The Battle is Joined
Your community belongs to those who show up
On Monday evening I attended a town hall meeting with the mayor and council of Eagle. Over the course of two hours, citizens stepped up to the microphone to ask questions of our elected leaders. We discussed water utilities, fire protection, development, parks, water conservation, and many more issues that are important to every city and town.
There is a certain group in our region that dislikes our current mayor and council. They were happy with the trajectory Eagle had been on before 2019, on its way to becoming another blue city in the image of Portland and Seattle. They are upset that local conservatives mobilized themselves to turn out for municipal elections. They have put together a website and a Facebook group to organize opposition to the current leadership.
This group, calling itself “SOS Eagle,” sent out an email blast to supports urging them to attend Monday’s meeting. They suggested talking points for members of their group to use, but exhorted people to avoid drawing attention to the group itself. They wanted their members to come to the meeting, presenting themselves as nothing more than city residents who are concerned with what is happening in our community.
On their website, SOS Eagle claims to be “…a group of Eagle residents seeking transparency and opportunities for more public comment. We expect officials to consider citizen input in decision-making.” For a group that claims to desire transparency, SOS Eagle is rather tight-lipped about their own organization. Neither their website nor their Facebook page list any specific people who are involved.
However, since SOS Eagle was filed with the State of Idaho as a 501(c)4 organization, we can see that the prime mover appears to be none other than former Eagle Mayor Stan Ridgeway. He is listed as the incorporator of the organization as well as one of the directors. Mr. Ridgeway is surely still smarting from his ouster in 2019. Recall that despite campaigning as a fiscal conservative, he governed like the Democrat he was - changing long-term plans without consulting the community, making poor financial decisions, and setting Eagle on the road toward blue dystopia.
Mr. Ridgeway donated to left-wing activist Shelley Brock’s failed legislative campaign in 2020 as well as to Democratic Representative Steve Berch next door in the 15th district.
The registered agent for SOS Eagle is a woman named Mary Hunter. Ms. Hunter runs a dog training business in Eagle, and has been a fervent supporter of left-wing and Democratic candidates for several years. In 2020, she donated to both Cindy Currie and Shelley Brock, who were running against Republican state legislators Mike Moyle and Gayann DeMordaunt. She also donated to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, and most recently to Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor.
The other directors listed on the filing are John Franden, Ann Joslin, and Jonathan Seel.
Obviously there is nothing wrong with holding certain political positions or donating to the candidates of your choice. But the citizens of Eagle deserve to know who is behind this group that looks to move public opinion. They present themselves as “non-partisan” but they are obviously anything but.
I get it - Idaho is a very red state. It makes tactical sense for left-wing activists to obfuscate their political affiliations. Conservatives in deep blue states often do the same thing. Nevertheless, it is up to us to expose those who would change the course of our communities.
Incidentally, Mr. Seel was the only member of SOS Eagle to show up to the town hall meeting this week, despite the email blast urging people to show up with questions. Seel asked if the mayor and council would support ordinances for water conservation and inquired about the annexation of seventeen acres of private property near Homer Road. He did not appear to agree with the council’s explanations, suggesting that the new winery on the north side of town would bring too much traffic to his community. His questions were not out of line at all, but he did not mention his affiliation with this group.
The current issue being promoted by SOS Eagle on their website and Facebook page is the potential annexation of the Avimor community into the city. It has been discussed throughout Eagle for several years, and representatives of Avimor met with the city council four times last year to discuss the process. As of this publication, Avimor has not formally applied for annexation. However, that does not stop people from having strong opinions on the subject. SOS Eagle is clearly against annexation, though they cloak this position in phrases that imply they just want to learn more about the issue before deciding:
We are concerned that elected officials and outside interests may be making rushed political decisions without appropriate community input or sufficient financial and environmental impact analyses. The annexation of Avimor is an example of this.
My sense is that groups such as SOS Eagle care less about the issues themselves than they do about the people in charge. Mayor Pierce and the council have gone into great detail about all of the issues affecting our community, from the Avimor annexation to the purchase of Eagle Water Company by Suez, but you would not know that from reading SOS Eagle’s website. They would have you believe that these things are being done behind closed doors with zero community input. That is simply not the case. People like this are not merely concerned citizens, they are demagogues, using hot issues to attack their political opponents. Last year it was Suez. This year it is Avimor. Next year it will likely be something else entirely.
Because that is the whole point. SOS Eagle was clearly not formed because citizens were being ignored, as they claim on their website. Eagle is perhaps the most open and transparent community in which I have ever lived. Twice-monthly council meetings are open to the public, Mayor Pierce sits down for a coffee chat every Wednesday morning, and every fifth Monday the mayor and council host a town hall meeting with anyone willing to attend. This is not to mention the general accessibility of the mayor and council the rest of the time. No, the purpose of SOS Eagle is to push a left-wing agenda in the guise of moderation; to camouflage extreme political positions that are shared by only a small minority of citizens in this community in the guise of non-partisanship.
The reason that our mayor and council are solidly conservative today is not because of “dark money” or “outside influence” as SOS Eagle and their ilk would suggest. Rather, it is because Eagle is a fundamentally conservative community. The only reason that leftists had power in the first place is because the conservatives of Eagle grew complacent, and when they woke from their slumber they took their city back. Turnout in the election that saw Mayor Pierce defeat Mr. Ridgeway dwarfed previous mayoral elections.
Your community belongs to whomever is willing to show up. We took back our city, but the existence of SOS Eagle shows that the other side is not giving up without a fight of their own. The battle for the soul of our society is never completely won, but must be fought continually. Let us not grow complacent again, but continue working to make Eagle a great place for our children and grandchildren to live in someday.
"Your community belongs to whomever is willing to show up" - what a terrific sentiment. I'll be sharing it with friends/neighbors in my local (rural) community. Thanks!