Main Street Idaho Podcast Episode 11: Senator Geoff Schroeder
“People move out into the country because that’s where they want to live. They don’t want to be bothered... So when cities grow out into the county, or people want to develop, preserving that rural way of life is important.”
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Follow Along With The Transcript
Brennan Summers (00:00):
Welcome to Main Street Podcast, an opportunity to talk to Idaho's elected leaders about the issues that matter to you. Welcome to Main Street, Idaho. We're fortunate today to have a senator, Senator Jeff Schroeder out of District eight. Joining us today. Senator Schroeder, thanks for being on.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:22):
Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Brennan Summers (00:24):
Now, Senator from District eight, for those who might not be incredibly literate at where all the districts are, what exactly is the area that you represent?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (00:34):
District eight is Custer County, valley County, Boise County, and Elmore County. So it's almost 14,000 square miles in the heart of Idaho. It includes, well, I like to claim it's the most scenic district in the state. I claim that I came up with the first representative Blanks. I think she did. So in any event, we have the Sawtooth Mountains, we have McCall and all the national forests in Boise County, Elmore County's beauty. Anyway, that's the
Brennan Summers (01:09):
Wow. And Senator, is that the largest district in Idaho legislative district?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:14):
Largest legislative district in acreage or, yeah, square miles.
Brennan Summers (01:19):
Okay. Well, today we'll have to get into some of the challenges that come with that, but currently you're located in what city?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:25):
I live in Mountain Home and I've lived there for 33 years, and so lived in Mountain Home 33 years. The law firm that I work for is in Boise, but their representation is statewide representing local governments and cities across the state.
Brennan Summers (01:46):
Now, currently in Mount Nom, from what I understand though, born and raised as in Central Idaho. Right. You're local.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (01:54):
I grew up in Cameo, so my parents moved there in 1971. My dad got a job right out of college teaching junior high school in Cameo. So I've lived there since. See, I went kindergarten through 12th grade in and graduated from came. I went to school at the University of Idaho. Had the inevitably, well, maybe not always inevitable, but did not quite as successful as we would've liked first semester spent time working. Returned in 1986 for my first successful semester, and it was at that point that I ran out of the money I had saved to go back to school and join the National Guard to try to pay for school.
Brennan Summers (02:39):
Do you mean to tell me you didn't just max out student loans and hope that the government was going to pay for it?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (02:45):
No, I had to wait until I went to law school to do that. But go through those boxes
Brennan Summers (02:55):
Now. Senator in the I Idaho National Guard. I think that probably gives you some unique experience in the Senate. Why don't you walk us through your decision to join the Idaho National Guard and what that experience was like?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (03:12):
It kind informed the rest of my career in the Guard, and it was, my roommate and I were successful in college. We were having a good time, but we had a tough time finding part-time work. The job market in 1986 in Moscow, Idaho is a lot different than it is now. And so it was difficult. There was a lot of competition for the few jobs that were available. He got a job driving for the bus company. I never did get on with that, but we went into the armory, talked to the recruiter and kind of couldn't. It's like, you kidding? We go to basic and then we get paid and you pay for student loans and you get the GI Bill. Okay. So I remember telling my dad, he's like, well, if you sure you want to do it, it worked. I got a ton of money.
(04:07):
It was still largely the one weekend, a month, two weeks out of the summer sort of a thing. It was really interesting because the Idaho National Guard is, its one 16th engineer battalion has deployed in every major conflict since the Spanish American War. So there were people in our unit that had been in Vietnam in 1988 when I was working there, A gentleman came into the armory named Clifford Ott. He had been in the guard for the Spanish American War and World War I. He foot marched to Boise to get on the train to go deploy to Europe and to, he wasn't in the Spanish American War exit, but poncho, I'm sorry, poncho V and World War I. So wow. The unit crest in Moscow or in the engineer battalion is the key, the castle and the cactus. The key is the key to the city of Angi France from their service in World War I. The castle is the Poncho V and the cactus is Poncho V, and the castle is the Spanish-American war. And so I met a living person who was in the unit I was in when they did the things that led to that unit crest.
Brennan Summers (05:19):
Wow. Now what rich history there when you signed up, did you expect that you also would be participating in active duty conflicts?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (05:29):
So this was the height of the Cold War, 1986. So war meant the end of nuclear winter, all these, because the Soviet Union was the biggest threat to our country. You probably could say they remain that way. They're not the Soviet Union anymore. But
(05:48):
War was kind of a distant thought. It was like, well, probably maybe. But I spent the bulk of my enlistment in the military training to fight the Cold War and training to fight in Europe and basically retraining tactics from the Vietnam War squad tactics through, I was a supply clerk when I first enlisted, but everybody has to know basic infantry tactics. So, but the Idaho Guard played a real important role and still does in their local communities. And my first two week summer camp was to renovate or to take care of the mine tailings from the continental mine in Boundary County, Idaho. So we went and took two week summer Camp Convoy all the way to Bonners Ferry, actually to drive through Canada to get there. And then spent two weeks where the dump trucks and bulldozers that our engineer battalion had took away mine tailings and replaced them with top soil. We'd have to stop occasionally because of grizzly bears. And it was just
(06:56):
Quite an experience working alongside people who have been in Idaho forever and who had been through deployments to Vietnam with this unit, worked themselves working side by side. Glenn Smith, my company Commander John Rug, John Schneider, who was the postmaster in Orino. Those folks all were from that local area and were still in the guard in the eighties. And back to your question about did I anticipate that when the Iraq war came up, John Rod was still in the Idaho National Guard, still in the one 16th engineer Battalion and Lewiston, Martin Tribune did an article about him deploying again to Iraq, and that was part of it.
Brennan Summers (07:39):
And that was what, 20 years later?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:42):
Yeah, 2004.
Brennan Summers (07:43):
Wow. Yeah. And you joined, you also had a deployment in Iraq, correct?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (07:49):
Yes. But at the time the Iraq War hit, I was a recruiter in Mountain Home, had enlisted quite a few people from the town and saw a maintenance unit in Iraq get lost and then get taken prisoner. And I thought that's kind of the same outfit we have in Mountain Home where mechanics, I felt an obligation to make good on the, I was incentivized to join the guard to pay for school and to pay for college, and I did it for that. It became a full-time job, which is a different topic, I guess. But in any event, here I am the recruiter and here are folks who have joined to pay for school and this sort of thing, and now we're actually getting called up to do the thing that we've all trained to do. And I wanted to make sure that I guess I was a part of that and that I was there on the ground to see how it was going and that the skills that you need to be able to survive versus getting lost, knowing how to run a convoy, knowing how to stay in communication with people. I just wanted to make sure that I was a part of making sure those mistakes weren't made. I was watching unfold live on television in front of me.
Brennan Summers (09:13):
So you felt a sense of, call it duty or obligation to actually go over there and serve in the sand?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:22):
Yeah. Northern Iraq isn't asan. It looks a lot, but yeah.
Brennan Summers (09:28):
Yeah. Now that's got to have given you a very unique perspective in serving in the Senate. There's probably not a lot of people in Idaho legislature who have served in the military. There's a few of you. But as a veteran, how has that affected the way that you view policymaking in Idaho?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (09:48):
Well, I think the biggest driving thing that I took away when I left that return from that deployment was an event that occurred right after we arrived, and that was their first set of elections. So Iraqis didn't, under Saddam Hussein didn't have free and fair elections to the extent they had them. The tickets were already marked. You already had, the party had already picked who you got to vote for, and when the party picks who you get to vote for, you don't have very many choices. So you have these elections with 98% or 99 and this sort of thing. And so one of the things that had been set up was for the Iraqis to form their own government, and it required elections at a local level, city elections, precinct elections, to elect the people who would go form the Iraqi constitution. Those elections were the last week of January in 2005, and there was a lot of threat that there would be people who wanted to disrupt those elections, people who wouldn't like the outcome of those elections because the results weren't predicated on skewing who got to be on the ballot.
(11:08):
So you see a lot of ballots with a lot of names hanging up around the city, I guess. And so we were told this is going to be a big event, and there's a huge threat of disruption, people seeking to disrupt the elective process or the results. And so it was kind of an all hands on deck. I was a motor sergeant for the brigade headquarters company. I had 20 mechanics, and they're like, everybody's going out in the city off of our base, and you're all going to backstop the Iraqi police. So instead of American soldiers at polling places, it would be Iraqi police at polling places, but the soldiers would help guard the police stations. And so 12 of my soldiers were on the rooftop of the Kirkuk traffic police building. Another half of my motor pool was on the rooftop of another police building in Iraq for five days.
(12:03):
And we had a front row seat to watch how they conducted those elections and to make sure that people obeyed the curfew and weren't out when driving around after dark when they weren't supposed to. And there was some conflict. But what I took away that I found the most impressive was the morning of the elections. No one could drive anywhere, and everyone was walking and people were coming out of their homes over the threat of actual physical violence. There were people who were threatened, if you vote in this election, we don't want you to participate. And everyone had to stick their fingers in ink when they voted. And so I have a ton of pictures that I took during those five days, and the tail end is a bunch of people with ink stained fingers that would prevent them from voting twice. But people facing the threat of a real threat of violence in a semi chaotic country. Cook is a city of 700,000 people or was in 2005, so it's not a small city, but here they were, I'm going to go vote, because they had the opportunity to vote that they hadn't had for 50 years.
(13:22):
And so for me, voting that, that really sticks with me to this day. People were joking. I took a picture of an Iraqi guy holding his finger up. You can see it on my Facebook page, but every primary election I would put, have you voted? He did. He did when he was threatened to be killed for having that ink stained finger. So when people monkey with elections or election processes, I get a little wound up. And so that's one of the more pivotal things that informs my local elections at the local level are the place where government is the most responsive to the people. They're the most important elections, and it's important that people be able to participate in those.
Brennan Summers (14:13):
Wow. I think that's a fantastic description of the importance of elections and voting. Wow. I'm moved by that. I appreciate you sharing that experience. I know our veterans are not always in a place to share their experiences of what happened over there, but wow, what a great message there. Let's talk about local elections, right? So you've taught us about the importance of voting and what some have been willing to do to get to the ballot box. You served in local government, correct? You were on the city council?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (14:40):
Yes. So right after I retired, there was a mountain home city council election, and I had decided to run, I'd been again, I lived there for the Guard, moved me there in 1990. So I've lived there for now 33 years. But when I first got there, there was this little camera eight local access channel that would come and set up and film city council meetings. So I got invited to participate with that channel, and so I ended up attending a lot of city council meetings just to film it and then later edit the tape or play the tape for folks. Now we have YouTube and live streaming, so that thing is a little outdated, but I've been involved and known mayors of city council people through the years. And so I thought, sure, I could step in and offer some insight now that I'm free of the limitations of military service.
(15:38):
So I did. I ran and I won and got elected and really enjoyed that time on the council. I decided to finish the degree that I had started. So my 20 year army career took me outside of that for a while. So I was working part-time and I decided to stop the city council participation and kind of focused on getting that undergraduate degree finished. So I spent two years off the council, and in that time I was working as a consultant, partly for a project for finishing my undergrad degree. And then they hired me for this law firm. So prior to going to law school, and the reason I'm telling this is one of the projects was go to Glens Ferry and help them rewrite their comp plan for zoning. I had not done it before. Susan Buckin, who's now the state parks and rec director, was the attorney for Glens Ferry at the time.
(16:38):
And she put me on that project, and I had to help shepherd this council and mayor through just as an assistant on the legal part of it, the actual practice of law. Of course the firm did. But I attended the p and z meetings and attended the council meetings to walk through each of the chapters of the comp plan. And what I noticed going to this meeting was this was the first time I dealt with the city council other than one I had served on, and I started to miss it a lot. I was like, here are these people, and here's the part that really struck me. Then when I first saw it, I was at one of their meetings and they were debating their budget, and they were debating a budget about how much to pay the librarian and should it be this much, should it be this much more?
(17:26):
But I realized here we are on a Tuesday night, it's eight 30, and here are this group of four people and a mayor, and then there's city staff, and they're all sitting here doing their level best to try to keep this city running, to try to keep the streets paved, to keep the library open, to run a water treatment facility, a wastewater treatment plant. These are all largely volunteers. They're paid very little, but they're putting their heart and soul and they're putting their effort into how best to run a city. And it was then that I realized that there's not much difference from one city to another when it comes to the role of that government and the way folks on these city councils treat their responsibility. They're devoted to it. They're passionate about it. It certainly creates conflict in some places, some more aggravated than others. But I realized that this is the heart of our society that are local governments really are where the action is and where you have the most access and the most influence in making sure that the outcome is that what you want. We need an ordinance to do X or Y or Z. So as a result of that, I ran for a second term on the city council and finished most of it, and then resigned right at the tail end. So anyway.
Brennan Summers (18:53):
So Senator, you describe the impact of local elected leaders and how much they can do in their devotion. Many, I mean, what percentage of Idahoans do you think can name their city counselors though?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:08):
I don't know. I think there's a lot. I've thought about this a bit, and it comes up a lot, which is one of the reasons I ran. When you talk about cities in Idaho, there are 200 of them,
Brennan Summers (19:27):
200,
Senator Geoff Schroeder (19:28):
200 cities, or one depending on, I think one dis incorporated. I'm not sure the Association of Cities could, but you have the big ones. So you have cities of 10,000 or higher. Mountain home is in that group. There's 23 cities of the 199 that have more than 10,000 people in them, 23 of those cities. But when you get down to those 200, yeah, everyone knows their city council person. Everyone knows their mayor because you run into 'em at the post office, you run into 'em at the grocery store, you go to Thanksgiving dinner with them. Clayton has 14 people. I would suspect that a Thanksgiving dinner would require public notice. It's a city, an attorney in our office represents. But
Brennan Summers (20:18):
Wow, 14 people. You said 14 people in Clayton.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:22):
Yes.
Brennan Summers (20:23):
And is that the smallest city in Idaho?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (20:25):
It's not. I think Warm River. I was just looking this up a little bit earlier today, but here's the important part. There are 23 cities over 10,000. There's 11 from five to 10,000, and then 27 cities from two to 5,000, 22 from 1000 to 2000. And here's 43 cities from 500 to a thousand and another 40 cities from 200 to 536 are below 200. So
(21:05):
When it comes to city government in Idaho, it's all rural by count of cities. And so this gets to another, probably a little more technical topic inside baseball or local government thing. But anyway, the idea that cities exist to under a mandate from the constitution for police power and to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens, they incorporate for a reason to deliver services to the citizens and to help govern and regulate their conduct amongst people who are living in a small area versus scattered out in the countryside like where I grew up eight miles out of town.
(21:55):
So what you end up having, and I think what's reflected in some of my literature about why I decided to run is you have these great big cities that have maybe an inaccessible government, maybe the top five or six aren't, they have so many people in that city that the government isn't, the city councilman isn't ready to answer the phone at a moment's notice, but they're the ones that end up, they're the punching bag for what people perceive to be problems with local government, particularly with respect to spending and overspending and property taxes. Oh, these cities are out of control. They're spending so much money. Well, there's a whole bunch of process baked into adopting a budget and spending money. And so the notion that that city governments are out of touch with their constituents might hold true for the top 15 or 10 cities. Maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. But I can tell you, as someone who is in the trenches with these cities every single day, the cities that are the bottom tier of this, which is the bulk of the cities in Idaho, 22 plus 43, plus 40 plus 36 or below 2000, that those people are spending exactly as much money as their constituents want them to spend.
Brennan Summers (23:17):
So Senator, how does that affect what you've been doing in the Senate? Because you talk about wanting to run to kind of bolster local government and fight for the little guy in Boise's capitol. How has that affected what you're doing in the Senate?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (23:32):
Well, the ability of a little city to do the things that it needs to do to function as a city is there by this kind of hybridized grant of power. So in legal realm, a city, you have what's called the Dillon's rural state where cities or local governments have only that power granted by the state, or you have home rural states and Idaho is kind of different. So you have a police power. Granted, my concern has been, and I've seen over the years from my first term on the city council and through now efforts to go in and restrain the powers of local governments to do things, and particularly the powers of cities. And those come as a result of some large city having some zoning ordinance or some ordinance that someone runs afoul of, or we had this come up this session. So back in, I dunno, the late nineties, early two thousands, one of the largest cities in Ada County annexed without permission or without consent, a bunch of people.
(24:40):
And that turned into an annexation statute that we live with to this day. That is Byzantine would be one way to describe it, but it's very difficult to navigate to understand category A, category B, category C. And so there are efforts to try to simplify that. There are efforts to try to reign in other areas that cities can do. I remember in 2015 or 16, the statute was passed. You can't, cities can't regulate garbage bags, minimum wage, I don't know. You name it. Every year there's something that we don't want cities to do, and the targets are always directed at these big cities. Well, the problem is that who has to live with that? Who has to live with those restrictions are the tiny ones as well, where the problem doesn't exist. We wouldn't have thought of banning garbage bags. Who cares? And those examples are a little less problematic.
(25:41):
It doesn't matter. But there's other ones that direct how cities adopt budget, how cities are funded, that when your target is the big guy, you're accidentally getting the little guy. So when you restrict growth to a certain percentage or a budget to a certain percentage, and you restrict services to a certain percentage, well that affect a tiny city a great deal more than it will a big city. So 8%, if I want to add 30 houses to a city and I need and a 30 home subdivision to a city, if that's more than 8% of the total homes in the city, then I'm going to have a problem getting my budget grown enough to deliver the same level of service they had before.
Brennan Summers (26:30):
Right? So I think anyone listening can't question your passion or understanding of these local issues. And clearly that's one of the reasons why you ran. So we've talked a lot about the connection here between city and rural and these small incorporated cities and the way that plays out. You talked earlier about such a vast and diverse district and District eight. Why don't you, as we're running out of time quickly, but why don't you give us a couple examples of the issues that you're hearing about and that you're seeing in District eight as it's so big and so many issues. Give us a few examples of some of the challenges that your constituents are facing.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:09):
Well, we have a huge diversity. So we have a very agricultural dependent component in Elmore County where there's the dependent on water is just a tremendous issue.
Brennan Summers (27:25):
Sure.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (27:26):
We have rural farms in Custer County as well that require irrigation and irrigation water and water rights. We have in Valley County and in Custer County and Valley County, both have tremendous mining resources and mineral resources. And those are under constant scrutiny to make sure that they comply with environmental regulations before they can either cause of harm or a detriment. And so you're balancing the needs of the country to produce minerals and the need of the county to have a bustling economy and to provide, but to not be at odds with, for example, the tremendous recreation and scenic values in the city of McCall or the city, city of Cascade. And so those are tough to wrestle with. Should this mine be approved, is it going to have the effect that the folks claim that it will?
(28:32):
And then, yes, preserving the rural way of life, people move out into the country because that's where they want to live. They don't want to be bothered. They want to be able to shoot out the back door like I did where I was growing up. We make sure no one's behind us, but we lived miles from other people. So when cities grow out into the county or people want to develop those, that rural way of life is important. I grew up in a rural situation. If I was expecting my rural lifestyle and all of a sudden it's encroached by a city or by other growth from my neighbor next door, maybe not in a city, it would concern me. And so those growing pains are prevalent in Valley and Elmore counties to some extent in Boise County as well. The demands of growth of population on emergency medical services in Boise County, the recreation folks in these counties, and particularly in Valley County. How do you fund that? And there's an effort now that I've seen people criticize, but a statewide solution to E SS funding I think is necessary given some property tax value limitations and the expense of medical service in Arbor area.
Brennan Summers (29:49):
Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt when you look at these conflicting interests at times and a vocal constituency, you've definitely got your job cut out for you as you figure out what we need to do in those regards. As we're wrapping up, there's a couple of questions I have to ask all of our guests and you with your unique background, I've got to ask you a couple. The first one, if there's a book that you would recommend that everyone out there reads, what book would it be?
Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:25):
Oh boy. I have an answer, but I'm not going to answer it. Okay. Well, this came up on a Twitter. This book passed away recently as a philosopher. I have a philosophy degree. His name's Harry Frankfort.
Brennan Summers (30:41):
Okay.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (30:42):
He wrote a book. It's very small and the title is fun, but don't be fooled by the title. It is a piece of scholarly work. But the title by philosopher Harry, the book by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, is called On Bullshit. And it describes the difference between truth and lies, and then this other notion and this third thing, which is the title of the book is A Greater Enemy of the Truth than is a lie. And he does a stunning job of it, and I really think more people ought to read it.
Brennan Summers (31:18):
Fantastic. Maybe not a bedtime story for the kids, but definitely one that some of your coworkers, and
Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:24):
For someone just talking around something besides giving you an answer that can be verified or falsified,
Brennan Summers (31:31):
Fair, best place to eat in your district. Now your district is massive, so if you could possibly choose one or two places,
Senator Geoff Schroeder (31:39):
I wouldn't do justice. I will tell you this. Before I had the district and was a senator, before I was a senator, I would have to go to, I'm the city attorney for the City of Crouch, and our firm is a city attorney for Horseshoe Bend. So Sonora Mexican Grill and Horseshoe Bend. It's a great place to stop and get an enchilada. That's one that end of the district. There are so many more, but
Brennan Summers (32:10):
We will take that one and then we'll atric it with so many more. As Senator, we started today talking about your time signing up in the National Guard, the way you felt an obligation to go serve, and your very compelling story about the importance of voting. We got into some of these local government issues, your time on the city council, the unsung heroes that have so much impact and a call to serve in local government where possible. And talked about how that's affected not only your reason to run for the Senate, but also the issues you've been carrying then you went through quickly, but a list of a lot of issues that your district is experiencing, and with this historic growth, everything going on, you gave us a great book recommendation and a good Mexican restaurant. Senator, we've appreciated your time with us today as we depart some last minute words of maybe anything you'd like to leave us with.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (32:59):
Well, I think one of the more important jobs that I have is to listen. There's a lot of us there that like to talk. I have a lot to say, but if I don't stop and listen and if I don't listen carefully to what someone is saying, so people leave me voicemails, I listen to 'em, I try to call 'em back, but I try to listen and listen for what it is that I'm being asked, and whether that's a person who's advocating for a piece of legislation, a colleague, but I try to listen carefully to what people are saying. And so if you don't think I'm listening, maybe I've missed it and I'm not, and maybe I'm jumping to talking, but I prefer to listen first, listen carefully, and then offer what it is that I have to say.
Brennan Summers (33:46):
Fantastic. Well, anybody listening now, that's an open invitation to reach out if you're in District eight to Senator Jeff Schroeder. Again, district eight. He's open and willing to listen to anything you've got to say to him. Senator, again, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to have to have you back on. Okay? Okay.
Senator Geoff Schroeder (34:02):
Thank you.
Brennan Summers (34:03):
Thanks, Senator.
