Lords of the City
Why local elections matter
Local leadership never gets as much press coverage as governors, senators, or the president, but the people elected to run your city have much more influence in your daily life than anyone you see on national news. Yet these positions often fly under the radar, allowing left-wing activists to gradually turn conservative communities into progressive cities.
Elections for mayor and city council are technically non-partisan. That means that, unlike in partisan elections for the Legislature or Congress, there are no party primaries, and there are no restrictions on how candidates can present themselves. In theory, this is supposed to keep “dirty partisan politics” away from local races, but in practice it just means that candidates can obfuscate their true allegiances.
When I moved to Eagle in 2018, the mayor was Stan Ridgeway, and the council consisted of Stan Bastian, Dr. Jill Mitchell, Kenny Pittman, and Miranda Gold.
Mayor Ridgeway served in political roles in Juneau, Alaska, before moving to Eagle. He was elected to the council and then became mayor in 2015. In his initial campaign for mayor, he criticized what he called “contentious” and “disrespectful” attitudes on the part of city leadership to citizens commenting at council meetings as well as a haphazard budgeting process for city staff.
Ridgway campaigned as a conservative, but local activists later discovered that he had been a registered Democrat until just before the election. While it makes strategic sense for Idaho progressives to cloak their party affiliation in this red state, it is still irritating to voters when they find out they’ve been had.
Stan Bastian won another term to the council in 2015 as well. Bastian was a longtime Republican politician, having served two stints on the council since 1991 as well as terms in the Idaho House and Senate.
Miranda Gold was elected to city council in 2017. Prior to serving on the council, Gold was the Democratic nominee for the State Senate in the 14th District, receiving less than 30% in a loss to incumbent Republican Marv Hagedorn. Her campaign was endorsed by Our Revolution, a socialist advocacy group borne out of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. By 2019, Gold was serving as council president in Eagle.
Kenny Pittman was also elected in 2017. Pittman was an army veteran and a small business owner in Eagle for many years before running for city council.
Dr. Jill Mitchell ran for city council in 2017, falling just five votes short of winning a seat. When Councilwoman Naomi Preston resigned halfway through her term, Mayor Ridgeway appointed Dr. Mitchell to finish it. She worked as a marriage and family therapist and had also served for several years on the Eagle Library board.
By 2018, then, the leadership of the City of Eagle consisted of a Democratic mayor and four council members ranging from a moderate Republican to a far-left socialist. The direction of the city began turning away from conservative values and down the same path that so many big cities have followed, at the end of which are the social graveyards known as Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. High density housing was increased. Fiscal transparency, so important during the campaigns, was pushed aside in favor of backroom dealing and poor investments. The city even passed a resolution attempting to severely restrict fracking - a technology that has never been used in the state of Idaho, much less Eagle.
How did such a red city elect such a blue council?
The short answer is turnout. In 2017, the socialist Miranda Gold was the top vote-getter in the council election, with a mere 1,311 residents casting their ballots for her. The fourth-place finisher, Robert Koellisch, was just a shade over two hundred votes behind.
The future belongs to those who show up. If nobody bothers to vote then it only takes a handful of people to control the destiny of a city of more than 30,000.
Republican Precinct Committeewoman Tracey Koellisch, whose husband had fallen short in the 2017 council elections, was frustrated with the way things were going. Since council elections were technically non-partisan, the Republican Party refused to intervene, even though national progressive groups had spent money electing Miranda Gold. Koellisch realized that the people of Eagle would have to save their city themselves. “We wanted to protect the small-town values and conservative roots of the city,” she said. “We had retired to Eagle and did not want to stand by while the Dems transformed another city as Boise had already fallen.”
Ronald Reagan liked to say that freedom was never automatic, that every generation had to fight to maintain it for themselves and their posterity. We too often forget that lesson. Conservatives like to believe that fixing a city, or a state, or the country, is a one-off event. We elect the right people, pass good laws, and then we go home and enjoy the rest of our lives. But politics does not work that way. We must continue battling every election, for every state, every county, every city, and even every precinct, because our opponents are not resting in their ambition to conquer every square inch of this country in the name of Marxism.
Tracey Koellisch fought back. She put together a team of activists, many of whom had no political experience, and found some solid conservatives to support in the next election. She likes to emphasize that this was a community effort. It was never that Eagle had become a leftist city, but conservatives simply needed a catalyst to energize them.
In 2019, former council member Jason Pierce not only crushed Mayor Stan Ridgeway but also a third candidate, Christopher Hadden, who entered the race as well. Pierce received 3,919 votes, with the turnout numbers dwarfing the previous municipal elections.
Ridgeway was not the only incumbent to lose his job. Retired firefighter Brad Pike and conservationist Charlie Baun defeated Dr. Jill Mitchell and Stan Bastian, completing a stunning transformation of Eagle city leadership. The new mayor and council members worked as a team to turn the city around, bringing back fiscal responsibility and rejecting the high density plans promoted by their predecessors.
Miranda Gold moved out of the city in 2021. Her replacement, businesswoman Melissa Gindlesperger, won election to a term of her own last November. Another local businesswoman, Helen Russell, was elected after Kenny Pittman declined to run for reelection.
In just two short years, the Eagle City Council was completely overhauled. When I came to Eagle in 2018, the city was led by career politicians and socialist activists. Today, the council consists of solid conservative men and women each with tremendous real-world experience.
Your mayor and city council members have more of an impact on your quality of life than any senator, governor, or president, yet these races are often ignored. The decisions made by Eagle City Council - whether to buy the Eagle Water Company or let it be sold to Suez; whether or not to annex the Avimor neighborhood in the Foothills; how to smartly manage the massive growth this region is currently experiencing - will echo for generations to come. If you have put down roots in the Treasure Valley, if you want your grandchildren to enjoy this region for the same reasons that drew you to it, then keeping a close eye on city leadership is imperative.
If you want to save our country, you must start locally. Get involved with city council, school board, library board, and whatever other group of people that has influence in your life. Your children’s future depends on it.
Mayor Pierce understands that we cannot simply sit idly while our cities turn inevitably blue. He has a vision for maintaining the traditional values that brought people to Eagle in the first place, and he is taking concrete steps to implement that vision. He told me recently that he is not interested in using his tenure as mayor as a stepping stone to higher office. “I’ll be here as long as the people want me to be,” he said.
Sure, some of the issues before the mayor and council might seem rather mundane. In this week’s city council meeting they discussed and debated the merits of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu studio, the addition of a drive-thru diner or coffee shop near the Intuit building, and the lot sizes in a new development. Yet wouldn’t you rather your city council be discussing these things than passing resolutions in support of LGBTQ+ education, making outdoor activities more “inclusive,” or attempting to defund the police?
Consider that the previous council spent their time attacking fracking, while the current council made Eagle a 2nd Amendment sanctuary city.
Likewise, consider this: During the Covid-19 pandemic, when other cities were locking down and enforcing mask mandates, Eagle remained open for business and leisure. What might the last two years have looked like if Eagle’s conservatives had not risen up and taken their city back?
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This is a great article. I live in Cascade and am new (2019) Idaho. Unfortunately, like most Conservative refugees, I saw the Rs behind the names and assumed that this was a Red State. As I came down to Eagle/Boise for shopping, I saw the campaign signs, and I appreciated when the candidate advertised themselves as Conservative. I have been trying to light the fire of locals, but they are still very "quiet." Our GOP Central Committee is not helpful in spreading info to local conservatives. We just lost the only seated registered Republican on the McCall City Council. We have a lot of work to do in Valley County to engage conservative and independent voters.
Thank you for taking the time to write this. I have not been very involved in politics locally, but know I need to be. I enjoyed learning a bit about our past and how we arrived where we are.