Idaho GOP Platform Responses

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Survey and Interview Responses

How long have you lived in Ada County?

48 years

How long have you been a Republican? Any prior party affiliation?

About 10 years, before that I was mostly nonpolitical

Have you been involved with any political organizations? (IACI, Idaho Majority Club, IFF, etc.)

No

Have you supported candidates from another party?

My child’s school teacher ran for legislature a few years ago.

Why are you running for this office?

I’ve spent nearly a decade closely following ACHD’s decisions and seeing how those choices affect everyday residents. Over the years, I’ve been frustrated by how difficult it has been for the public to get clear answers or timely responses to even simple requests. When several major projects were removed from the Five‑Year Plan with little explanation, it became clear that ACHD needed to communicate more openly and plan more realistically.

Have you held elected office before?

No

What makes you qualified for this role?

I’m community‑minded and believe residents understand their neighborhoods better than anyone. My experience as president of the Southwest Ada County Alliance Neighborhood Association has given me practical leadership skills and a strong understanding of how transportation issues affect everyday families. Through my work with cities, counties, and other government agencies, I’ve learned how local governments operate and how to navigate their processes to get things done. I’m familiar with ACHD’s budgets, plans, and policies, and I would enter this role with years of historical knowledge and a clear sense of where improvements are needed.

If elected, what 2-3 actions do you intend to pursue in your first year?

The focus should be on improvements that make the biggest difference. A priority would be addressing key intersections and trouble spots where congestion and safety issues are the most severe. Improving how people move through these areas can have an immediate impact .Prioritize completing full corridors rather than just one mile at a time. ACHD often upgrades a short segment and then waits years before continuing the next mile, which frustrates residents and doesn’t keep pace with rapid growth.

How have you served your community (boards, nonprofits, etc.)?

I have been the president of the Southwest Ada County Alliance for 8 years. This has meant talking to countless neighbors about community issues and concerns. I educate and encourage people to get involved in their local government, attend public hearings to speak on our community’s behalf and engage with elected officials to advocate for the needs of the people in SW Ada County and across the valley.

Do you consider yourself fiscally conservative?

Yes. To me, fiscal conservatism means making responsible and necessary investments while working within your means. Government has core obligations it must fund, but must also be disciplined about staying focused on essentials. Public money comes from taxpayers, and I believe it should be used carefully, transparently, and with a clear understanding of long‑term costs. I would prioritize what truly needs to be done, avoid unnecessary spending, and make sure every dollar is used as effectively as possible.

Do you consider yourself socially conservative?

I focus on personal responsibility, taking care of your family, and being a good neighbor. Those are the values that guide how I live and how I approach public service. I believe strong communities come from people supporting one another and showing respect and kindness, and that’s the perspective I bring to this role.

Share your one-minute elevator speech.

My name is Marisa Keith and I am running for the Ada County Highway District. I come from a community advocacy background, and I’ve spent almost 10 years serving as a volunteer on the neighborhood association. Part of that duty was going to the highway district and really focusing on roads here in Southwest Ada County. Since 2018, I’ve attended almost every Ada County Highway District public meeting. I am focusing on getting more representation for my community, and I’m very much into building safe roads for everybody. I do Safe Routes to School work, which is educating kids and students on walking and biking and working with cities and counties on how to create safer roads around schools. I bring that community-minded focus to the Ada County Highway District Commission, and it has been my goal to really represent the community that way.

What are your top priorities, and what would you act on first?

Over the years, I have been watching how the budget did not match what was in the 5-year plan. In the last 2 years, they cut a lot of projects out of the 5-year plan because it was over programmed. How do we bring back some of those things? A lot of those projects were essentially promised to the communities when growth happened. The staff reports from the highway district would say, this road is at this level of service right now, but it’s going to be expanded in 2026. So now 2026 has come, and some of those projects are not even on the plan. How do we focus on getting those projects back? Understanding that ACHD has a limited budget and their source of revenue is not going to increase significantly, particularly when we look at property taxes. They can only increase property tax 3% per year, but we don’t want to increase people’s property taxes more than needed. I think that that’s one of my biggest issues with the highway district. The other one is, especially in Eagle and Southwest Boise, Kuna, and even parts of Meridian, where we have these one-mile arterial grids. ACHD has really not worked on connectivity, and when we have a road that is blocked you’re going 2 miles out of your way, and every car is filtered onto that one road. There’s been a lot of talk over the years about the mid-mile collector, and we haven’t even really seen mid-mile collectors go in. I would like to bring that down to even a third-mile collector, just so that there’s options, so that when a road is blocked you can get to where you need to go easier, and you’re not forcing everybody out onto one collector and then out to one arterial. The biggest driver of congestion is not having choices on roads that you can travel.

What is one current ACHD policy or practice that you believe isn’t working as well as it should, and what specifically would you change if elected

As far as policies go, I have addressed some of them. I guess practice was, the impact fees they hadn’t really looked at. For a few years, they just seem to be kind of stuck not reviewing things, and so I think getting them in a pattern of let’s review our CIP more frequently, and let’s review our impact fee ordinance more frequently. Those things will be very helpful from a budget perspective, but also so that the public has a better idea of what’s going on. We hear a lot about the public doesn’t think that. Growth is not paying for itself. Then they find out that the highway district hasn’t even looked at impact fees for the last 8 years or 10 years, or however long it has been, in a significant way, and that really doesn’t bring goodwill to the agency. People, rightfully so, get angry about that. I always say that ACHD is kind of their own worst enemy when it comes to public relations, and I would really like to see them focus on improving their image by being responsive and looking at these policies and plans more frequently and more closely and communicating with the public better.

Do you believe growth is paying for growth in Ada County today? If not, what would you change?

No. Every once in a while, staff at the highway district will bring out a chart that shows revenue versus expenses, and expenses are outpacing revenue every year. And especially as we get into a period of time where our roads are needing a lot more maintenance, ACHD is going to have to balance the maintenance side of it versus the expansion side. As for me, I go to City Council and Ada County Commission a lot, and there’s always been this weird triangle between the land use agencies and the neighborhood and ACHD. I would like to see ACHD really step up and do more financial analysis. If a new project is coming on board, is this going to pay for itself? In southwest Boise, Murio Farms is a huge development that is going in on South Cole. And this is one of the first times the city of Boise has done an in-depth financial analysis to see if this is going to pay for itself. Turned out that it didn’t, and Boise still approved it. At least they had that information. I would like to see staff start including that in the staff report so that the cities and the county have more information on, if we build this at this density or this layout is it even going to pay for the roads and the maintenance of the roads that this development is going to bring.

ACHD’s FY2027 budget is approximately $261 million, including $133 million in capital projects. If you believe ACHD needs additional funding to address transportation needs, what revenue source would you support—and if you don’t support additional revenue, what projects or services would you reduce or delay?

Yeah, I think they’re limited in what revenue they can come up with. They have property taxes, and they have the highway user’s fund. They have some money that the legislature gives them. None of that is really within their control. They can control impact fees to a point, but it must be reasonable. I think where they could save money is on the construction side. Costs are only going up. When I first started going to the highway district in 2018, it would be like 5 to 7 million dollars to widen one mile of road, depending on how many bridges there were. And now we’re looking at 10 to 15 million. Some projects have even cost in the $20 million to $40 million range, depending on what’s going on in that area. I think buying the right of way, especially if we get to a point where maybe land prices go down a bit, doing that in advance is very helpful, because typically land costs only go up. But then I would also like to see ACHD widen a full a corridor, instead of just doing one mile. Let’s try to do two miles at a time, or at least, do one mile, and then immediately start the next one. I think that would save some design costs. It certainly would save the neighborhood frustration. Making sure contractors are coming in on budget and on time. I think they’re starting to look at that a little more carefully. We’re certainly seeing things they have implemented such as fines begin to speed up work. Veolia had 5 Mile closed and torn up for over a year, and ACHD started fining them every day and that sped them up. But, as far as costs, really looking at things from a construction standpoint on how they can reduce things that way.

Where does ACHD need better coordination with Ada County, cities, and ITD, and how would you improve it?

I think, for one, is coordinating with cities and the county on when construction is happening. We’ve seen some of this and they say they cannot control it because it’s utilities that are doing things. Right now, in downtown Boise, they have had several streets closed for years. I think coordinating with them on the timing of construction could be better. I also think the timing of coordinating what roads are going to happen to correspond with big projects that are going to bring a lot of new trips, new car trips to the road. It seems like they have started to this last year, and this year they really looked at the priorities from the cities and the county and tried to implement those. But what I see happening is next year. Those priorities will change, and ACHD still will have not gotten to what was on the list. Being a little bit more firm with cities about, this was your priority. If we’re going to remove this from the plan, we need to have some sort of justification for that, rather than just things kind of come and go. One year they’re on the plan next year they’re not. There’s really no justification to the public as to why that happens. And I would like to see, some sound reasoning as to why they’re moving things around a little bit more. And if that means that the cities and the counties must step up and say, this is what we want, and then that’s what needs to happen. I feel like there’s a lot of gray area where nobody really takes responsibility for anything, because ACHD is not the land use agency. The land use agency doesn’t control the roads, so they kind of point fingers at each other a lot.

ACHD invests in bike lanes, multi-use pathways and other bicycle infrastructure. What criteria should ACHD use to determine when a dedicated bike lane is appropriate, and when road space should instead be devoted to vehicle capacity, parking, or other uses?

I don’t think bike lanes on high-speed arterials are appropriate at all. I think it’s a waste of taxpayer money, because you’re building something that very, very few people in the community are going to be comfortable using. The pathways, I believe, are a better use of space. Whether they need to be as big as they are, that’s up for debate. Neighborhood roads or collector roads where volume is less and the speeds are less, then it’s more appropriate to have bike lanes in those spaces. Parking is not allowed on arterials anyway, and a lot of collectors. I think you have to decide, as a driver, I don’t necessarily want to share the road with all cyclists. I would rather them be in their own space so that they are not slowing down traffic, or they’re not putting themselves or me in danger. I do think we should be building infrastructure that most people are going to be comfortable using.

ACHD has a 5 year plan for capital improvement projects. How will you prioritize which projects make the list?

The last two years, they’ve really prioritized what the cities and the counties want. I think that’s fine, but I think a lot of projects have been for a long time promised, and not delivered upon, and they have been removed from the list. I would like to see ACHD go back and track things on five-year plan better, such as, what year did this get on the list? If it’s removed from the list for any reason on the next year’s plan, they need to have a page that says these things were removed, either because it was constructed, or the city decided it wasn’t needed anymore, or it wasn’t feasible. Whatever the reason is, they need to track those things better. I would like to see them go back and look at areas of town that have not been completed and have those come back. You’re not going to be able to widen every road, within the next 5 years. I want those projects that have been shelved, put on the shelf to be looked at and really evaluated to see if this something that we need to have come back. We do need to have them come back, and I would like to see a plan for how they’re going to get those, taking into consideration the city’s request. I think this year they tried to take the top 3 or 4 priorities from every city and county’s list. We can’t take your top 3 priorities because they don’t align with the need that is already out there right now. Maybe we can do one of your priorities, but we need to really focus on this backlog of projects that we haven’t been able to get to.

ACHD is responsible for serving motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, and other users. When limited road space forces a choice between adding vehicle capacity and adding bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure, what factors should determine which gets priority? Should maintaining or increasing vehicle capacity generally take precedence on major transportation corridors? Why or why not?

For me, if you’re looking at bike and pedestrian infrastructure, is it near a school? Is it something that is used by bikes and pedestrians already? I think particularly around schools, parks, YMCA, libraries, where you can expect people to be walking and biking it’s probably reasonable to have a higher level of infrastructure there. For places where I live, where you’re only seeing the super serious cyclists on the road, you still need infrastructure for everybody. You still need sidewalks, right? You cannot build a road and not have sidewalks. I think there is some leeway there to say, what is the likelihood, even if density increases significantly in that area. If you are so far out that everybody is having to drive to work and get groceries, I agree with the concept of the 10-foot pathway rather than a 5-foot bike lane on the arterial. I don’t know that they need to be 10 feet everywhere. I think there’s some room for negotiation there.

Should maintaining or increasing vehicle capacity generally take precedence on major transportation corridors? Why or why not?

I think that’s already pretty much how it is now. They’re always adding vehicle capacity. They go from 2 lanes to 5 lanes. They’re not going from 2 lanes to 2 lanes and devoting half of that space to bikes and pedestrians. So, I do think that vehicle travel is always going to take priority. At the same time, we can still build roads that are safe for everybody.

What question do you wish voters were asking candidates that they aren’t?

I would ask candidates if they understand that ACHD is not in control of land use? What is ACHD responsible for? What is the city and the county responsible for? I do see some candidates talking about things that they would not have control over as an ACHD commissioner, things that are really a city or a county issue.