Ever Onward Podcast

Common Sense in Idaho Policy with Senator Codi Galloway | Ever Onward – Ep. 99

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 99

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We sit down with Senator Codi Galloway to trace a path from classroom to small business to the Idaho Senate, and we use that lens to tackle three urgent pressures in Boise and beyond: public safety and homelessness, foster care, and the cost and speed of building homes. The through-line is simple and powerful—clear standards, faster processes, and compassion that actually helps.

Codi was born in Panama City, Florida, raised in Ada County, and earned a BA in education from Brigham Young University.  She spent three years teaching in public schools and then founded a talent-development school in Meridian, Idaho.  That background—teaching, entrepreneurship, hands‐on education—shapes how she approaches policy: practical, accountable, grounded in real-world work.

Now serving in the Idaho Senate (after earlier service in the House) for District 15, she brings that teacher-turned-small-business mindset into a part-time legislature that still “moves mountains” of bills each session.  

Here’s how her story connects to three of the major issues facing Boise today:

  • Public safety & homelessness.
    • With her classroom and business experience, Codi emphasizes that approaches which protect dignity and foster opportunity win out over purely symbolic action. She talks about small statutory tweaks that save schools money—like permitting minivans instead of expensive buses for smaller student groups—and how that principle scales: allow flexibility, reduce cost, deliver value. Then we turn to encampments: how can Boise keep its parks and river-path systems open and safe while also ensuring the unhoused aren’t left out in the cold? Codi argues for pairing shelter capacity and treatment with consistent enforcement—not to criminalize poverty, but to set a floor of dignity and access the whole community can support.
  • Foster care & child‐first reforms.
    • As someone with a strong background in education and youth development, Codi looks at foster care through the lens of stability, relational bonds, and timeliness. We examine reforms to speed permanency—tightening court timelines, better supporting stable caregivers, and honoring the bonds children form when they have consistent adults in their lives.
  • Housing affordability & building speed.
    • Here her business mindset comes into play: “time is money” in construction. Permits that take months, inspections that restart the clock—these slow the supply of housing and drive up rents and mortgages. Codi has championed practical fixes like video re-inspections and clearer, faster responses from city departments so builders can add supply without sacrificing safety. The idea: reduce friction in process so homes get built faster and costs don’t spiral for families and workers.

We wrap with a call to expand re-entry opportunities: targeted training, employer partnerships, and a supportive runway that prevents people from slipping back into homelessness or instability.

If you care about safer streets, stronger families, and homes people can afford, this conversation offers grounded answers and proof that small changes add up. Subscribe, share with a friend who cares about Boise’s future, and leave a review with th

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SPEAKER_00:

Today on the Ever Onward Podcast, we have Cody Galloway. Cody is the uh state senator for LD15. Uh she is a uh small business owner and uh went into the legislature first as a representative, is now as a state senator. She has been working on several initiatives that really affect our people and our families and our communities. We're excited to have her on to talk about her role as a state senator and uh what she has coming up for this next session. Uh Cody Galloway. Senator, welcome.

SPEAKER_04:

Cody, I always like Cody best. No, it's great. Thank you. So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so excited to have you on today.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

How you been?

SPEAKER_04:

I've been great. Voicey, things are going good. Business is good, community's good.

SPEAKER_00:

Can't wait to catch up. I just was telling you, I gotta we I we've had an active week and I got a little cold flip bug somewhere. Went to Disneyland with our grandkids, which was magical. And then went to the World Series Tuesday night, which was not magical. Huge Dodger fan. Cody and they were so flat and then lost that and then lost the next game. And anyway, too Dodge.

SPEAKER_04:

We'll just go back to the Disneyland.

SPEAKER_00:

I know Disneyland, happy place. Go back to the happy place, right?

SPEAKER_04:

I was in California last week too. I was up in Nampa Valley, and it is beautiful right now. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

Beautiful. It was like 92 degrees when we were down there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Almost a little too hot, but we knew when we got home it was uh it was chilly again. It was but but our fall has been beautiful. Well, um, so for those uh I know you well, and you're you're doing a great job. It's so nice to have people like you representing us that are our neighbors, our you know, you understand this place and our our state and our future, but it's nice to have you leading us. But for those who don't know you, tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm glad you asked. I always think that's the most interesting part. If I'm watching a podcast and I see someone I don't know, I want to hear their story. I want to know where they came from before I can know where they're going. So um I am a uh I love Boise. I grew up here, my dad and my husband's dad. My dad's a Boise high grad, my husband's father was Bora, so we are we have deep Boise roots. And um I went to Centennial High School, my kids, I have three kids that have graduated from Centennial High School. I met my husband in junior high. We've had a very happy love story for the last 25 years, and um we left the state to go to college. When we came back, we started our family, we started a small business. Uh, we bought a house. Back then you could buy a little starter home for$130,000 and uh start a small business on an SBA loan for$25,000. So that's what we did, and we have had a wonderful ride here in Boise. It has been a phenomenal place to grow our family, um, grow our business, and uh now's kind of the time where you get to a point in life where I've three of the four kids have left the house, and um I have a little bit of opportunity to go back and work in the community with with more effort and intention, and I've enjoyed that as uh serving as the first in the house the representatives and now as the District 15 State Senator.

SPEAKER_00:

So I I love um when people that represent us um are business people. I frankly it just it makes a difference for me. I mean, I think it's it's um a small I believe the economy of the country is you know on the shoulders of small business. It really is. If you look at if you look at the dollars that flow through everything, it is small business people. And I think there's just always challenges, right? I mean, I'm just thinking of like the challenges we have as small business in the last two weeks. It's constant. And and it it it almost they're not challenges. Like in fact, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, we have challenges. I just I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_00:

I just I was gonna say, I just ran into one of my guys here, Brad Smith, he's an architect that that works with us, and I just saw him in the in it in the he was getting his coffee when I just when I walked by and I said, How's it going, Brad? He's like, every day's full of opportunities. He says that every day. And and what I love about Brad is he's always optimistic, but it's opportunities because it they're challenges and it's every day. Yeah, but but it's almost like it you expect them, right?

SPEAKER_04:

And and so and enjoy that.

SPEAKER_00:

Enjoy the opportunity to figure it out. But it's really nice having someone represent us that understands that side of life. So tell us a little bit more about your business.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. Well, let me I'll back up and just kind of I would people are always a little confused at my resume. So I started as an elementary school teacher before I had children. I saw that. I didn't know that. That was a phenomenal few years where I got to teach in the public schools. What grade did you teach? I did second grade and sixth grade both. So that was pretty good. Not a lot of difference. Then I did adult education later in my life. Still not a lot of difference. Interesting education. Um it's all about like relationships with kids and getting them to trust you. You would have been the same with adults.

SPEAKER_00:

Like if you were my son or daughter second grade teacher, that would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, I had a yes, but you know what? There's opera I teach every Sunday in my church. Um, I did Cub Scouts with my kids, I coached my daughter in gymnastics, so I'm always teaching. And I think that we all in business, that's kind of my role in my in our current business is I coach and mentor our leaders and um provide the like employee training and management training so that they can be better leaders for our teams. So anyway, so I digress. But I started as an elementary school teacher when we had our our first our kids. I stayed home with them until they went to school and loved that time being a stay-at-home mom. When they went back to school, I went back to work, and my husband and I had a couple of small businesses, but one of them was a school. It was adult education. And so we helped people that were returning to the workforce coming out of prison, or um people that were stay-at-home moms that were returning to the workforce, people that needed training to get back in. Oftentimes people had been laid off, like from micron.

SPEAKER_00:

Like the the the depth of experience just keeps getting better.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_00:

How was that?

SPEAKER_04:

It was amazing. Education, Trey Gowdy said this once, and I thought I'm gonna copy him, but he said, education is the closest thing we have to magic. And I would say that a hundred percent. I saw lives change every day with the confidence that adults who had kind of been down on their luck for a little bit, but as they gained confidence in a new skill and the ability to accomplish something, changed their lives. And not just their lives, it changes the lives for their families, and it can be generational change, really. So I loved doing that. That was fabulous.

SPEAKER_00:

Um how many years did you do that?

SPEAKER_04:

We did that about 10 years. It was yeah, leapfox learning. Uh, we sold the company and it's since been sold to New Horizons. So still in business, but um great, great time.

SPEAKER_00:

Can we pause there for a minute? I think uh um when you talk about self-esteem and optimism and hope and the ability to have a uh abundant life, a job is I mean, I mean relationships are important, but having a job, a meaningful job that one you gain satisfaction from and and professional interaction from, and then you have a way of of making a living, there's nothing more important than that for people.

SPEAKER_04:

I agree. I just think that um and it is reflected in everything they do because once they can provide for themselves, they feel like they're a leader in their families, they can be a leader in their community. I mean, I had an I had one person come through that uh did some great training, some IT training, some certifications, and then he decided he was going to um uh apply to be a head start on the Head Start board for his kids' school. And that's something he would never have done when I first met him. But he came to school, learned to, you know, do some things, felt like he was had a little bit of confidence, and then it allowed him not only to be this better dad to these two little girls, but also to reach back into his community and feel like he had some expertise and some willingness to serve on this like Head Start board at their school.

SPEAKER_00:

So amazing. And the flip side of that is if you don't have a job and you're struggling, you know, it just it's very defeating and and and leads to that hopelessness, right? Where you're like, oh, what am I gonna do? And my self-worth and within the family unit, within the community, within your sphere. It's just it's such a critical thing. So that's that's cool.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it was that was a great run. We love doing that. Um when we sold that business, we bought into Create Spaces. It used to be formerly OEC, and it's really my husband and his brother, and I have been a very active in politics since about that phase. So I don't do any of the leadership work there, but work uh with the company in a support role.

SPEAKER_00:

And big company. It's one of the so we we use them. It's uh it's one of the largest office furniture space companies there is in Idaho, right? And uh do a lot of the uh big corporate accounts, and I mean it's a big company.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, and I always tell people sometimes people say, Oh, you do furniture like R.C. Willie, can I come pick out a couch? I'm like, well, we'd love to have you come kit pick out a desk chair instead, but yes, we do commercial accounts.

SPEAKER_00:

Once they saw how much this dang commercial furniture costs, they wouldn't say that. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

It's fabulous. I would not trade in my steel case leap chair for a million bucks.

SPEAKER_00:

It is Well, they're built forever, right? So what brands do you do?

SPEAKER_04:

Um well we are a steel case dealer, but we have the Boise branch, and then two years ago we brought bought the Vegas market and Reno Market. So we're in Idaho and Nevada right now.

SPEAKER_00:

It's great.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. So so that's kind of your professional background. And then you have uh four kids?

SPEAKER_04:

Four kids. They are the best. All these people, these new families I see. I just got to hold one of my friends' little uh actually, she was a uh volunteer on my campaign and she had a baby. It's a five-pound baby. I got to go hold this week. Oh, babies are the best. No grandkids, but I am crossing my fingers for some marriages and some grandkids soon. My oldest is 23, just graduated from college.

SPEAKER_00:

Cody, it is the best. Like, I know, I know when people are grandparents and they like they show you pictures and you're like, stop it. I don't care, I don't want to see this. And then you become one, and it's like, oh my goodness, this was undersold to me. This was undersold to me.

SPEAKER_03:

That makes up for the the teenagers, the toddlers, all of the potty training and stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

And they're just the the very, very, very best. Like I just our littlest one, she's one, and um she just melts my heart. And then the two boys that are three and five. Okay. It's fun. It's awesome. That's cool. That's cool. So then uh talk about getting into politics. That was probably so um you were a state uh legislator before in in the House, um, and now the Senate. But but what what motivated you and how I mean that's that's a leap.

SPEAKER_04:

It's a bit of a leap. Um you know, so I served one term in the House and I've done one term in the Senate. And that they're two-year terms each, and they're really uh fairly equal. Actually, people always think that I'll stay in longer or something. But um so I've done two short terms.

SPEAKER_00:

Well the reason why is because nationally it is. So nationally it's a six-year term for for for our national senators and two for our representatives. But in the state roles, it's just two years each. Two for each of us.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So I always say, campaigning then. Yes, every two years, especially in the district that I live in.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you're like you're just in, just getting something done. It's like, oh, I gotta start my campaign again, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. And I always tell people too, I'm like, you know, we serve for about two or three months. So yes, I have served as in this for a part-time legislator, legislative branch here in Idaho. So after two years, when I was going to run again, I had really worked about five or six months in the job. And from my training background, like it takes a lot longer to get good at something than five months, but I had to go out and say, okay, I've got I'm getting the hang of this. Let's let's let's try it again. But um, back to your question, I guess, was uh how did I get started? And really the motivating factor was um kind of similar to what I just told you about the student that got an education and kind of felt like he was in a position to give back in the Head Start community in his um school. Uh, kids were older and was looking at the next step and realized how blessed I had been to live in this beautiful valley and live the American dream that people want to live. I got to have a little house, I got to be a stay-at-home mom, I got to volunteer in my church, we got to make enough money to pay the bills and not feel like we were um destitute. And I started to recognize that things in Boise were changing, and it was harder for people. When I was 21 and moved back here, it was a lot easier for me to do that. And it's still possible now, and I believe that like these kids can do it, and they can get a house and they can start a family, and that is the best choice that they can make. But I thought I want to make it more appealing and easier for families to live the American dream right here in Boise, to have clean, safe neighborhoods, to have good schools for their kids, to have good jobs, and uh be able to have a strong community here in Boise.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's great. Did you have any mentors or anyone that kind of talked you into it? Or how did how did this go down?

SPEAKER_04:

I'm embarrassed to say there was no market research done. There was no reaching out to 10 or 15 people, no polling, none of that. I just felt it on my heart.

SPEAKER_03:

That's great.

SPEAKER_04:

It came on suddenly and um kind of scary, actually. And I remember thinking, I remember the first person I told who was my friend that I go running with every morning. And um, but I was a little afraid to call even and tell my mom because I thought, what is everyone gonna think? Why does she think she can do this? What what is she thinking? So honestly, I was super overwhelmed at the idea of doing it. And had I known that I stepped into the most competitive district in Idaho, uh, had I known how much it would cost or what it would do to me like professionally or in any other way, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know any better.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's one of the great dilemmas in society right now is we need good people to run and serve, but it's such a personal sacrifice that you're like, oh man, I like you too much. I don't want you to do this. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_04:

It is. You know what though, that is, I mean, that's a kind of a product of our society. And um I tell people all the time, I'm going to do this for a while. I'm not doing this, this is not a career. I've had a varied, I mean, I just walked through my resume, I've done lots of different things and and um enjoyed each of those. I won't do this forever, and no one should. And everyone should take an opportunity to be part of a campaign or an issue at some point. It will um change the way you look at politics, it'll change the way you appreciate the United States of America and the government we have here. Everyone should volunteer for a campaign, donate for a campaign. If you no one should miss that opportunity, it's important.

SPEAKER_00:

What's been your biggest surprise getting into politics?

SPEAKER_04:

Biggest surprise. Well, let me tell you a wonderful surprise I didn't expect that I've loved, and that is the amount of capacity there is for learning in this job. And as a former educator and teacher, and I love learning, and this has been a phenomenal opportunity for me to ask questions. When I need to know something, people will pick up the phone. I we have a great opportunity to like if I want to understand how behavioral health is affecting our elementary schools, I call the superintendent and say, I hear the behaviors are really bad in your elementary schools. What can I do? Where can I see this? Who can I talk to? And he sets me up with the people that are working in the industry every day, and I tour the school, and um, I have loved being able to follow police along, follow teachers, uh, visit the prisons and see how people are doing their jobs. There's um it's been great to just to learn and actually really understand the problems before you jump in and try to solve them.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. Do most legislators do that, or is that do you know?

SPEAKER_04:

Um I love doing it myself, and I always invite a friend along.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

How's that?

SPEAKER_00:

Great. So you do you really dig in. You want to know the issue. You want to be able to explain it and know it and feel it in your heart and mind and soul, right? Before you decide how you're gonna vote on it and what it's gonna be. It's really circum the the the circumstances surrounding the legislation that come through are also challenging and really put a lot of pressure on you, right? Because I I mean, I I stay pretty involved uh peripherally, um, and then I'll get calls every once in a while saying, hey, we need you to get involved in this, but it gets pretty, you know, it these are big decisions. Policy made, policy changes, laws made at the state level, um make a big difference in the everyday Idahoans' lives.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it really does. Um and it's a fabulous opportunity. I guess we go back to where we started with challenges and opportunities, but um, it's a fabulous opportunity to be able to make a difference. And it's often simple things that really matter and you don't necessarily see. So if you're listening to the radio and you're hearing about what the Idaho legislature is doing and they're crazy this or they're doing that, or those are all headlines and they put those out there on purpose because that's how they make money. But the majority of the good things that are happening are just good, like I'll give you an example of just a simple business decision that kind of goes back to school and money. And in Idaho, we have given the schools more and more money, and I'm an educator, so I love that, but there's never enough. I'll tell you what, we're just always, they always need more money. And um, this year we did an interesting piece of legislation. I had visited with our superintendent in West Ada prior and said, Hey, I don't do big things. I'm a freshman senator, I do little things. What can I do? How can I how can we help? And he pointed out to me a problem in the code where when they're transporting just small groups of children, they can only move them in big yellow school buses to get reimbursed. Now, I did all that. Uh a big yellow school bus costs about six dollars per kid or you know, per hour or per mile. I'm gonna mess up all these numbers. But if they could be authorized to use minivans and transport, because we have what happens is if we're traveling like a big group of students, obviously we want to put them on a yellow school bus. But if we have a McKinney-Vento homeless kid or we have a kiddo that is going to special occupational therapy or something, putting them in a minivan is is much more affordable. But our law was set up so that they could be reimbursed to do that. So then the school has to spend more money or choose not to be reimbursed. But those are just simple where we change that so that now you can use a minivan. That's gonna save the school money, it'll save the state money. No one's kind of having to run through loopholes to make get their money reimbursed and stuff. So things like that happen all the time, and those fly under the radar. You never hear about like good decisions that are called.

SPEAKER_00:

I love the like fix fixing the existing code kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I I always I actually was just thinking of this as you were talking. I'm thinking, I can't, I don't know. I used to look it up, but how many laws per year get passed? A couple hundred, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So we I think over a thousand were introduced, about thirteen hundred.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

We voted on about half of the maybe eight hundred, and about just over three hundred became law.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So lots of legislation going through.

SPEAKER_00:

So you think to yourself, like, you you wonder how this government thing gets more complicated over time, but it does, because every year there's 300 new laws, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

There's and and and uh you just pointed out a really great example of one that may clarify or make the existing code better, but there are plenty other ones that change the code. Or and I think, I think, I think one of the misconceptions of people, because the legislature does get uh an undeserved bad rap, I think. I I really do, because I think if you ever take the time to go down and meet with somebody or an issue comes up, I've called you. An issue in my mind that seemed fairly black and white, you call and say, Hey, what do you what are you where are your what's your read on this? And you're usually like very deep into it and say, Well, here's this and here's one side, here's the other side, here's what I'm thinking. But most legislators are that way, they're very well informed, they've they've studied the issues. Um, this isn't like uh DC where these big bills go through that no one's read. Yeah, they're usually very very uh very well debated and thought through. And you know, there's there's winners and losers with most legislation though. And I think that's the that's where the battle happens, right? Is what's the what are the downstream consequences of this. Um what are your what's your take on the quantity of legislation in your time there?

SPEAKER_04:

It's a lot for a part-time legislature, especially because we we don't have staff. When we're down there, we have like an attach attache who's and I have a wonderful one, but I share her with three other people, and she answers the phone and can help with our schedules. But that we have very little staff to like actually like research things. So it it is it's there's a lot. And for example, as I'm looking at stuff sometimes, I realize there's a problem here, but I don't have time to fix it. We have to vote on this budget in the next three weeks. And so then I table that and I've done a deep dive into several things. Sometimes I'll put a little bit of language in the bill that says we need this report or to kind of let people know, but oftentimes you'll find things and there's not you don't have the time nor the staff to correct it right away, but it's getting corrected. This I I don't lose those things, but it is hard. It's hard to get through that much stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because it's like you said, so 1300. It's a lot of and and then talk a little bit about the process because I love hearing this. Like so when a bill gets introduced, then someone sponsors that bill, right? Has to go through committee. And that that's the point where the the committees are relatively powerful because the chairperson of the committee and can just stick it in a drawer, right?

SPEAKER_04:

They can. I will say um overall, I have had great experience with the committee chairman. And um in general, they've worked hard to make sure that if I have something I start with the chairman though, and I start with the governor. Like, there's no reason for me to go down a road if I know that the answer is no from all of these people. But I've had good luck working with the chairman that uh when I have legislation and maybe they need it tweaked this way or that way, but I've had good luck with them. And um, but they that is the first gatekeeper, and it is a gatekeeper, and um then you have to pass through that committee. I start things on the Senate side once it gets to the Senate.

SPEAKER_00:

So so it has to, so so committee chair um and then the committee reads it for a vote, has to pass the committee before it goes to a vote uh on the full body, right, of the Senate, and then it goes over to the House. So there's a back and forth, right? Just like in our our federal government. Um so what legislation have you um been passionate about?

SPEAKER_04:

When I started in the House, I did a lot on education just because that was my background. Um I serve on the Transportation Committee now, and so I've been a little more distant from the education piece. I also serve on the appropriations committee, so I work on budgets of uh I guess I do education through the education budgets, but that and general government. Some of the issues that I worked on was essentially things that matter to my district, and I told them I'd go in and be a responsible leader, keep government limited, and remember Idaho values, and every piece of legislation I looked through those lenses. The three main pieces that I I introduced was one on public safety and public encampments and homeless camp camping in cities. I did one on uh foster care, helping foster care and families helping kids get to permanent care much quicker. And then I also did um some work in the building code to help us build more houses. That's one of my my constituents' biggest issues is the price of housing. And so we looked at some free market solutions to how do we get houses and apartments built more than all three of those. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Go into a little more depth.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, which one do you want to start with?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know, you decide. The order you did them in.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. I'll do first public camping. That was a huge one. We have been working in the city. We have our office is in um downtown Boise, and we have been working with a group of business owners and residents that live in a kind of around Americana um in the um shoreline district. I guess that probably doesn't mean much to many people, but we've seen in the last five or six years a huge rise in homeless encampments and um families parking in their cars and little kids sleeping in cars, little kids that should be in school, out. Um, and uh it's it's quite problematic for the people that are in the cars living in this way. It's certainly not compassionate to let people live that way. A lot of them are on drugs, they have mental illness, they're a danger, there's a big safety issue, they camp around the river and leave all kinds of stuff around this beautiful Boise River that we have. So we had a group of business owners that really worked on this for several years trying to get some solutions and some better enforcement and some better options for these folks that need a lot of help. And uh, we just kind of kept running into dead ends. And so we ran uh some legislation this year with a group of people from that had kind of had enough. There was a mom that moved out of the neighborhood because she'd had so many scary incidents with her little children, and um the the law essentially said that cities have to make sure that we clean up our streets, that we have places for people to go, and we don't let them camp and live on the streets. Those are public spaces, and there's an opportunity for our public to use those parks and streets, and we do not want to have people camping there. So that was that was the law essentially, and um it's done great. We we've had seen lots of improvement in Boise.

SPEAKER_00:

What was the counter-argument or pushback on it?

SPEAKER_04:

It was interesting. A lot of people, um, and the law didn't say how to do it, it just said, cities, you have to manage this. We don't want Boise becoming Portland. Yeah, we are stopping it right now. If you look at like our um pit counts, which are like how many people are experiencing homelessness here in Boise, um the numbers are hard to like justify whether what's accurate and not accurate, but really the people that were on the street kind of willfully doing this, choosing not to get help, it's less than a hundred people probably, if you're not counting the people that are already in shelter or staying with families. So it's a very manageable problem. It's people that are willfully choosing to live this lifestyle and oftentimes bringing children into this lifestyle, which is like a deal breaker for me. So we knew it was manageable. The probably the biggest pushback was we should let these people do this. This is their choice. And I just kept saying, no, I am paying for that park, my taxpayers are paying, my tax stars are paying for that road, and I don't want to step over poop and drug needles on the way to work. That's they can we're not doing that in place.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think the I think the strongest argument is if you look at the vacancy, like at the Voice Rescue Mission or anywhere around, there's beds available right now. Absolutely. I think that's the thing that I don't think people know. One, we have a tremendous community.

SPEAKER_04:

Absolutely, we really do.

SPEAKER_00:

The nonprofit part of it and the profit. And I would say the work that's been done by the city, led by Mayor McLean. And I mean, we spend a lot of time and effort on homelessness. With that said, law enforcement and enforcing rules to keep people that don't want to comply with what's been provided to them, that's gotta be part of it too, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Part of it. I love how you said it's part of it. It's we certainly um, I think that was a complaint, people that, oh, you're just gonna put all these people in jail. And no matter how many times I said they've done this in other states, there were six arrests made out of six hundred people. I mean, like, this is not going to, this is not, we're not criminalizing homelessness. We are just helping, this is a therapeutic push to get you some help. Um that was probably people just were sure that we should let people continue to live this way. And I I don't think it's compassionate, and I don't think it's good for them, and it's certainly not good for our city or the people that live there.

SPEAKER_00:

So Yeah, it's been interesting. I you have an office in Reno. Yeah. And we're doing a lot of work in Reno, downtown Reno, and it's uh it's been eye-opening for me coming from Boise to go to Reno and see just how they've got a lot of work to do in a lot of ways, in a lot of areas. And it's really decades of work here that comes together to make make it make it what it is. It's not it's not for the faint of heart, it's not easy. These are complicated solutions that require complicated policy and answers. But well, that's great. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

And you know what the nice thing about this issue, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue. Yeah. I was I was in San Francisco last week and just briefly before we went up north, but they have done a tremendous job very quickly cleaning up what was happening in San Francisco, which was. No, they have a new mayor in there, and he is I talked to lots of people. They are seeing major, major improvements.

SPEAKER_00:

They needed to.

SPEAKER_04:

They, in fact, I will tell you, they have their very first. I was just at a conference this summer, and um someone from San Francisco, one of the homeless uh shelters, was speaking and they said that they finally have approval for their very first drug-free homeless shelter ever to exist in San Francisco. Like they have lots of shelters, but they are letting people just come in and use and abuse, and it's a different, they have a different mentality there.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's it like you look, uh it's a great case study if people don't know what happened, like in their tender loing district there, and how the residents like so they created a uh basically a zone where everything was you know, free for all.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't want to live that. And well, did you hear what happened? So it's interesting that their own residents within the tenderloin district sued the government because they're like, why are you selectively? You know what? And they won.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so you have you have like this ground, you know, grassroots swell of people saying, it's not outsiders saying, it's insiders. There's people that live there, neighbors saying, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Your policies are crazy.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. And we did not, we felt like Boise was shifting that way. We were not getting hurt. We were not, we just felt like we the slu it was not being heard, but things have changed. I think we're on a good path forward. And like you say, we have such a generous community. This community in Boise, Idaho wants to help people. They want to make a difference.

SPEAKER_00:

Listen, we have the greatest community. I I promise you, it's like I went to the WCA breakfast two days ago.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, Saints over there.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness. I I I I mean the the work that they do. Be black, she's retiring the sheriff. I think 17 years of service, an incredible organization. And the they went through the data and the number of people that they help. Um and and then the stories. I just sit there bawling on the you know at your table like like hard crying, looking around, just like this is the we need to do more of this. We have you look at WCA, you look at Voice Rescue Mission, all the different other organizations, safety net organizations we have, we have an incredible community.

SPEAKER_04:

We do. And they will, when I think when we again partner and put things together with to this complex solution, there's gotta be housing, there's gotta be help, there's gotta be money, there's gotta be, there has to be laws, there has to be consequences. When you put all those things together, I think actually you're gonna have a more generous community because people are excited about seeing people change their lives and they want to donate to a shelter that's putting in job training and preschools for the little kids and outdoors.

SPEAKER_00:

It's kind of like, hey, you do your part and then we'll do our part to help, right? And you gotta have both sides of it. It's a it's a again, I'm very, very proud of what we've done here. And I and I think uh you've hit the nail on the head with that. That's great. What was your second one?

SPEAKER_04:

Second was foster care, I think. Oh this was a super fun, this was great legislation. Someone in my neighborhood brought it to me. It was a lovely foster mom, and she said, she called me and she said, I've never talked to a legislator before, but you're my neighbor, and do you know what's happening in the system? And I said, No, I I didn't. I don't know. I I foster care has not been, I I don't know much about it. And she told me and I said, All right, well, okay, I'll help you. Will you go find where it's working? Go like see what states, talk to your network, do some research, find out who's what state is doing this right, and then let's fix it. And she did, to her credit, which is nice, because again, we have no staff, we have no time. So I was grateful for her help in it, and she brought back several idea, like different test test kind of markets where they'd done it in other states.

SPEAKER_00:

By the way, that shows a lot of wisdom there, Senator. To say to someone, because there's a lot of people that just complain.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But but to it's very it's a very proactive thing to say, hey, that's great. What are your suggestions for improvement? Because as I get older, I get tired of people that just complain, and then you sit there listening, okay, what's your okay, it's not working, but what would you like to do? But the fact that you said, hey, tell me what are the solutions, that's very great.

SPEAKER_04:

That's a and a good because she would know better than me the solutions. I I don't profess to be an expert in foster care. But she brought solutions. We sat, I went with health, met with Alex Adams and Department of Health and Welfare. I looked at went and talked to the judges and all the people that are surrounded you know, kind of stakeholders that have to deal with that. And um in the end, we got a really good solution that increases uh the timeline between appointments where they see where their cases are heard. So instead of like a mom that's trying to get her kids back only seeing the judge or only being evaluated every six months, we brought those down to two months. So they have to kind of return and report a little bit more quickly, and um changed some of the um law so that let's say a kiddo has been in foster care for several years with a family, and then we decide to get permanent location. That relationship that's with that foster family, it plays into the decision that the judge makes, in addition to where what other options might have. Uh there might other be housing options for the kiddos. So it's really a very kid and family first. It helps these kids get into a permanent situation quicker, in a more timely manner, and the right situation.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. We can thank my constituent. She did awesome on it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great. Yeah. What's your third one?

SPEAKER_04:

Third was building, housing. That when I I mean, I knocked doors on people. There were three issues. They always want lower taxes. Immigration was a big one. And then the third one was housing. Help me with housing. It's so it's so expensive. So I'm a I'm a I'm a business person. I like free markets, I like limited government. So I didn't want to like come up with the plan to have government come in and save the day and build the big apartment downtown for the people that need it. But I wanted to look at ways we can make it more affordable so that developers and businesses and homeowners, home builders could build housing that was more affordable. And so I went to them and I said, what, where are the what regulation is stopping you, what's slowing you down, time is money in in building. And uh there were kind of there were two different bills, but one dealt with um re-inspections. So when you're waiting for uh reinspection, if you've missed in a permitting allows you to do a video reinspection. So, and that is especially helpful in our rural communities, but it helps get the inspector out a lot faster than having to wait three weeks for the inspector to come back out. And then the other one had to do with permits. And um, I had a lot of builders saying what happens is we submit an application to get a permit to build, and they have it for a long time, and then they send it back and say, Oh, you forgot to dot your I or cross your T, or there's some little thing missing, and they have to start all over. And again, time is money, this is the delay.

SPEAKER_00:

It it's it's a nightmare. This is uh it's a it I don't know, like I'm I'm I didn't know you passed this legislation, but we're doing a project downtown Boise right now, and honestly, the horror stories of because what happens so people understand this you submit a permit and it can take three months for them to review the permit. And and that's when they go through your plans. I mean, it's a full set of plans, yeah. And they look for safety and code compliance and everything else. So they've already scrubbed it. Then you start having a uh inspector come out to look at your project, and then they oftentimes will change or rewrite what they just reviewed. In fact, you know, this is really funny. Tom Sr. my dad is this happened last week. He we were having this discussion about it, and he was just losing his stuff. He's old school. So he was down with one of the inspectors at Boise, and and and he he he said, I I really like the guy, but he said, Hey, I got an idea. If you're the guy that's gonna change everything, why don't we just take you and put you in that first room? Because if you catch everything the first time, yeah, just imagine how much time, money, and effort you're gonna we just got the wrong guy in that first room, and it really stopped the guy in his tracks. He's like, uh yeah, that probably would be good, but I don't want to be in that first room. But the point is, like like at some point, your inefficiency and your lack of professionalism affects everything downstream, which is time and money and effort, and all that just gets passed on.

SPEAKER_04:

And expensive. It's so expensive to wait.

SPEAKER_00:

And at the same time, you can't sit here and say you care about housing prices. You can't. Yeah, you cannot utter those words. Anyway. Yeah. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

We're all I'm with you, I'm with you. And I heard from someone else, I actually went and talked to like a small home builder. That's who gave me the idea and said, Hey, uh, there were a couple people that wait in on it. But I went to people that constituents and campaign donors, people that knew more about the building process than me, and said, How do I make this more how do we make sure that we can get more houses? I know we just need a more supply, how do we get more roofs? We've got people that need them.

SPEAKER_00:

So well, um, the way cities work, um, it's probably gonna take state legislation, honestly, because I think cities, um, I I don't know. I I I've been frustrated recently, just in general, because if you look at our valley at a time when we need housing, I mean, everyone I have come on here talks about housing. Everyone knows it's the biggest thing. Yes. And everyone says, hey, we're gonna fix it. And yet you actually look at the processes that happen in every single jurisdiction in this valley right now, they are exponentially worse, harder, more difficult, more regulations, more nonsense than you can imagine today. And it only gets worse every year. So so so maybe at some point the state does have to say, hey, we're gonna streamline these for our people because you guys can't get out of your own way. I I don't know. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

There there's an article written on that actually, and I'm not an expert on it, so I won't say much, but that is one of the biggest challenges, is the different jurisdictions. And to jump back to another topic, that's kind of what Utah did with their continuum of care for I'm gonna lose my headphones there. Um, with their continuum of care helping with the homeless, there were just so many different pieces that weren't working well together. And so the state of Utah just came in and they took over the entire, like they they just took it over. So if the problems continue, it sometimes it's just inefficiencies with different and and that makes it difficult. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I don't I gotta believe that no one um I don't know. Because sometimes I I honestly sometimes I think, what am I missing, right? Is there something I'm missing, right? Because we're always good at looking at everyone else saying, Oh, you're the problem, you're the problem. And I'm like, well, maybe I'm the problem. But you look at some of these people that um that I think care about our community, I think, I think they get it, I think they understand it, and you would think that they should be incentivized to making it better, right? They'll they'll say the right things. So then where's the disconnect between what they say in their hearts, which I think are in the right place, and their actions in running something? Is it just inefficiency? Is it I mean, what is it? Because I I don't think it's intentional. I gotta believe in my American heart and soul that it's not intentional, but it certainly causes the it causes all this. It it's part of the it is it is part of the problem.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I can give you an example from a builder that I heard, and I think you're right. They do, they want what's best. It's just what's best is different. I'm looking at the individual constituent that wants a house.

SPEAKER_00:

They're looking at um why aren't they looking at the same thing?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, okay. Um let me see how much if I can recall and say correctly. I was talking with a builder who was trying to get a project approved. He wanted a certain amount of parking spaces for a row of condos, something. I mean, it was a small development. City of Boise kept saying, no, we don't need that many con you don't need that many parking spaces now. I'm not a fan. Like, I think the builder, the business owner, probably does a better job figuring out how many parking spaces that they need. And if they're willing to pay for them, that's the problem. But they were trying to cut down the parking spaces, and I think what was happening is probably what they care more about is fewer cars, fewer emissions. That's their what they're looking at.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know, because I'll give you a hundred different examples. We're we're doing we're doing a building out in the middle of the desert. We're having to saw through it, it's south of the airport. No one's even gonna see this building. And the owner of the building wants the parking on on the other side of the of the building for safety because the big trucks go back in this way. And they have an ordinance that says the building needs to be up against the property line for street curb appearance. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? We had to go do it it delayed the project by months. That's one. Two, the electric vehicle deal is is just crazy right now. It's crazy. Yeah, you could drive around any of our buildings and go look how many electric vehicles are parked during a day when people are coming to an office. None, or they're parked illegally, or it's one of the guys that work for me that's got their raptor with a thing plugged in just so they can park illegally. But but like there's those examples of like you're not in touch with what and it may make you feel good about maybe it's some I don't know it just seemed to that matters more to me.

SPEAKER_04:

I want people to have a house. That's part of the American dream. That matters to me. They're part better members of their community. I want them to invest in their home. It's a good investment. I that's what matters to me. But I think sometimes she'll have another priority, and whether that's um it it's uh climate or cars or things like that. And so what it just gets ahead of what the people need.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm all for like so that's okay, and I like all that. But then you can't say you can't say that you housing is your priority.

unknown:

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But that's where that's where that's where it breaks down. Um you you you can say a lot of other things, but you can't because um we need all sorts of housing. We need more multifamily, we need more condos, we need more starter homes, we need more mid-level homes. We need we need everything. We need inventory. And um that that will drop the price. I mean, if you look if you just look at the valley in the last two years on apartments. I I just had uh just talking to Clay Anderson, who's a really good friend of mine who tracks this. And and it the free market, right? I mean, we had oversupply, and all of a sudden there were all these concessions, and now we have a vacancy, you know, it's about you know 90% occupancy right now, and and prices are down, right? That's it, that's it, it happened right under everyone's nose in the multifamily segment of the market. That's how this thing works.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

And so, and government does control that pipeline, they control that pipeline. Whether they like to think they, I mean, free market, there's forces, but they control what goes through that. They control a bay based on how many utilities they deliver. The city of Boise decides where to take sewer to and how they're gonna do annexation. That is them and and what goes where and what the city codes are. And and and so because you you do, and same thing with Meridian. And then the other thing we've got is so many people moving here from out of state that once they're here, they're just like, hey, I don't want anything. It doesn't matter who designed it or what it is. We don't want anything. We've got you know, that only causes pricing to go up. And if you move here from California, you can buy a million-dollar home, that's great. If you're from here and you're trying to buy your first home, it's not so great.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it it's very important. It's important to everyone. And I heard someone say the other day, well, it's only important to the people that are buying the house. But I'm not buying a house now, but I have a kiddo that's under well, I shouldn't call him a kiddo because he's an adult and he's graduated, but he's buying his first house. He's 23. Um, he's from Boise, he had to move, go out to Nampa and buy an older home, and he's gonna make it work.

SPEAKER_00:

But I mean, I've heard the same thing because I care about that. I care about it. But yeah, you could say that about every single issue there is. Oh, it's only important to the person that drives on that road. No, it's only important to that person that goes and gets their health care there. It's only that person that turns on their lights at 6 a.m. I mean, what kind of garbage is that? That's someone that's like come here from California to say that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. I think it matters. I want I want the people in Idaho to be able to um come home after college or stay here, get a job, and live in the town that they love. It's so much better. I mean, I've my husband and I grew up here, and every day we see people that we know, and you know, whether they taught us in church when we were young or was the baseball coach, or you know, those kind of things. It's just a great, it's a great community. Build strong communities if you can keep your kids around.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great community. Um, what are you looking forward to in this session coming up?

SPEAKER_04:

Good question. A little bit more on the public safety stuff. I'm gonna kind of uh I'm working on the other side of um kind of the it's back about housing and and public safety and and homeless is how do we help our people who are um exiting prison and how do we help them um more effectively enter society through training and stuff like that. So uh there's some that's I want to make sure that those people don't become homeless. We're gonna try to solve the back into the where where some of the problem is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've I've recently over the last two years become um well when I ran for governor, I I dug into this a little bit, but um through kind of personal experience, seeing how that goes. Man, the the deck is stacked against people coming out. Let me just tell you. For for whatever they're coming out for, it is stacked against you.

SPEAKER_04:

It is, and it's the sad thing is there's a small window of opportunity if you can grab them. My husband and I just had a gentleman over for dinner and family, and he's recently um recently out of prison, I guess. And he is really trying to change his life right now. He is got a job, he's saving money for, I mean, he's living in a halfway house, but he's about to get out, and the wife is they're they're trying their best right now. And if there's enough people cheering and mentoring and helping him, that changes his life, and it changes the three little kids that are respon that he's responsible for.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's really, really awesome. I um uh I have a good friend, his name's Dwayne Sessions, and he's uh he's like one of the one of the executives for Dennis Dillon.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And um they hire a lot of people, a lot of people that are straight out. That that's part of their program. So I went to lunch with him uh last month and just said, tell me why you do it, how you do it, you know, what are your challenges, what are your opportunities. And I just wanted to listen to what he had to say. He's been doing it for 20 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but but I'm really excited. I think you know, trying to help other companies in this time where we have employment shortages, labor the value of having a job and someone that's going through one of these programs and really trying to redefine their life and saying, hey, I'm ready, I'm here, I'm here to work, I'm here to figure it out. Anyway, it was awesome. He brought a guy with him that, man, I was like chills the whole lunch because this guy's he's one of his leaders over there now. And um, so we need we need more of that. That's awesome. That's great.

SPEAKER_04:

It we do. People just and it can be done. The DAC is the deck is stacked against them, but there is a small moment of opportunity. And if we can catch them in that moment when they come out and they're fresh and they're ready and they've changed and they're clean, yeah, we can change lives. And then they don't end up homeless, they're not camping in their car, their kids are going to school. All of these things happen. So looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Cody, you're awesome. This is great. This has been fun to have you on. I hope uh I hope everyone that listens to this uh can, you know, get to know you and support you and and uh look forward to watching you lead and helping in any way we can. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you. It was my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, everybody.