Fundraising for Idaho governor’s mansion stalls
BOISE – Racing down the steep, snowy slope below the vacant Idaho governor’s mansion, Wade Sheeley comes to a sudden halt. Sheeley, a U.S. Air Force airman from Shreveport, La., in Boise for training, has blown another hole in his $10 air-filled sled.
“It’s popped again!” he shouts.
Private fundraisers trying to drum up cash to renovate the home know the feeling.
Bill Glynn, president of Intermountain Gas Co. and chairman of the private fundraising campaign, said totals are little changed from April. There’s now just about $475,000 in an account at the Idaho Community Foundation, with another $1.1 million in pledges not yet banked.
That’s just half the $3 million needed to realize architectural plans that include expanding the 1980s-era home to 12,000 square feet from 7,400, installing a covered entranceway big enough to shelter a car and adding a grand hall with 12-foot ceilings and dining for 150 people.
Meanwhile, the house donated in 2004 by potato baron J.R. Simplot costs Idaho thousands of dollars every month. In 2007, maintenance and upkeep ran more than $106,000, for mowing and watering the 35-acre property, fixing the pump house and paying the sewer bill, according to the Department of Administration.
On top of that, Idaho paid Gov. Butch Otter $58,500 in housing expenses over the previous 12 months for the millionaire governor to stay at his ranch in Star, just west of Boise. Until the mansion is livable, Otter will get the stipend.
The fund that pays for the mansion’s upkeep as well as Otter’s housing is down to about $1.35 million, from about $1.5 million that came from selling the previous Idaho governor’s mansion more than a decade ago. And since the former Simplot property now belongs to the state, Ada County also has lost thousands in taxes.
Members of the Governor’s Housing Committee, the five-member panel that oversees the home, are due to meet Jan. 18 in Boise to again discuss its future.
“If they turned it into a governor’s mansion, that would be my first choice,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Eagle and a member of the Governor’s Housing Committee. One option would be to turn it into a reception center for state events, even if nobody lives there. Idaho might even rent it out for weddings, Labrador said. Another option is to sell it.
Former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who accepted the donation, was a proponent of using the place as quarters for the state’s chief executive family. But the impetus faded once Kempthorne was named U.S. Interior secretary by President Bush in 2006.
Otter, who was married to Simplot’s daughter, Gay Simplot, until the couple divorced in 1993, says he’s content to stay in his own home.
But Otter spokesman Jon Hanian said this week that Otter wants to help resolve the matter and lay the foundation for the mansion’s future.