22-year-old mayor shares Stanley’s housing concerns

STANLEY, Idaho – The woman who’ll be Idaho’s youngest mayor is a 22-year-old who’s worried that high rents could force her, like other workers in the central Idaho recreation town, to start living in a tent.

Hannah Stauts won the $250-a-month, part-time job Nov. 8. The 39-31 winning vote represented 69 percent of registered voters and overcame a trend that saw the last two mayoral elections decided with a coin toss.

Stauts’ victory will be officially recognized by the City Council on Dec. 14. In January, she will take the helm of the town surrounded by the Sawtooth Mountains that draws hordes of summer tourists but sees its population shrink to about 40 in the winter.

Besides presiding over council meetings, Stauts’ other jobs include working as a waitress and bartender.

“Stanley is the greatest place on earth I’ve seen so far,” Stauts told the Idaho Statesman of Boise.

“If you love to recreate or just sit and look at something beautiful, this is the spot.”

Residents of the town are known to voice their opinions, loudly, at the council meetings.

“I think Hannah will bring more decorum to the process because she’s a woman,” said Rocky James, the city clerk and treasurer.

“She’s from Idaho, and people are impressed with her. They say they like the way she handles herself. You don’t hear that very often around here.”

Stauts is a Boise native who majored in political science at Boise State University.

She was president of the women’s lacrosse and intercollegiate ski-racing teams at BSU. The last three summers, she worked on a Forest Service fire crew.

She grew up whitewater rafting and keeps oars beside the woodpile for her living room in her rented log cabin between a pizza parlor and the Stanley library.

One of her top priorities is affordable housing. She said if she can’t get the lease extended on her cabin, she could end up joining many other summer residents living outdoors.

“We’re limited on where we can build, because we’re surrounded by state and federal land,” Stauts said.

“We’re going to have to negotiate to try to get some of it to build homes for people who live here. Rents are high. People are camping out, living out of their cars.”

She would like to bring back summer events that attracted hundreds of tourists in the past.

She also would like to see an amphitheater using the mountains surrounding the town as a backdrop.

“I’m in favor of keeping Stanley as close as we can to the hearts of the people who live here,” she said.