Bush puts spotlight on tiny town

DONNELLY, Idaho – When aides to President Bush announced he would be here for two days of vacationing, reporters at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, were mystified.

“What’s in Donnelly?” one asked.

“I can’t find it,” another said.

Not even Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, could say exactly where it is.

“We can look at a map and try to figure it out,” Perino said.

This highway town of 132 people about 110 miles north of Boise is far from wilderness. A new ski and golf resort, Tamarack, where Bush will be staying, has been carved from a nearby mountainside, and investors have flocked to the region as the median price of a home has risen 116 percent in the past year.

Donnelly is part of the boom – and sometimes bust – that has characterized the Rocky Mountain West since prospectors descended on towns named Virginia City, Helena and Wallace in the 1800s searching for gold or silver.

One big difference: Most of the 21st century “prospectors,” many of them baby boomers on the edge of retirement, already have made their fortunes. They’re here to spend them.

Some say the president’s seal of approval on Donnelly could accelerate the rush.

“We’re in the midst of this continental migration into the mountains that’s been going on for a decade and a half and shows no signs of letting up,” said Dan Kemmis, a senior fellow at the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana. “As the most attractive and alluring spots or valleys get filled up, the migration begins to focus on new places. We see that happening all over the West.”

Bush is to arrive tonight after a speech in Salt Lake City. He plans no public events in Donnelly, though he will speak Wednesday in Nampa, Idaho, about America’s war on terrorism.

At Tamarack, construction crews, who outnumbered guests on Thursday, were hammering furiously on new chalets. The outlines of recently laid sod on the golf course still were visible. Workers were clearing brush – something Bush is famous for on his ranch – so the president can go mountain biking.

In nearby McCall, on the southern shore of Payette Lake, Rick Harvey sits in his office at the local airport where Bush’s helicopter will be hangared while the president fishes for wild rainbow trout and bikes on Boise National Forest trails.

The airport manager surveys the tarmac, where two private jets just took off and two others – a Cessna Citation and a Dassault Falcon, each costing more than $2 million – shine in the sunlight.

The region, Harvey says, is starting to resemble Sun Valley, the tony resort across the Sawtooth Mountains to the southeast.

“There’s a joke around here. Peo-ple say in Sun Valley, the billionaires are crowding out the millionaires, and they’re coming here,” Harvey said. “The baby boomers have a lot of discretionary income. They want a piece of this before it’s gone.”

But longtime residents say the changes come at a price.

The 400 timber-industry jobs lost in a sawmill shutdown in 2002 are being replaced by construction jobs. But there’s a shortage of affordable housing for people filling the jobs.

It’s the same issue facing other resort communities in the West, including Sun Valley; Jackson, Wyo.; and Park City, Utah.

According to a Valley County study, rents here have risen 50 percent since 2000. Mobile-home parks are disappearing and recreational-vehicle parks are being used for employees, the study said, making it tough to fill some jobs because people who would take them don’t have a place to live.

“I was in one of the local restaurants, and we were talking about what we would ask the president if he came in,” said Jerry Elrod, Donnelly’s town clerk. “The owner said, ‘I’d probably ask him if he wants a job. I need a cook.’ “

Still, many wouldn’t trade the tradeoffs that come with sudden growth.

“It’s nice to see people with jobs,” said Cynda Herrick, Valley County planning and zoning commissioner. “It’s not depressed like it used to be.”

And some Donnelly locals point out gleefully that Bush is skipping Sun Valley, where stars and politicians typically head when they’re in Idaho.

They think they know why. In 2004, 72 percent of Valley County voters chose Bush, while Blaine County, home of Sun Valley, was the only county in Idaho to favor his Democratic rival, John Kerry. Kerry has a home there.