Voter Guide: Jeff Alldridge

• Website: https://jeff4if.com/
• Facebook: @jeff4if or https://www.facebook.com/jeff4if
• Twitter: https://x.com/jeff4if
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeff4if/

Interview Transcript:

Reporter
So can you go ahead and tell me about what it first inspired you to run for mayor?
Aldridge
Oh, that's a good question. I had no intentions of ever running for public office. It was something that just kind of happened. What I realize is that many people are disconnected with city government, and. And, it wasn't till, I don't know, maybe I speak up too much or something. I was working one day, and my wife, said, hey, send me a text message like, hey, you need to run for mayor. And I just wrote back because, ha ha, back at her. And she's like, no, seriously, everybody's ready to back you. So I started to disqualify myself. It was until I started looking into it and it's like, yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of the reason why we have the leadership and, and politicians. We have this because good people aren't stepping up.

Alldridge
And so I decided, like, what's what's my reasoning for not doing it. And and so that's, that's how I kind of got into it. There needs to be I want to try to restore, faith and trust with the city government and the people and, try to do policies that, that match what the citizens want rather than the ideology that the current, leadership is pushing.

Reporter
You know, that leads me to my next question, a bit more about, like, what you'd like to accomplish or change if you are elected?

Alldridge
Oh, yeah. So what I would like to accomplish, and, if I was elected is to the biggest one is to restore that trust within, with the city leadership and the people. There was a recent survey that the city put out. It was the livability survey that came out in January. And, they published the results in May, and it said that 74% of the city has a favorable rating for city employees, but only a 46% approval rating for city leadership.

Alldridge
So there's a huge trust gap there. And you see that, too, if you go to, go physically to a city council meeting or you watch it online, there's maybe eight, ten people in there of a city that it's almost 70,000 people. To have that much disengagement with the city leadership is is atrocious. And we've seen how, the city is just doing what they want. And it's only until there's a big enough outcry that they even change anything. The downtown city parking is a great example of that, where they were all on board to push through this downtown paid parking. If you watch the July 28th, City Council working session, they were ready to put it on the agenda and approve it so that it would go in on October 1st. And it wasn't until local businesses and local residents got wind of it and, showed their their total disdain for it, that the city even backed up. And so that's what we need is, is, is an informed citizenry. Now, if the city leadership was had a better relationship with the citizens, it should never have gotten to this point. They would have known that this is something that the local businesses, in downtown and the local residents do not want for their city. It shouldn't have to come to this exploding point.

Reporter
Kind of like any kind of relationship, you know, having that continuous communication. Yep. Now we're having, like, big surprises that will bring, like you said, explosion. Yep. Yep. Gotcha. Well, how would you like to go about doing that? Like, make sure that you maintain or even, in this case, possibly create that kind of relationship with the citizens?

Alldridge
Yeah. So there's some easy, low-hanging fruit that we can do to encourage engagement. For one thing, even though I go on to the city website all the time to look up things, and even I have a hard time remembering. Wait, where do I find the recording of that working session or that city council meeting and what we should do is even just have all these, when they're live. Just let's just put on YouTube. You can subscribe to the Idaho Falls, city YouTube channel. And, you know, whenever there is a live session going on, you can watch it. It's easy. Easy to find. It's easy. Easy to discover. So that's a that's a low hanging fruit way that we can, foster engagement. Another thing is just to actually listen to people. There's too many times I've heard, citizens that come to me and talk about how they, you know, they talk to the current mayor, they talk to city council, and it just went on deaf ears. So they don't care that there's disdain. And even as I've been running for mayor, I've had people contact me. And and currently I'm just a citizen. I'm just, you know, trying to run for mayor. And I've been getting calls is like, hey, can you come out? I love to show you. I can you walk around my neighborhood with me. I love to show you what's what's happening or what's not happening. That's neglect from the city. And it's incredible to hear these stories. And that they're not they're not getting or receiving the same engagement with the current city leadership.

Reporter
Well, as you've been going through your campaign, how are you feeling about it so far?

Alldridge
I'm feeling incredibly, incredibly excited about it. What we've seen online, there's this natural momentum because people want new leadership. People don't want more of the same. And and my campaign is really that it's an opportunity for new leadership that Idaho Falls deserves.

Reporter
Excellent. Yeah. I saw your, Facebook page was like, what was the exact phrasing? Jeff Eldridge is running for.

Alldridge
Yeah. Yeah. It's easy to find. Hey, Jeff, if I get my last name spelled wrong all the time. So it's a little bit easier just to say. Hey, you just gotta remember Jeffrey F Jefferson.

Reporter
Nice approach.

Alldridge
Yeah. Thank you.

Reporter
Let's see. One thing I do want to ask is, have you heard any kind of, like, much of an experience with politics in the past?

Alldridge
I've always been engaged in politics, but I never planned on being part of politics. And so I've always been interested because I want to be an informed citizen. But I've never run for political office before. I've my my training and my background and my career trajectory has always been in the private sector. And that's one thing I'm actually looking forward to, is, is bringing in a unique perspective from a businessman and bringing in those best practices that we have, through, like my publicly traded company that they've invested in me to find those, those best practices and apply them, within city government and city leadership.

Reporter
That does seem to be the main questions that I have. Yeah. At this point, is there anything else that you'd like to cover? Anything else you'd like viewers to know?

Alldridge
Oh yeah, that would be great. You know, the biggest thing I want to do, in this campaign is just raise awareness, try to get people engaged in city politics where nearly 70,000 people in Idaho Falls. There's 26,000 registered voters. And in city elections, it's about 10,000 voters. Actually vote. So 5000 people, 5000 voters are what determines what our city government does. And this is direct. This is this is as close as it can get to affecting you and me and our families. And so what I would love for people to do is to get engaged. A lot of people might think that their vote doesn't matter, but when it comes down to just 5000 votes, it really matters. And those 16,000 people who are registered voters, who choose not to engage like that, would really ask them to step it up, like learn who the candidates are this year, get engaged and, and vote.

Reporter
Right. This isn't like a presidential election with no people. These are just a few thousand.

Alldridge
Yep. Right. Yeah.

Reporter
Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to say?

Alldridge
Yeah. The one the the other big things that I really want to try to, push is just pushing back on the chaotic growth that we've been seeing. I think everybody recognize that. Nobody's happy with it. Even the survey that the city, put out, was somewhere in 24 to 30% actually approve of the city plan as they're developing. So what we're seeing is chaotic growth. And what we need is strategic growth. We need to make sure that as we are growing as a city, that we're not disturbing or disrupting, the current residents who live here. When people invest into this community, they they should expect that the city is not going to put, high density development right next to their established neighborhood. Now, there's definitely a time and place for high density, rentals in that, you know, Jackson Hole Junction and and snake River landing are perfect examples for that because you can build the infrastructure, you can build the amenities, you can make it purposeful for that type of living without disturbing the existing, legacy neighborhoods. And then also as we're growing and as we're approving zoning, what we need to do is start making it, start approving zoning that makes homeownership more attainable. I mean, meaning starter homes, meaning owner occupied areas so that, young people and families can can start that pathway of homeownership to build equity, to invest in themselves and invest in the community.