as February marks the third consecutive month of year-over-year declines in home sales, coupled with quick sales and record prices. To access the housing report infographic, visit: https://rem.ax/2phKHWT .

According to the March RE/MAX National Housing Report, home sales dropped 0.2% from February 2017, while the Days on Market average of 62 days was the lowest of any February in the report’s nine-year history.

"We shared our outlook of the real estate market in the new year and it seems that even two months into 2018 we’re already seeing records break," said RE/MAX CEO Adam Contos. "The February 2018 median sales price of $228,700 marks the 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year price increases."

The Months Supply of Inventory was 3.1 – also a RE/MAX National Housing Report February record – and underscored an average decline in inventory of 13.7% among the 52 markets reporting.

"While the hot markets like Denver and San Francisco continue to see low supplies of inventory, we’re also watching more homebuyers migrate into unexpected markets," added Contos. "In one year, Billings, Montana, saw a 59 percent increase in home sales, along with Boise, Idaho, with a 25 percent increase in sales."

Out of 52 markets, 18 metro areas saw double-digit percentage increases in median sales price year-over-year. While only two metros saw a year-over-year decrease in median sales price – Albuquerque, NM, and Burlington, VT.

Closed Transactions Of the 52 metro areas surveyed in February 2018, the overall average number of home sales increased +3.5% compared to January 2018 and decreased -0.2% compared to February 2017. Twenty-six of the 52 metro areas experienced an increase in sales year-over-year including, Billings, MT, +59.2%, Boise, ID, +25.4%, Burlington, VT, +20.4%, Milwaukee, WI, +19.6% and Richmond, VA, at +13.2%

Median Sales Price – Median of 52 metro median prices In February 2018, the median of all 52 metro Median Sales Prices was $228,700, up +2.3% fromJanuary 2018 and up +8.1% from February 2017. Two metro areas saw a year-over-year decrease in Median Sales Price, Albuquerque, NM, -0.2% and Burlington, VT, -5.2%. Eighteen metro areas increased year-over-year by double-digit percentages, with the largest increases seen in Las Vegas, NV, +15.6%, San Francisco, CA, +15.5%, Seattle, WA, +15.4%, Pittsburgh, PA, +14.8% and Minneapolis, MN, +13.3%.

Days on Market – Average of 52 metro areas The average Days on Market for homes sold in February 2018 was 62, up two days from the average in January 2018, and down six days from the February 2017 average. The metro areas with the lowest Days on Market were Las Vegas, NV, and San Diego, CA, at 36, Denver, CO, and Nashville, TN, both at 35, and Seattle, WA, at 33. The highest Days on Market averages were in Wilmington, DE, at 117, Wichita, KS, at 101, Washington, D.C., at 99 and Tulsa, OK, at 93. Days on Market is the number of days between when a home is first listed in an MLS and a sales contract is signed.

Months Supply of Inventory – Average of 52 metro areas The number of homes for sale in February 2018 was down -1.0% from January 2018, and down -13.7% from February 2017. Based on the rate of home sales in February, the Months Supply of Inventory decreased to 3.1 from January 2018 at 3.4, as well as decreased compared to February 2017 at 3.6. A 6.0-months supply indicates a market balanced equally between buyers and sellers. In February 2018, 48 of the 52 metro areas surveyed reported a months supply at or less than 6.0, which is typically considered a seller’s market. The metro areas that saw a months supply above 6.0, which is typically considered a buyer’s market, were Miami, FL, at 7.0, New Orleans, LA, at 6.8, Augusta, ME, at 6.5 and Burlington, VT, at 6.4. The markets with the lowest Months Supply of Inventory continued to be in the west with Denver, CO, and Seattle, WA, at 1.0 and San Francisco, CA, at 1.1.

For specific data in this report or to request an interview, please contact .

About the RE/MAX Network: RE/MAX was founded in 1973 by Dave and Gail Liniger, with an innovative, entrepreneurial culture affording its agents and franchisees the flexibility to operate their businesses with great independence. Over 115,000 agents provide RE/MAX a global reach of more than 100 countries and territories. Nobody sells more real estate than RE/MAX, when measured by residential transaction sides. RE/MAX, LLC, one of the world’s leading franchisors of real estate brokerage services, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RMCO, LLC, which is controlled and managed by RE/MAX Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: RMAX ). With a passion for the communities in which its agents live and work, RE/MAX is proud to have raised more than $167 million for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals® and other charities. For more information about RE/MAX, to search home listings or find an agent in your community, please visit www.remax.com . For the latest news about RE/MAX, please visit www.remax.com/newsroom .

Description The RE/MAX National Housing Report is distributed each month on or about the 15th. The first Report was distributed in August 2008.The Report is based on MLS data in approximately 52 metropolitan areas, includes all residential property types, and is not annualized.For maximum representation, many of the largest metro areas in the country are represented, and an attempt is made to include at least one metro from each state. Metro area definitions include the specific counties established by the U.S. Government’s Office of Management and Budget, with some exceptions.

Definitions Transactions are the total number of closed residential transactions during the given month.Months Supply of Inventory is the total number of residential properties listed for sale at the end of the month (current inventory) divided by the number of sales contracts signed (pended) during the month.Where "pended" data is unavailable, this calculation is made using closed transactions. Days on Market is the number of days that pass from the time a property is listed until the property goes under contract for all residential properties sold during the month.Median Sales Price is the median of the median sales prices in each of the metro areas included in the survey.

MLS data is provided by contracted data aggregators, RE/MAX brokerages and regional offices. While MLS data is believed to be accurate, it cannot be guaranteed.MLS data is constantly being updated, making any analysis a snapshot at a particular time. Every month the RE/MAX National Housing Report re-calculates the previous period’s data to ensure accuracy over time. All raw data remains the intellectual property of each local MLS organization. View original content with multimedia: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inventory-limits-february-home-sales-while-pushing-up-prices-300615524.html

SOURCE RE/MAX, LLC

MENAFN2003201800701241ID1096620897

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This area of Meridian is on the verge of becoming the fastest-growing place in Idaho | Idaho Statesman

When it opens early next month, a Tru by Hilton hotel will be the fourth hotel at the Interstate 84 interchange with Eagle Road. The four-story hotel is going up near the eastbound offramp.

A couple of months later, Norco is scheduled to open a store across Eagle and off Overland. “It will make it easy for our customers to get to that location, and we’ll be able to tell them we’re across the interstate from St. Luke’s,” said Nicole Kissler, Norco’s director of medical reimbursement.

Those are just two of dozens of building projects underway along a four-mile stretch of Overland from Eagle Road west to Ten Mile Road and south two miles to Amity Road. As the economy — and Meridian — keep growing, these eight square miles have become a hotspot of farmland destruction and building construction.

“In general, north Meridian has always been the fastest-growing area of the community, and south Meridian has probably been No. 2 — and that’s in the whole state,” said David Turnbull, CEO of the Brighton Corp., a Meridian-based home and commercial developer. “South Meridian will probably jump up and overtake north Meridian.”

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Since 2013, 1.2 million square feet of commercial space has been built there. So have 2,100 new residential units, including single-family homes, condominiums, townhouses and apartments, said Carl Miller, principal planner for the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho, or COMPASS.

North Meridian, another eight-square-mile area bounded by Chinden Boulevard on the north, West Ustick Road on the south, North Black Cat Road on the west and North Locust Grove Road on the east, has added 2.2 million square feet of commercial space and 2,739 new residential units, Miller said.

That growth has been fueled by a population explosion that has seen Meridian nearly triple in size since 2000. Last year, COMPASS estimated the city’s population at 98,300. The U.S. Census Bureau said Meridian had 34,919 residents in 2000 and 75,092 in 2010.

This Tru by Hilton hotel, described by the company as “vibrant, affordable and for the young-at-heart,” is scheduled to open near Eagle and Overland roads in early April. It will be the fourth hotel at the Eagle Road interchange off Interstatee 84.

Katherine Jones [email protected]

Disappearing farmland

Construction like the Tru by Hilton is filling in some still-undeveloped sites on the nearly full Eagle Road side of south Meridian, while construction closer to Ten Mile is encroaching on still-rural landscapes, especially west of Linder Road.

“We’re starting to see small residential projects pop up along Overland between Ten Mile and Linder, a fire station that’s planned in that vicinity, some retailers that are relatively new in that area,” said Caleb Hood, Meridian’s planning division manager.

Along the Overland corridor between Eagle Road and Ten Mile, recently opened businesses include Domino’s Pizza, Sonic Drive-In, Harry’s Hideaway Bar and Grill and Bish’s RV, which moved from Nampa to a 17-acre site at 1300 W. Overland Road.

WinCo Foods planned to build a new grocery store on Overland west of Eagle, but in January the company withdrew its application to subdivide the 18.75-acre property. The Boise company has not said whether it still plans to build the store and other buildings there.

Two housing developments are underway on Overland near Ten Mile. The Southridge Apartments and the Linder and Overland Apartments would add 922 housing units to Meridian’s inventory.

YMCA-Luke’s-school complex

While most of the new construction in south Meridian is concentrated along the Overland corridor, there is also growth along Victory Road, one mile south of Overland, and Amity Road, two miles south.

The South Meridian Family YMCA is scheduled to open Friday, May 25, near Amity and Eagle roads. The building is located next to Hillsdale Elementary School, which opened last fall.

The YMCA is partnering with the school and St. Luke’s Health System to offer a school-nurse program and a wellness center to help people eat, exercise and live more healthfully. St. Luke’s will also operate a clinic at the site.

The opening of the YMCA, along with the school, is expected to draw additional growth nearby.

“As if they need a spurt in that area,” said Robin Hayes, spokeswoman for the Treasure Valley Family YMCA.

New homes have been built and others are under construction in the Hill’s Century Farm subdivision south of the YMCA and Hillside School. Five other new subdivisions are nearby.

“What spurs a lot of that is fairly good access to the interstate and other arterial roads,” Hood said. “The city is working to develop more robust pathway networks so people can walk and bike and rollerblade and skateboard to get to places and not have to hop into their cars.”

Construction crews work to finish the 92-room hotel.

Katherine Jones [email protected]

Albertsons, sewer lines, more schools

Albertsons has a new grocery store planned at the northwest corner of Eagle and Amity. The Ada County Highway District plans to expand a roundabout at that intersection from one to two lanes.

The city of Meridian is spending $8 million to extend sewer lines south on Meridian Road between Victory and Amity. That will clear the way for new development there, Hood said. The extension is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

The West Ada School District has plans for three new south Meridian schools. Blue Valley Elementary is envisioned for property at Overland and Linder, Grove High School at Linder and Amity and Hill High and middle school at Eagle and Amity, according to the district’s long-range plan. The schools are currently in the planning stages and no schedule has been set for construction.

A $95 million bonding request on Tuesday’s West Ada ballot includes money to expand two schools in south Meridian. The district wants to spend $8 million to expand Mountain View High School, located off Overland west of Eagle Road. It wants $1 million to add four classrooms at Mary McPherson Elementary School on Amity west of South Locust Grove.

The TownePlace Suites by Marriott is visible through the windows of the Tru by Hilton hotel, just steps to the west.

Katherine Jones [email protected]

Just outside the box

Still more projects have been rising just outside the Eagle-Overland-Ten Mile-Amity rectangle, including:

Ten Mile Crossing: Brighton has partnered with Gardner Co. to build this business park on 71 acres northeast of the I-84 interchange at Ten Mile Road.

AmeriBen, a Meridian human resources and benefits administration company, has moved into a new, 76,000-square-foot, two-story building. The five-story Columbus Building, with 127,000 square feet southwest of AmeriBen, is scheduled to be completed in June. Paylocity, a Chicago payroll and human resources company, will share that building with other businesses.

A groundbreaking will be held in March for the four-story, 84,000-square-foot Magellan Building, west of the Columbus Building. Brighton, which had initially planned to move its headquarters to the Columbus Building, will instead go to that one. It is expected to be completed in next February.

Other businesses spawned by the Ten Mile interchange: A Primary Health clinic and a car wash are under construction farther north on Ten Mile.

The Ten Mile interchange opened in 2011, before the recession’s grip eased. Only now are commercial buildings emerging.

The Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine: Idaho’s first medical school is under construction immediately north of I-84 off Locust Grove Road next to Idaho State University’s Meridian Health Science Center. The college is scheduled to begin classes this fall with a class of 150.

“A lot of where you see growth occurring is based on where services can be provided,” Hood said. “There are pockets of south Meridian that have sewer and water that are readily available or can be made readily available. Southeast Meridian and northwest Meridian are in a similar situation, where recent capital improvements to sewer and water infrastructure have spurred growth.”

John Sowell: 208-377-6423, @JohnWSowell

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Flight lands safely after woman tries to open door in midair

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

BOISE, ID (WCMH) — Police say a SkyWest flight from San Francisco to Boise, Idaho landed safely after a woman tried to open the door mid-flight.

Boise police told NBC News that officers responded to a report of an ‘unruly passenger’ aboard the flight.

NBC affiliate KTVB of Boise reported that passengers subdued the woman before she could open the door.

A video circulating online shows other passengers subduing the woman, who repeatedly screamed, “I am God.”

Boise Police spokeswoman Haley Williams said the woman is being medically evaluated, and possible charges have been routed to the prosecutor’s office for review. Her name has not been released, and it’s unclear why she attempted to open the aircraft door.

The FBI is also investigated.

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