¶ Don Day Interview
We're really excited today to have a guest on Don Day , owner of Boise Dev here in the Treasure Valley . Don is a long-time journalist here in the Valley . He worked for 17 years at KTVB before starting his own journalism company called Boise Dev . Don is a graduate of Boise State University . A Boise native . Also received his advanced degree from Stanford .
Also received his advanced degree from Stanford . He has grown Boise Dev from just six years ago to an idea and a thought to now one of the leading news organizations here in Idaho . He has the most read morning daily journal that is an online newsletter .
We're really excited to catch up with him and talk about all things development in Idaho and the Treasure Valley . Before we hear from Don , we're going to hear an Allquist update from Corey Hall and then we'll welcome our guest , don Day . Okay , first ever , first ever ever onward update Allquist company update Corey Hall . Let's start with the rodeo .
How's it going ? I thought it was supposed to be positive . It was positive . Oh my gosh , gosh , you couldn't have said a rodeo easier to win . We're , we're last out and 8.68 let's , let's .
Last friday night was , uh , the glens ferry , world famous glen glens ferry rodeo . Tons of cowboys , I couldn't believe it . There's 26 teams , 26 teams . You were the last . I want to reenact the the announcement . It's like hometown hero , super bowl champion cory hall in dakota what happened .
I came out and missed what happened , I don't know . They started talking about fell off my horse . Um no , I just I thought I had him roped and if gosh , if I would caught , we probably would have won the whole deal .
But that's rodeo . It was really fun , I guess . I went to the Stampede Rodeo Saturday and after watching you Friday night . It is crazy that they come from all over the country and you get one shot .
It's definitely one of those sports that you've got to be like . You have to have your mind right because you're going to go out for about six seconds and you have to . Just you know it's kind of smooth as fast thing , like you have to go out and you have to do everything right in one run it's one shot . It's 10 seconds .
Some of these guys are driving four or six hours no , it hit me like because , anyway , it was really fun to be down there . It was fun to be with dan . Oh man , dude , I got like I got more one-liners .
I can't even imagine being in the stands with him . He was giving me the pep talk .
Didn't show you the picture , oh yeah he had me hold the hold the beer can and took a selfie of us . Your mom and dad are awesome , all right , hey , uh , updates , uh , how are things going on on construction side for us ?
it's going good . Um , you know , all kind of throughout this year we've been anticipating being really busy this fall and so we're doing some really exciting things with D&B . So their corporate office out in Caldwell is going really well . I think we're actually standing panels this week and then we'll start seeing some steel flying next week .
So that's going really well . And there's a remodel out in Nampa .
Crane's up downtown on iccu . I think steel starts down there in the next couple of weeks .
You should start flying steel down there in the next probably three weeks , I think and so that project's going really well and looking forward to some exciting stuff with quality electric and the flex building coming up .
So so we're staying busy . What are you ? What are out there ? Supply chain , just the busyness with labor , and what's going on at Micron and Facebook . I mean , there's just a lot of things out there .
I think we've already kind of seen some challenges with skilled trades in our market . Here just in the Boise Valley you get some of those bigger jobs , the Meta , the Microns . I think it's going to be tough for the next couple of years , especially with electricians and plumbers .
I think those couple scopes of work it's going to be tough to find and keep good guys We've talked about this a little bit on here .
But there is kind of an aging skilled worker still and then you've got this demand . So it's kind of this double whammy . But we do have great programs out there too . I think that the don't you see that there's more people moving here and a lot more younger kids kind of saying , hey , this is a great career . Is that what you're seeing ?
yeah , for sure , and when you , when you do see those guys on site , you know , especially with our group , we always try to bring them up . It's , it's fun to see younger guys that are really committed to their skill set , whether it's a journeyman , plumber , electrician or mechanical guy or framer .
It's always good to see that younger generation of kids moving into our workforce .
And your team keeps growing here .
Yeah , they're doing great , I think they need us .
You walk over on that side of the building and you can tell who works out every day . Judah's priest .
I think Kyle might be winning right now . He's swole up .
I mean you go over on the other side and everyone's like .
Between Chris and Kyle and Holden , yeah they're all walking around .
I'm like okay , so these guys are made different . Well , all right . Well , we just wanted to have you on to do a quick update before we start our podcast and appreciate it . I do , buddy , cool , we'll see you in a couple weeks . Let's go . Thanks , you can be a snarky , you can let the true Don out .
I have to like hold it in . Oh , I can hear you .
You can hear yourself if we play something on it . Look , we've got your website pulled up . If we play something . This is a high-quality production , don , I guess . Thank you for coming on .
How are you ?
I'm great . How are you ? I'm great , how are you Good ?
Busy day .
It's been a while since I've seen you in person .
Yeah , I can't even .
How's the baby ?
I just I saw one of my employees today for the first time since May . So yeah , we all work remote . Baby is great , Going to be a year old in .
I was going to say aren't you coming up on a year ?
Yeah .
He's Life-changing , right About to walk . Can we start there ? We can start there , because I know your great dad .
How's it been ? You don't know that .
You assume that . Actually , I assume it from I hope so . I assume it from the post . You'd do a good job of faking it if you're not .
Instagram's not real life , but no , we . He's wonderful and we are having so much fun with him . And , um , you know my wife , kara , who co-founded Voicy Dad , which maybe we'll talk about , and I are , you know , a year into into the adventure parenthood and now we're full-time in the business together , and so it's a lot going on .
A lot going on . It's . It's amazing , though , isn't it ? It is amazing .
It changes your perspective on a lot of things , for sure , yeah .
And it changes your day-to-day . It changes what you do and what you're looking forward to .
I'm just hoping to get old enough to have grandkids .
Oh my gosh . I don't know , I'm not sure I got to this kind of late , so it's uh you know , I people I mean you didn't go all those years people saying , oh , my grandkid did this . And they're showing pictures to you , rolling your eyes , like , and then you become one of them and it's like you look forward to that face time in the morning .
We're lucky because ours lives so close and cash and jack , we get to see them almost every day . My wife sees them every day , for sure . Sometimes I miss it because I get home from work late , but it's really good . And now and now , tell me about your dog . Let's start with the dog . Come on , don .
I got a dog when I was 29 and horribly single because all I was doing was working at a place here and she passed away a couple weeks ago and it's just gutting and she's a little dog and she'd actually gotten littler , unfortunately . But we have another dog , lola , who's keeping us going , and so we miss Dora and she's a sweet dog they all are , I mean .
Ultimately .
They are . I've got dogs and they're like my kids too and I think about it . Sometimes I'll be out in my shop and start crying and rub their head and go . I hope you live forever .
People are always like , oh , people get triggered , Left or right . People are like , oh , you get triggered , I get triggered . All the time . I'm like , oh yeah , that rug that she peed on before she died . I don't want to clean that , because when I start crying over a rug it's just ridiculous .
It's amazing . And it's also you know . You'll have all those pictures of your dog with your child . We look at all of our kids and it's just so much part of
¶ Evolution of Local News Outlets
your family .
I kid you not , our son is not quite talking yet , but saying mama and dada , right before the day that we I don't want to cry the day that we had to put Dora to sleep , we did it at home , but that morning we were getting our son ready and he was looking at Dora and we were having a special moment and he said Dora , and it was the first time that
that had happened . You know , the smoke alarm went off twice that day and a bird hit the window , and so I was like boy , things are , things are happening around here .
Sorry to bring that up , but I do , I do , I love that . You share that and I couldn't agree more . Hey , you're , you've been busy .
Yes .
I love your story . We've known each other a long time but it's been interesting . But it's been interesting . I do want to talk a little bit about how it started , because I think you watch technology change the world we all do and then you watch people like you that go .
Hey , I see opportunity here , yeah , where others see maybe holding on too long or fear , or what does this mean for me ? Maybe holding on too long or fear , or what does this mean for me ? I think you were a pioneer in saying hey news .
The way people consume their news is changing and I'm gonna be out in front of that and it's been awesome to watch I mean , I love the change and I started um in this news market 25 years ago this spring and um started producing a large local news website and did that for a long time and so saw the Wasn't it like . It was 99 . Yeah , yeah .
So didn't you do it for like 17 years ?
I was there for 17 years 10 years in news , a year of that in Seattle , and then seven years managing sales , digital sales but it was always fun . It was like , oh , hey , hey , there's this mobile thing , we're going to start to put news on your like flip phone . Well , that's cool .
And then like , oh , this twitter thing is interesting , like 2008 , and then like facebook , and so it was always fun to like , be like what's the next thing ? And , um , you know , after a long career there we talked about this when I last chatted with you it's time to to do something else .
I don't know what that was and I got a chance to do with my now wife , kara , a journalism fellowship at Stanford in 2017 and 2018 . And we took that time to be like okay , so we've started this little Boise dev thing , a little hobby . How do we make this a business and is it possible ? And can we do it without a paywall ?
And can we do the things that we want to do that are community , forward and it's locally owned , not corporate owned . We're the only locally owned for-profit media here . There's a couple of nonprofits Boise State Radio and some others but we're it as far as for-profit , and it became apparent that there was a path , and so Kara and I put our heads together .
She has an MBA , and then we both kind of went through that Stanford program and looked at like what does this look like and what does a model look like and how do you put this together ? And okay , let's try it . And so we did this without any investment or any outside help .
Kara took a corporate job and then another corporate job and that helped support our family while we kind of figured this out and you know we never talked about Kara's involvement because she was working at the JR Simpli company and you know she didn't have an editorial voice in the business . But you know she had to do that work .
And then this spring she left and has joined the business full-time and has actually founded some new pieces . We're doing a new events business and a new food-focused newsletter called Boise Dev Eats . So it started in 2018 . Let's see if it works . And now where we are six , seven years on is our Boise Dev AM newsletter .
That Gretchen Parsons writes is the most consumed piece of media in our market More than any newscast on TV , more than any newspaper . Other news outlets are still larger because they have bigger , more news , lots of things that they glue together , but as far as reach , that's the biggest thing .
More people read Gretchen's morning newsletter than anything else , and that is like when we figured that out , it was like wait , wait , wait . I think is that right ? It's mind blowing and I think it's just simply a function of trying to build something that is focused on what readers want and that's changing all the time . It's changing constantly .
Talk a little bit about content , cause I think content's King . I think authentic content , community-based content , local content . I think we all just laugh our heads off on some of the statesman headlines that you'll read . You read it and you're like oh , that's in Oklahoma , right , right , right .
And I know they're just doing it for clickbait or whatever , but I think your content has always— it's hard to say that's not the local journalists doing that .
It's not . It's a corporate mandate .
And .
I think that there's . I'm not saying too much there's frustration from the people who are walking around that that's happening .
Oh , I'm sure .
When people beat up the statesmen or whoever . I think it's important to just note that there's really good work happening there .
They're owned by a corporation that has some hedge fund money involved and they've got to figure out how to make it work , and their cost structure is different than mine , so I just don't want to leave an impression that like , ah , they're terrible because they do good work , and I think it's important to say that .
Yeah , so go back to content for you , because you're humble , but but I do think authentic content that people want to read has always been your strength , right , I mean ? And then you look at your team you've added really high quality journalists that work for you and you try to make it . Hey , what do people want to hear ? What are they interested in ?
And that's ultimately why you're successful , right ?
Yeah , I mean , I think . So . I think that having good people trying to journalism is a low paying business and we've tried to work on that and have made moves and I think we've actually helped push the market a little bit . And that content is important .
And , you know , boise Dev still isn't going to give you everything because there are other news outlets and we've actually tried to structure . We baked in with that morning product , we link out .
If KTVB or the Statesman or the Capital Sun or Boise State Public Radio or the Wall Street Journal has an interesting local story , we're going to link to them and for us that means that I'm not staffing somebody to cover a lot of the social issues and some of the things .
One of the things that's a big trend in the industry right now is what's called news avoidance and I think in the last 10 years you've seen really choppy partisan political environment . You saw a pandemic , you saw , you've seen , you know I mean it's 104 degrees outside right now and you can decide if that's climate change or not , but it's hot .
People are having trouble thinking about that and so people are tuning out of the news . And so you've got this technology thing where I can get HBO , max and Peacock and Netflix and get everything I want . So I'm not watching a traditional newscast . Newspapers had already fallen away .
There's some strength in some radio , some of the Nate Shellman kind of stuff people are still listening to , and so people were tuning out . And we saw this opportunity coming out of the pandemic , where people wanted to know what was happening in this community , but they were getting it from social media .
So you think about what happens when you open your Facebook or your Twitter feed .
You're getting you know you might get an update from a local news anchor and then you're probably going to get something hyper-partisan and then you're going to get a picture of your grandkid and then from there it's just like down , it falls off and it's just garbage and people were not feeling like they were connected and we did some audience research that showed
us this and so we said , well , how can we build that from the bound back from the ground up ? And so this newsletter product that I'm tremendously proud of that gretchen does helps you have a pulse on our community ? Yeah , but we try really hard to not get into the partisan stuff . There's no national content in that , but none we don't .
If you want national news . There's a million sources for that . The closest we're going to get is if there's a really strong local tie to a national event . So obviously , some of the recent political events , the attempted assassination on the former president obviously , knowing what the leaders locally were saying , we linked out to a Channel 7 story on that .
But other than that , we're not your place for that and people love it . It's people and people can reply so we get . They're like oh , thank you for this , we love this .
You brought something up and I wanted to ask you . I've got several questions to ask you . I don't know how many I'm going to get into today .
I told my wife I was going to turn this around and just start interviewing you , because I've got questions too .
But we'll with that . I was trying to think , when national news became so partisan and I think in my I mean , I'm 56 now and I go back and I've always been kind of a you know current events junkie , kind of always followed politics I just I liked it , I really liked it .
I don't remember when it happened , but it certainly happened and and then when it did happen , and you know , you go back and you and both sides blame each other and it is . I think it's turned off so many people .
But but do you remember a time when it wasn't so partisan , or were we just naive and it's always been partisan wasn't so partisan , or were we just naive and it's always been partisan
¶ Local News Outlet Evolution Discussion
.
I think there's degrees it's the late 1990s with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and the Star Report . It's certainly the fallout from September 11th . I mean , I think so many things that are happening in our society today are still linked to that in so many ways , and I think people forget that we went through that as a country .
You know the Iraq war was certainly something , and I think people forget that we went through that as a country . You know the Iraq war was certainly something that I think people had thoughts about .
The Great Recession and the early days of the Obama administration , the election of Donald Trump , the COVID-19 pandemic I mean each thing is just kind of layered on , and I was talking to somebody yesterday . I was like , can you imagine if the government decided that we should all wear seatbelts now ? Oh my goodness , people would . Yeah . So society has changed .
But when did it become openly okay to just be so partisan ?
I mean I don't think it's okay . Personally , I mean , I try really hard not to be partisan , yeah , and it frustrates me because we get we get a lot of , you know , flack from people who are upset at us because we and we have somebody who posts and is like I'm really mad that you reported these things about this person .
I don't like and you're terrible for that , and it's like wait , you're mad at this politician and you're mad that it's our fault , that we told you . So you're using the facts that we reported to tell us that we are terrible . I mean like I can't , what do I do with that ?
Don't you think it's being local and 100% locally owned and being a neighbor ? I mean , you're a neighbor to people and the people that work with you are neighbors and it's like , hey , I'm a neighbor telling a neighbor about community things that are important to me , it feels personal too right .
And I think , for whatever has happened in our world with media and social media , I think national stuff is just so distracted from being neighborly that it's just mean and it goes to that news avoidance thing .
Yeah , and you know we're heading into this election cycle and it's been a crazy six weeks . We've got a while until November . We've got a while until November . But people want to know . They want to know if their road's going to be closed .
We're taping this in late July and today we actually did a special afternoon edition about an hour ago , because there's going to be widespread preventative power outages ahead of a windstorm and fires and potential fires and it's hot that's tonight right , that's tonight , yeah , yeah , so , depending on people watch this , so we we're trying to be like , well , we got
to tell people about this . It's a long way from something called boise dev , right , yeah , and we've , we've evolved and we're not going to change the name . But , um , it's not just development anymore . I'm not just trying to figure out what you're building anymore .
We're still trying to figure that out . Talk about that evolution , because when it did start it was very interesting because people are interested with what's happening in their community what's going up , what's going down , what's going in , what's going out . I mean you were that person . It's been funny to watch other .
I mean I can say this because I can say this it's been funny watching other people try to do that . Over time and they kind of come and go a little bit , but consistently you've been the source for , hey , what's happening ? I mean that's why you .
Oh , and we're neck deep in two big stories right now that are going to drop the next week Right and they're development related and people love that .
but then you have become so much more . Did you ever think that that was going to happen ? And I know it's happened , naturally , but what would you brand yourself if you would have known what you became ?
I don't know . I mean , I always joke , the Idaho Statesman isn't about one guy , right , statesman it's not one guy . So these names are fungible . And you know , channel 7 is named for some FCC call letters , so the name is what it is and I think you can get too cute .
Um , and you know the Boise picky you and or something the name is what the name is . And I'm happy with it . Most people get it fairly quickly . But it's more than that . You scan the homepage and you know you see things that are beyond that . Um , we , we . I would have probably named it something else , for sure . Um , it started with a .
We didn't talk about this . It started with a hashtag in like 2012 on Twitter . I didn't know that . Yeah , um , I , when I had the sales job um at KTVB and I was trying to find leads for my sales team and I was a little missing the what to tweet about .
Candidly , I was like , well , I can go through permit filings and look for , like , oh , jackson's is opening over here , or you know , uh , st luke's . And so I was like , oh , this needs a hashtag and I actually started with . Honestly , I started with boise retail hashtag , boise retail and , uh , joe jesuski , who's a good friend of mine .
Um , he and I used to be like twitter nemesis . He was the statesman , I was john seven and he's like why do you hashtag at bo Retail when it's about the Centennial High Gym ? I was like , oh , yeah , that doesn't make sense . We'll just tag it Boise Dev . I mean , it was literally that drop of the hat .
And now here we are more than a decade later and it's the fourth biggest digital news outlet in the state . That's awesome .
Well , I do think that I'm going to move on , but I think you had a jump start because I think you already saw the world differently because of what you did . And I mean you look at your online presence now . It's so easy to navigate , it's easy to get information , it's easy to look up what you do .
The ad load is low .
Yeah , the newsletters are fantastic and the other thing we talk about there's .
No , we don't take national ads . We get a lot there's there's no , we don't take national ads . We get a lot of inquiry for diet pill ads and whatever else and you know , blow out your colon stuff and we don't take it . And so the ads you see on there when you see ads are generally local brands .
Is that because of the free things that come with those ads , I don't know you start with ?
I mean blow out your colon I just I think I saw an ad for that this morning , matthew blow out your colon .
Just made an appearance on the .
I saw it on the Today Show this morning so I was like , oh , that's great Good times . So yeah , I mean we've just really tried to focus on local and you talk about that content piece being really important . Development is still at the core of what we do and it's at the core of a lot of things .
That's because it's so interesting , especially here now , if we were anywhere else where we're going the other direction with growth . It is funny because we do have a lot of .
I hear a lot of complaints about growth and development and how you can do this , whatever , and we're trying to be in the middle of it to try to help and we've got a few initiatives going that I think are going to be important .
But it is interesting when you travel the country , which we do , and we're in a lot of different jurisdictions looking at developments , to hear people's take on Boise and , oh , if we only had that problem right , if we were only growing wages , if we only had people moving in . So it's a good problem to have .
I mean and we try and take a critical look .
I'm saying this on a developer's podcast and I realize that but you know we went through the zoning code rewrite in Boise during 2023 , and we did lots of stories and zoning code rewrite in Boise during 2023 , and we did lots of stories and we really tried to pull back because we knew that there were folks like you who were very for it and city leaders , but
there was neighborhood activists who were not and who were , I suspect , funded in part by you Never proved that , but I'm saying it on your podcast anyway but we tried to pull back and say , okay , let's just give people the facts , not the NIMBY view , not the YIMBY view , not the developer view , not the city view , but like what is this , what does this mean ?
And so we always try and take that approach and realize that , yeah , growth can be very good . There are challenges . It can be very scary . Some people aren't going to like apartments going up in their neighborhood .
Some people aren't going to like a big parking field , some people aren't going to like bike lanes , and trying to mix those all together and give people , no matter how they feel about the growth , give them good facts and a good framework to understand what's happening so that they can hey , you know what I don't like the mayor of my town .
I'm going to vote him out . They need good facts to be able to make that decision and not just do it because they don't like how they look .
Isn't that what the world needs ? On almost , I mean , we kind of have gotten away from what's the truth Like what are the both sides of the issue , and then you decide right .
Sometimes there's four sides right . You have to be able to do that act of choosing and say , yeah , there's not really much to this , but even that zoning code rewrite . There was like three or four different schools of thought on that right and I heard from people in the development community who felt it didn't go far enough .
I heard from people who were upset about things like drive-thrus and you know the requirement for the number of stories . I heard from people who were upset that there was going to be four lots on a property . I heard from people who were upset that neighborhood meetings were going to be eliminated . There wasn't just like it's good or it's bad .
There's a reason . It only happens every how many decades that thing ?
was in place . We've got our eyes on what's going to happen next , because there's probably going to be changes .
There's got to be changes , because now we're living it and there's some issues and there's a whole bunch of things that just weren't thought out . I think we're unintentional which , by the way , happens every time a giant policy changes like that and then you go , oh wow , that was probably not an intended consequence of this thing .
Give me your thoughts and opinion . I mean , I've known you for a long time . This place is changing , it's changed . I can't even believe it .
We're sitting in a cornfield . Yeah corn maze 60 feet in the air . Yeah well , corn maze in the fall , the corn field , at this time of year , there would be no maze , just go Believe me , we got some heat when we changed this .
Yeah , even though it was z own commercial for like 20 years before we bought it . But um , yeah , it is , it's . It's changed in a big way . Um , what ? What do you think about the change ? You're a long time resident . You're how many generations here ?
I don't like to say that personally because I don't think we're going to go on a little tangent . I think that that signals that me being a number of generations makes my voice more important than somebody who moved here last week .
And I don't think it does . But I think it's interesting because I know A number , I know it's several , right ? Yeah , I mean , I know your family's been here , I know you grew up
¶ Boise and Meridian Growth Analysis
here .
Instead of saying it that way , my great grandfather emigrated here from England and put down roots . The family business , which is still in operation , was incorporated in 1908 . Yeah , and so a number of generations . And my dad was born when Boise was like sub 30,000 people . It ain't that anymore .
Yeah , I was born in the early 80s and so my frame of reference isn't what some people's is , but I've seen a ton of growth and I say a lot like .
I remember being a kid and growing up on the bench in Boise , and wholesale , which is now on the Scentsy campus over here on Eagle Road , was like the Costco of the day and it was like the biggest drive to the country .
And you talk to Luke Kavanagh , who's a Meridian city council person , he's like , yeah , man , when we drove downtown Boise it felt like the biggest drive through the country . And so Boise and Meridian were far apart . They're one city and in fact I'll plug . We're going to do an event in November that we call the Intersection . It's our second year .
Last year we did Jeremiah Dickey and Kristen Armstrong and some others right . We're going to have Boise Mayor Lauren McLean and Meridian Mayor Robert Simison come together and talk about you've got a Republican and a Democrat with I like to call it one big city with two different political subdivisions .
Some of the ways in which they see working together , some of the differences in their approach and how you're seeing different growth Fascinating . We're really excited . When's that going to be ? In November . I forget the exact date , november and what's the location it's going to be .
We haven't booked this , so I'm going to say this , but we did it last year at Athlos , downtown Boise . We're the only event they've ever done there . I think we're really excited about that and one of a number of events we're doing . But that's kind of this thing right , this growth . Nampa and Medina are growing together in Colville and it's one big area .
So give me opinions . These are dawn day opinions , these are not . What are some things we've gotten right and what are some things you're worried about as we've grown ? Because no one pays more attention to it than you ? I mean by the nature of your business . You know , when I'm an ER doc , I got a lot of opinions on what comes in the ER .
If I'm a Boise dev owner , I've got a lot of opinions on what I see out there . I mean , I think we really try not to do . We don't do opinion , we don't run opinion . I think you can say fairly in a fairly straightforward way that what's happened in downtown Boise since about 1985 to now has been really remarkable .
The city's approach to downtown from about 1965 to 1985 was we're going to tear it all down and we're going to build Boise Town Square downtown . Basically , my grandfather was on the first Boise Urban Renewal Board so you can probably put a little blame on him . I wish he was here so I could talk to him about this . He died in 97 .
So you had these big swaths of open land . The pictures we did this a couple weeks ago . The pictures I saw them . It was awesome . One giant parking lot with the US Bank sticking out of it . Now you have the Boise Center , the Grove Hotel , the Hockey Arena , city Center , plaza , zions Bank , capital Terrace , the Oppenheimer Wells Fargo building .
That's just the core and then out from there , and so I think it's really remarkable to see what has happened . I think a shopping mall downtown would be not amazing . Boise Town Square , to its credit is one of the strongest shopping malls in the country . People always tell me the mall is terrible and I'm like , no , it's not .
It's actually really strong and you go in there and it's busy . I'm not sure in downtown that was going to be the best , highest use of that space . So I think that's remarkable and it's a story that still is evolving . We've got a story next week that's going to talk about that in a really interesting way . Challenges and you and I have talked about this .
We've done stories . The transit situation here is tough . I lived in California for a year . Traffic in . Boise is not that bad . However , it's worse than it used to be and I think that context sometimes like it can be a lot worse . It can get a lot worse . Sometimes , like it can be a lot worse , it can get a lot worse .
And if there are solutions to be had there , it's going to take a lot of leadership and getting a lot of people to agree and there's different approaches . I know you've done work on that . I know Casey Lynch , with Roundhouse , is at work on that . I know Elaine Clegg has thoughts about that . I know the legislature has some thoughts about that .
I think Governor Little has thoughts about that , and the longer it goes without some sort of action and I'm not saying it needs to be a train or buses or bike lanes or whatever , but it's going to get harder .
It's frankly
¶ Idaho 2040 Transportation Planning Discussion
been so . We started Garrett Lofto , ceo at Simplot . We started , probably 18 months ago , a group called Idaho 2040 and just brought a bunch of people together to say , hey , what is the plan ?
And didn't you do like Idaho 2020 , like 15 years ago ?
Yeah , we did that too . So this was 2040 . We probably are going to rebrand it because 2040 , after we really dug in and ordered some studies and thought about it , it's probably not a long enough horizon and what we came up with from , like , the business community was hey , there's . There's really three giant things we need to think about .
One is public transportation . Like , for heaven's sakes , we've got to have a way to have a bus come every 15 minutes to get you from a majority of places in the Treasure Valley to work and back . I mean , that's , you know , rubber based buses , just let's get people to and from .
You'll hear some really controversial stuff and I won't attribute it to people , but I should Like , hey , we're just going to wait until we have flying buses and we're going to wait until . I mean , I'm like , hey , wait a minute .
The Boise Chamber did a whole thing on transit last year in Sun Valley and one of the first sessions was this idea you getting these little micro flying things and everybody just kind of laughed hey , maybe it'll happen . It may happen , let's focus on technology , but it's not gonna . It's not gonna help those , those working families right now . So that's one .
Number two was rail . Yeah , because we do have a corridor and we're not talking like next five years , next 10 years . But someone start has to start thinking about how does the business community help .
Who can afford to buy Union Pacific is , I think the problem there or work with them and they've not destroyed People are . I think part of it is people want to blame it on the lack of a funding mechanism . That is important . Union Pacific is also very recalcitrant to let people use their right-of-way . Yes , just to maybe back up . Union Pacific owns the rail .
Yes , they don't want traditionally other things on the rail .
They have been meeting with us . That's great , which is good . So that's number two . Number three , frankly , could derail this whole effort , which is just talk of some sort of an alternate route .
I've heard of that . We're working on that South .
And when that comes up , it's shocking what happens to people , how polarized they get , Because it's just , it's like why can't we just talk about this ? I mean , show me a major city in the West or United States that has one singular , you know , directional corridor .
You know you got one more lane for right away on I-84 and then that's it , and so one lane gets you another .
And I think the thing that people lose about adding a lane is it's like if so , if you've got four lanes and you go to five , it's not 25% more capacity , it's like 12% more capacity , and the reason is people have to change lanes , so it's not actually that helpful .
That's exactly what it is , so it's there . But then when you sit with ITD and you say okay , what happens after that ? They will stare you and say that's it . So all we're asking is the simple question of okay , should we study it ? Where would it go ? How would you start thinking ? And it's so controversial .
There was an effort about 30 years ago . Why can't you at least talk about it ? To do a freeway through the foothills .
That actually is easier to talk about with some people than this , because of the city of Boise's resistance to even talk about it , and they'll say well , it's sprawl , it's whatever . But , boy , I don't know . I think it just shows you .
We're going to have an interesting case study and we're actually Boise Dev is going to do our first kind of big series . We're going to do a series of either five or six stories in early August on Highway 16 .
And you have essentially a new freeway that is going to connect you from Interstate 84 near Amazon to Emmett , and that it's a big change that I actually think people are overlooking .
You and I talked about this a number of years ago . I'm not . We have some property right at 10 Mile . It's really great , I know .
But you but you were going to do a hospital there at one point , right At 16 and Jinden . Yeah , we talked about that years ago , and so there hasn't actually been a lot of work . I think people are overlooking . They see the little project there and it's like what is this ?
We're going to have a case study , and one of the stories we're working on is what it will do to Eagle Road , which I think we can all agree is overburdened , and some of those other major arterials and could help , and so you're going to have this real world study of what an additional freeway it's not a full freeway .
There are some stoplights and some other things to it , but if you've driven on the piece of 16 now , there are some stop lights and some other things to it , but if you've driven on the piece of 16 now south of Chinden , you feel like you're on 84 .
It's kind of crazy , and so I think that's going to maybe shift that conversation , and so we have our eye on what that south freeway could look like . It is a sprawl producer . I think that we might disagree on that , but growth is going to drive it .
Just like Avamor is driving sprawl toward Avamor . I'm not disagreeing that it's going to cause sprawl . I'm not saying sprawl is good or bad , I'm just saying . I'm not even saying you might have the strongest opinion in the world on sprawl .
I'm not giving an opinion on sprawl , but your alternative of just going vertical and somehow reducing the number of people on when you already have the piss .
Poor public transportation , the worst in like any city of our size in the country , and your answer is going to be I was in Ketchum and I saw a bus on Sunday this last week and I was like what's that ?
That's the only thing . There aren't buses on Sunday .
I mean , you can't talk about it , you can't study , you can't think about it , you've got . You've got to get past that .
And I think you know you're and this is one of those things that that I'm , I like convening , like bringing Simison and McLean together to hear their thoughts , because they're going to have different thoughts , and that's OK . And Debbie Kling is going to have another idea , and they're all going to have a different thought . That's OK .
At a certain level , solutions are going to have to be had , whether it's a southern freeway or not . I don't know , I'm not an expert in this .
I've learned you can't call it a freeway , you can't call it a bypass , but you can call it an alternate route , and then you're okay .
I mean honestly . I think if you built something and only trucks go on it , if I could drive down I-84 , and I'm not denigrating semi-truck drivers in any way but if you actually look at the freeway , a lot of the traffic is not vehicles .
I was in eastern Idaho you don't need to go through Boise Random question when I was over there yesterday meeting with people that understand the trucking world and the guy he's in the trucking world , it's like we hate going through Absolutely . It is miserable . So I guess it's dangerous . Anyway , we got to get off that because that gets me fired up .
But my point is like mayors come and go , they do , yeah , they do , All of the ones you like , City councils come and go , so do developers and so do news people and everything dead in 60 years , as Jerry Seinfeld likes to say . Like gosh , that's morbid , it is . I saw him , I see . Are you gonna make it past ?
I saw this how old are you , don ? Uh 43 oh yeah , I saw him .
I know , no , I know , no , I'm not gonna die at 60 . He has this riff . He's like he'll sit back and he'll watch his family and be like , oh , this is all terrible . And he goes . But I think to myself in 60 years they'll all be dead and I'm like I mean , but what that does to me is it tells me we're here for a short amount of time .
We have an impact for a short amount of time , and whether it's a mayor who's mayor for four , to speed her in , for 20 years , 16 years , whether it's that amount of time , or whether it's you as a developer , for 20 or 30 years , or me as a news person , for I'm 25 in and I've got another 25 probably , but if I get to 50 years of news , it'll be
amazing . But whatever that is , that time horizon is , you're making decisions . The mayor of Boise is making decisions that have generations of impact , and what we try and do is we're not here to help you make the decisions . We're not here to have a role in that .
We're trying to tell the people who are here now what's happening so that they can decide if they want to reelect Bob Robert Simpson or Lauren McLean or Debbie Kling You're no longer up for election , so they can't really get rid of you . They actually had their chance . They could have made you governor , but you know what I mean .
Yeah , what you just said I think is critically important , and that's why I just think , Garrett and I , I mean , I think when you're , you just need a longer view , you need a more cohesive , and I'm even saying this is what I don't think is controversial why not study it ? Why not put some money in a pot ?
I'm sorry we're not going to talk about this anymore . Why I know , but why not just study it ? Why not get people that are truly experts and get data and then say , okay , elected leaders , here's some data that you can make decisions on .
We don't even study it anyway . I mean , the leaders used to be a little bit more aligned around here , and they still are sometimes . I mean , there's actually more cooperation in municipal leaders in the Treasure Valley than people like to give credit for , and there are differences of opinion , does it ?
seem like ACHD the absolute hate for ACHD amongst jurisdictions going down a little bit .
Would you agree with that ? They're going to watch this and they're mad at me now . Anyways , I don't have an opinion .
I think that there is . I think the temperature is less lower .
Yeah , I mean , obviously there's been efforts afoot in the statehouse to dissolve ACHD the last two or three sessions , partly driven because Eagle was upset and starred was upset to some reason . But I don't think they can figure out how to redo ACHD so that star and Boise get an equal vote , because starting Boise don't have equal representation .
It's incumbent on the commissioners on that commission to help ensure that the people because they're in districts , that the people in STAR are well served , the people in EGLE are well served , and I think that is there .
Less hate , yeah , but Dave Beter hated ACHD more than he didn't like me and he said it all the time and it drove a lot of headlines and a lot of news coverage and the current political leadership in Boise and a lot of news coverage and the current political leadership in boise and elsewhere just kind of keeps their mouth shut and because I think they've decided
that a different approach works better that's
¶ Transparency in Public Records Requests
great .
What's gone wrong ? What are we ? What are we ? You said transportation . You said we got rides downtown . What anything else you're concerned about or seeing from your world ? That what ? Let me ask a couple micron impact yeah , we're on the leading edge of that .
Um thoughts on we've got a story coming on micron that I think people will want to read . Um yeah , um , I did a video , uh video yeah if you saw it , you could tell I was upset with them um , still upset with them , and it's a big company spending a lot .
It's a big company , it's spending a lot of money and it's probably good for a lot of things in our economy and probably going to cause some problems , and so we're trying to get answers from them on some of that so we better understand what's happening .
I say this a lot , but they say they're going to spend $15 million , partly subsidized by the federal government , partly subsidized by the state of Idaho and significantly subsidized by anybody who owns property in this county , because they have a forever property tax cap out there . They could build Cincinnati out there I don't know why .
That's the city that came to mind and they're not paying any more property tax , and so that means that the property tax burden and this is a 2008 law that was designed to attract a nuclear company to Idaho and my crime went ooh , we can spend that much money and then we get a permanent property tax and so they're going to spend $15 billion and generate zero ,
zero , zero , zero dollars of property tax . So we're all helping in this effort if you live really in the state or this country , so we think that they deserve to be watchdogged . You know , every developer I listen to . Something must be happening , because my watch is going crazy . I lost my train of thought . I apologize .
Oh , the labor market for construction is really strained right now .
Micron's spending $15 billion , meta's spending about a billion dollars and St Luke's Health System has a very large hospital system they're trying to get through , and so you've got other projects and people are going I don't know how I can do this and so there's even sort of not smaller impacts , but impacts there on building a new apartment complex or building a
new strip center or building a building like this . And so we just try and step back , no matter who it is , whether it's Tommy , whether it's Micron , whether it's whatever and say what people need to know about this , particularly when public dollars are involved .
And so if it's a public-private partnership and there is any sort of tax dollar , that's a place that I really try and put a lot of focus , because that's my money , that's your money , people are interested in it .
Right , that's my fiscal conservatism coming out and saying those are our dollars , we need to watch those and make sure that people understand how they're being used . And Micron is a big , big recipient of public dollars .
That was super insightful . So the story is next week . I think so we're hoping We've been working on it for a while . Talk about I've got a couple other big topics Public records requests .
I told everybody in our internal communication tool that my tree fort band name would be tactical PRRs . I love public records requests .
So how do they go ? Who do you have the most trouble with and why do you think people are more transparent .
I have the most trouble with Boise State University and their general counsel , matt Wild , and I'm happy to say that on a podcast I've written about it . Look , I got myself in trouble , but not any more trouble . I've written about this . Public records requests are important .
When the government creates a document , an email , a contract , that's not their record , it's our record , it's anybody watching , it's mine , it's yours , and Idaho's law is actually really good about public records . I am on the Idaho Press Club board and the Idaho Press Club has a new offshoot called the Idaho First Amendment Alliance .
It's a separate 501c3 or 4 , I always forget which one that's raising funds to help mostly news organizations but some others to fight some increasing abuses of public records . You know I've gone tooth and nail with Boise State over some of the most dumb things . They didn't want to tell me what the third facility's priority of the track team was .
I didn't care what that was , but I couldn't figure out why it was redacted and I found their reasoning to be problematic and it just kept getting worse and worse . I mean hiding Garth Brooks' concert , not giving us Brian Harsin's Twitter block list . Big things , big and small . You get hot and bothered about a Southern Freeway .
I get hot and bothered about Boise State and I'm a Boise State fan , right and so it's weird for me because I'm grinding at them but also have a good relationship .
What's our remedy ? If they don't , what is the current ?
I can go to court and sue them and I'm a small business . I don't have the resources to go to court and sue the largest university in the state of Idaho . I in the state of Idaho , I don't , and they know it , and that's part of the problem . The Idaho First Amendment Alliance is trying to remedy , but that's the only remedy .
There's not any other . Begging .
There's not a Shaming . Yeah , that's why we've written about Boise State and so I did a story in November that talked about they're a party , they're the defendant in a lawsuit with Big City Donuts . That's gotten this weird partisan overlay and there's a lot to it . But not Big City Donuts .
Big City Coffee , yeah , and leaving the politics aside for just a second , the VP of communication at Boise State had renamed files around Big City Coffee to BCC B space C , space C , coffee to B C C B , space C , space C . And then um , a another um Boise state employee who was being deposed said well , she did that to hide it from public records requests .
That's not okay . Um , it's not , those are not . You're trying to skirt the law . And so and it's not just them A number of members of the press are having trouble with the University of Idaho .
I'm not , I don't cover that too much , but I know Idaho Ed News has had a lot of problems in them trying to shield things around the University of Phoenix , what's ? the latest on that . I haven't heard anything for a while I don't think there's a story today that Kevin over there sent me , I didn't read it .
I think they've spent like $15 million trying to get that deal through already , so it's not dead , it's still going . No , I think they're still trying to keep it alive . Legislature kind of tried to kill it . I think , they're trying to keep it going . Let's shift to politics .
There are good people with public records requests too the Ada County Highway District , who I had some tough stories on this spring excellent . Idaho Transportation Department , who we've done lots of tough stories on excellent . City of Boise excellent . A lot of people do really follow the law , so I don't want to just say it's all bad .
We love the Broncos , yeah , but they also need to let me know what the third priority of the track team is , so I can look at it and go huh , instead of fighting over it for six months .
¶ Radio Personalities and Boise Development
Politics Can we talk politics ?
I mean , it depends what do you mean , it depends ? Ask him , we'll see .
I'm not very political , it's just not my nature , I know but it affects development , it affects life , it affects what we do , state politics right now . Thoughts on just the primaries state Republican Party .
That's not my thing , we don't cover that , and what I don't want is people to watch this and be like oh wow , he really , really hates the Democrats . I just try and stay out of it and we cover municipal politics and we're going to try and tell you what's happening in Boise City Hall and at the highway district .
Itd to some degree , um , but as far as those things I don't know , uh , it's just not my , it's just not . I can go read about that other places . It's not . We do a Boise dev . I can listen to your podcast for opinions . I mean , I love to listen . I'm trying to bring up Nate Shulman twice . I love to listen to Shulman's show .
I love to hear what people are thinking and saying . You know whether I agree or not . It's super interesting .
Shulman cracks me up , he does . That guy .
He's really funny .
He is really funny . He's actually a pretty nice guy , even though he likes to make everyone think he's an ass .
And if you know his wife , michelle Hart , who does mornings , I have no idea how Nicest woman in the world , yeah , but how does she stand him ?
Honestly ? I mean , there are mysteries . There's like mysteries . She is one of the kindest people , yeah , and there's mysteries in life .
It says a lot about Nate to me that Michelle loves him .
That's actually a really good point , and I think he's a really nice guy . I do too . He probably never listened to this .
I'm going to tell him about it . I'm going to text him after this .
We should have Nate Shellman on Matty , you should . It would be great to just grill him about his relationships .
I'll tell you and we haven't booked this and I haven't asked everybody , so I'm going to say it One of the things for the intersection . So we're going to have McLean and Simison and we'll have three kind of modules .
One of the things I want to do is Nate Shulman and Gemma Gaudet , oh wow , and that's not so much left right , but you have people who both are on the radio , both kind of run radio talk shows and have different approaches , and I think that would be really interesting to hear . I haven't booked it yet , so we'll see , but that's one of the ideas I have .
Yeah , that would be good , yeah that would be good . Yeah right .
That would be really good , because Nate and Gemma .
Both do fantastic work . They serve very different audiences .
I have bad experiences with both of them . Well , that doesn't surprise me You've had bad experiences with me .
You've called me raging before .
Why would you say that you haven't even heard my story ? So when I first got to town I was an ER doc and I get a . I get a call from the . The head of the hospital says , hey , we need an ER doc to do a story on trampolines . So Gemma got that . She won't even remember this . Yeah , she was like . She was like a young reporter .
She calls me and says , hey , can I do a thing ? I said , yeah , I work a shift tomorrow . She's like no , I'd just doing an interview . You have a trampoline and we have a trampoline . There you go . Okay , so I have little kids .
I know old TV reporters . That's great . You've got an ER doc , trampoline and kids . I can go to one place and get everything .
So she goes to the backyard , she interviews me and while she interviews me I say , yeah , they're dangerous , you've got to be careful . Talking points Still mic'd up , Don , Still mic'd up , and I didn't know this . I didn't know these things about mics back then . Now I'm a little wiser , but she gets me , she gets me .
She gets my kids doing backflips on the trampoline and me telling them great job , it's just a normal trampoline . So then the story comes out that night and I'm excited to watch it . And it comes out and they interview a little girl who broke her arm and she's sitting there with the saddest little face , broken arm with her family .
They tell this horrible , gut raging story . They go to her backyard and the trampoline has been disassembled and it's in the corner . And then she goes to my interview and it ends with me telling my kids why are you upset with her ?
That seems like that was you know what she wants to talk about .
This is like I'm going to defend Gemma on that . This is like inappropriate your kids are fine , my kids are fine . Kids have kids . Now my kids did break their arms on that , but anyway , the funny thing is at the very end of the story I can't remember who the anchor was that it goes back to after the story's done .
He's like well , I'm not sure what we should think about that story after watching both sides of that . And I , like the head of the pediatric department , jerry Hirschfeld , calls me . Oh , I love Jerry Hirschfeld . Remember Jerry ? He's my mom's boss . Dude was a stud , he , I'm a new doc . Very kind man , he lights me up . That's hard to believe .
He calls me and he's like what the hell are you doing ? Do you know that ? The association ? Anyway , I was .
So then that's then shellman you know those old saint luke's cares for kids shirts oh yeah they said below , except tommy so that that was my and then nate man .
The first time I went on there when I was running . Oh my gosh , I went in . Just you know , happy , go , happy-go-lucky , how you doing ? Sit down and he just blasted me .
Have you ever heard him going after ? What was the guy ? Ed Ed , the guy that ran for governor .
Humphreys .
Ed Humphreys , have you ever heard the podcast ? Lighting him on fire ?
No , you saying I got off easy .
There was screaming Really , yeah over .
we won't get into that here , but Nate can I actually really like Nate and I really like Gemma and I'm past it all and it was my fault , both cases the one case I shouldn't have had a trampoline , I shouldn't have had her , and the second I shouldn't have run . Here we go , my fault , I won't be running for anything .
What's next for Boise Dev Presents ? We are doing a really cool event . October 1st , during Boise Entrepreneur Week , we're launching what's called Peak 43 . We're going to list the 43 fastest-growing businesses in Idaho . Everybody's like why 43 ? Do you know why 43 ?
43rd State .
Thank you . People get confused . We think that anyway . So we're really excited about this . It'll be a gala event in the evening on Tuesday , October 1st , and companies submitted applications all through the spring and we've tabulated that . We haven't announced who those are and what's fun about it is it will be unveiled like kind of an old radio countdown .
It'll be unveiled that night so you'll know that you are one of the 43 , but you could be 43rd , you could be first , and Gretchen Parsons on our team will emcee that along with Abe Jackson who is the color commentator for Boise State Radio , and that's going to be really fun .
Yeah , it's going to be awesome Big event for us .
Kara also launched a new newsletter called Boise Dev Eats and this is restaurant news local farmer profiles . Are these links on your ? Yeah , if they actually on the right hand side .
It's on your website . There it is peak 43 .
43, . Yep , so we'll . You actually can't deploy . Now it's over , that link needs to come off . But yeah , we've got some great partners in that . And then , yeah , boise Dev Eats it's , but yeah , we've got some great partners in that . And then , yeah , boise Dev Eats is just really Where's the Eats ? Scroll to the top .
I think it's the first link in the orange navigation Eats all the way to the top . There it is Great and this is really fun and it's a weekly newsletter . And oh , thank you for giving me an ad . Click to Regents , our presenting sponsor . Shout out to Regents . You can just hit back . Actually , you're on the Regents website now . Yeah , so this is .
It's more than just restaurant news . It's a little bit of recipe . We've done some farmer features in a new series . We're called Bountiful Idaho , and so you know we're going to give you hard news and we're going to cover homelessness in the Treasure Valley and we're going to cover big developments , and we're going to do that .
We're also going to try and give you some things that are interesting that you want to know .
So again , sign up for that newsletter as well . There you have your morning newsletter , that newsletter , and then you can become an insider member and then you get the early release news . Don , thanks for coming on . We really appreciate you , and what ?
you do . What's your next development ? Now it's my turn . You've got another hour , we'll do a second podcast .
What's my next development ? Yeah , yeah .
What's exciting you I know it's not the D&B expansion that we wrote about yesterday in southeast Boise . I'm sure that that's great Taking over the Rite Aid . We wrote that yesterday . I saw how Crystal Construction was doing that . Yes , we I know you're doing a lot with DMV but what are the big things we're doing ?
a couple of big stores with DMV that I'll let them announce , which is really fun , but our partnership with Fred Bruning and Center Cowell formerly of Center Cowell , has been amazing .
What are you ?
going to tell us , man , the second they sign , you were going to run us up the second they sign . In fact , if you would have heard me in a meeting earlier today yelling , we need to get them to sign .
I can ask somebody else the question that I always get Tommy , when are we getting an ?
Ikea at 10 miles . I will tell you the funny story . Fred Bruning knows them so well . Fred used to have a biplane . You ever heard the story ? No .
I did watch your podcast with him .
So Fred had a biplane and he was a pilot and he would do trick stunts and for years at ICSC in Las Vegas Fred would take his plane , park it at the airport down there and at ICSC he would take clients to his plane and take them up and do acrobatics and cut deals with them in the air .
And the owner and founder the owner and founder of Ikea he has had in his plane multiple times and I don't think it's that far off .
¶ Boise State Project Discussion
He asked me when we were doing this project together . He says do you want an IKEA at 10 mile ? And I said no , I think I want something else .
Okay , I'm excited to see what that is . I think I might have figured it out , but I won't say that here .
Well , you're always going to scoop everything . Boise State needs to understand that it's easier just to give you the information than fight .
I will say to Jeremiah Dickey's credit , they put out a thing about the North End Zone and it was like sign up here for more information . We'll email you more information about the North End Zone project . And I responded on Twitter and I said I've been signing up for those emails for three years . I think he appreciated that ?
Oh , that's funny . Yeah , that's funny . Thanks , don Appreciate you . Yeah , appreciate it . Thanks for coming .