A longtime Boise politician lost her seat on ACHD’s board. Now she’s taking on the winner

As the November election season creeps closer, a battle is already brewing for three seats on the Ada County Highway District Commission — the powerful agency that controls the ever-growing county’s roads.

The highlight is a rematch between former ACHD Commissioner Rebecca Arnold , the county assessor and a longtime figure in Boise-area politics, and the incumbent commission president, Alexis Pickering, the executive director of Conservation Voters for Idaho.

Arnold served the commission for 16 years and lost in 2020 to Pickering, then a newcomer to politics, by two votes. After a recount, Pickering’s margin grew to four votes .

Arnold sued Pickering and two Ada County officials after the recount, alleging that ballots were not counted properly, the Idaho Statesman reported . She asked for a second recount and that some votes be thrown out. Her lawsuit was dismissed.

Arnold was the highway district’s longest-serving commissioner, having been elected in 2004 and re-elected three times. A lawyer and an accountant who lives on the Boise Bench, she stayed on the highway commission as she ran for other offices: a 4th District judgeship in 2014, lieutenant governor in 2018 briefly before dropping out, and Boise mayor in 2019, where she finished third in a four-way race.

(Second place went to the incumbent, David Bieter, who was unhappy with ACHD and called Arnold “one of the most contentious public servants that I’ve ever been around.” Arnold said she’d improve the city’s relationship with ACHD if she replaced Bieter. Lauren McLean beat them both.)

When she ran for county assessor in 2022, Arnold defeated Eric S. Berg, chair of the Ada County Democrats , in a Republican sweep of county offices. She raised $43,000 , while he raised too little to meet the legal threshold for reporting campaign contributions. Arnold succeeded the ever-popular Robert McQuade, who was elected in 1994 and re-elected six times before retiring.

Arnold’s and Pickering’s campaigns for ACHD’s 2nd District seat present an ideological contest, with Arnold pushing for more car-centric infrastructure and Pickering pushing for a variety of transportation options.

Of the five ACHD districts, the 2nd is the most central geographically, covering the West Bench and most of Garden City. It runs from Eagle Road in the west to the Boise River in the east and north, bordering Interstate 84 and Franklin Road to the south.

Two other seats are also up for election this year, including incumbent and former lawyer Jim Hansen’s seat in the 1st District, which covers the Bench, South and Southeast Boise to the eastern edge of Ada County. Dave McKinney, a former civil engineer, is running unopposed to keep his seat representing the 5th District, which extends from southern Eagle to central Meridian.

Each elected official serves four-year terms on the part-time, nonpartisan board of commissioners. Elected ACHD commissioners earned about $27,000 in 2023, with the commission president earning more, according to prior Statesman reporting. Most have other jobs outside of their roles on the board.

“I’ve been pretty concerned about the direction the commission has taken,” Arnold told the Statesman by phone. “I think they’ve gone really off track from the ACHD mission.”

Arnold said she decided to run again when the commissioners canceled a long-standing State Street project that the agency had developed in collaboration with other organizations including Valley Regional Transit. Arnold said the new plan the commission came up with would cost taxpayers at least $1 million to design alone, cut capacity for drivers in half and create more congestion on the traffic-heavy thoroughfare.

“Creating a bottleneck on State Street, it just doesn’t make sense,” Arnold said. “That was the last straw for me.”

The approved State Street project would shrink the street from its current four lanes to three lanes between 8th Street and 14th Street to make room for protected turn lanes, wider sidewalks and new safety features for pedestrians. The stretch runs east from Fanci Freez past the YMCA to the northwestern corner of the Capitol grounds.

The planned changes followed a spate of pedestrian and cyclist deaths in or near the street in 2023. Four people were hit by vehicles at the 11th and State intersection next to the YMCA — and one person died .

A truck driver also struck and killed a teenager on a skateboard at the 16th and Washington crosswalk next to the State Street Albertsons just over a year ago.

“This is one of the deadliest years on our roads in Ada County history, and it has to stop,” Pickering said at the time .

The State Street changes would coincide with the planned redevelopment of three city blocks on State with a new YMCA, a parking garage and two or three apartment buildings.

Arnold intends to remain in her role as the Ada County assessor if voters re-elect her to the ACHD board. Arnold had a salary of just over $125,000 as the county assessor in 2023, according to prior Statesman reporting .

Pickering earned about $32,000 in 2023 as the commission chair for ACHD.

Pickering did not return several calls requesting comment for this story.

A third candidate, Robert Seymour, withdrew his candidacy for the seat on Tuesday.

An opening for new ACHD commissioners

The race for the 2nd District is not the only story line in the ACHD election.

Hansen, a prominent local politician who served in the Legislature for six years and on the ACHD board of commissioners for 12, is not seeking reelection.

He chaired the Idaho Democratic Party and founded United Vision for Idaho, a progressive organization focused on, among other things, increasing voter turnout. His father, Orval Hansen , a Republican, served three terms in the U.S. House representing Eastern Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District.

Hansen’s seat is being sought by Antonio Bommarito, the founder and president of Boise’s Brim Real Estate Management ; and Patricia Nilsson, a retired land use planner who worked for Canyon County and the city of Boise.

For Hansen, three four-year terms on the commission were more than enough. He was elected first in 2012 and reelected in 2016 and 2020.

“Three terms. Twelve years. I’m turning 65 — why on Earth would one stay longer than that?” Hansen said by phone. “(There are) lots of good people who could run and serve in public office, and (I) always like to see that happen.”

Hansen said no elected office in Idaho has term limits, and that when he ran for his third term, he made it clear that nobody should serve in public office for more than 10 or 12 years.

“I’m ready to go on and do other stuff,” Hansen said.

He has already thrown his support behind Nilsson and is acting as the treasurer for her campaign.

“She’s really smart,” Hansen said. “She’s smarter than me.”

While Arnold sees the commission heading in the wrong direction, Hansen says it’s moving in the right direction.

“(I’m) a huge fan of Alexis Pickering and (Commissioner) Miranda Gold,” Hansen said. “They’re doing a superb job.”

More work to be done for Ada County roads

Hansen had advice for any newcomers to the commission, most notably that ACHD is beholden to how cities want to develop their roadways, not the other way around.

“The cities have to decide what their land uses are,” Hansen said. “Each city has different priorities. … You don’t let one perspective veto the other.”

He said local businesses with the strongest customer base almost always were the most accessible for people.

“We’re not just about one mode of transportation,” Hansen said. “We have to manage it for all uses.”

Business and Local Government Editor David Staats contributed.

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