5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in ?

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Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

Idaho's appeal is drawing out-of-staters here in droves - particularly Californi Because there are so many of them here, we wanted to hear from you about whether Californians are welcome in Idaho. As we found out, it depends who you talk to.

BOISE -- The secret is out: The hidden gem is no longer hidden.

Idaho's appeal is drawing out-of-staters here in droves - particularly Californians. It might seem more apparent now for a number of reasons, but we've been talking about whether Californians are taking o Idaho for years.

KTVB's Morgan Boydston went out into the community to get a feel of what Idahoans and transplants think about Californiacation.

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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 1/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

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The Golden State exodus has been landing on Idaho's soil for decades. Because there are so many of here, we wanted to hear from you about whether Californians are welcome in Idaho. As we found out, depends who you talk to. And do Californians feel like they're welcome? Some tell us people will give eye-rolls when they tell where they're from, others might make a sarcastic comment, but for the most p California transplants tell us they do feel welcome because we live in such a welcoming community.

"The first reaction is just always the same; it's 'ew'," Patrick Crewdson, who recently moved to Boise fro San Diego, told us, "because we're invading. Because no one wants to live in California because it's so expensive. So it's cheap here so why not live here?"

"The quality of life here is exceptional," April Neale, from Calabasas, Calif., said. "Not one negative experience. I can't believe what an incredibly gracious and lovely place this is."

"[It's] cheaper, way cheaper. You can't live in California, are you kidding me? It's like for the same price brand new apartment you can get a 70-year-old apartment in California that's infested with cockroache Crewdson said, "I was just interested to go somewhere where I could be more outdoorsy."

"We were living paycheck to paycheck just on rent down there, and now we have a house, we were a pay for our wedding. So it's a lot different," Marina Strong, who moved here with her husband four yea ago, said. "Someone when we first moved here actually told us not to tell people we were from Califor But then I kind of feel like the more people we talk to they're like, oh yeah, we're from California too. W never had any bad reactions."

"We make all of these different lists so people are moving here," Kerri Ohara, a Realtor with Boise Regi Realtors who specializes in relocations, told KTVB. "They want to move to Boise because they want to part of what Boise has to offer."

"It started not feeling like home. It just didn't feel like it did 20 or 30 years ago in Los Angeles. And the opportunity was here," Neale added.

Now Idaho is feeling like home for a lot of Californians. If you look at the numbers, of all the people mo into Idaho from out of state, most of them hail from California. The U.S. Census Bureau 2016 American Community Survey shows about 80,000 new Idaho residents in 2016; of those, 17,000 (21 percent) we from California. state followed with 9,300 people.

ITD Copy of DL Migration by State and Age 2015-2018 Ytd (002) by Sean Deter on Scribd

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 2/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

Net surrenders of drivers licenses an identification cards, 2017 Compares out of state surrenders in Idaho (IN) with Idaho license surrenders in other states (OUT)

20 and younger 21 - 30 IN OUT Net IN OUT Gain United States ALABAMA 10 7 3 54 16 ALASKA 36 10 26 198 60 ALB ERTA 0 0 0 5 0 AMERICAN SAMOA 1 0 1 1 0 (ISLANDS) ARIZONA 65 10 55 519 100 ARKANSAS 11 1 10 57 2 BRITISH COLUMBIA 0 0 0 3 0 CALIFORNIA 252 2 250 2723 145 CDLIS - PSEUDO STATE 0 0 0 0 0 40 10 30 508 103 CONNECTICUT 0 1 -1 26 11 DELAWARE 2 1 1 6 1 DIST OF COLUMBIA 0 0 0 3 14 FEDERATED STATES OF 0 0 0 0 0 MICRONESIA FLORIDA 19 21 -2 229 164 GEORGIA 9 12 -3 153 111 GUAM 2 0 2 6 0 HAWAII 9 0 9 71 41 ILLINOIS 13 8 5 175 83 INDIANA 8 0 8 93 1 IOWA 11 0 11 89 2 KANSAS 12 3 9 110 49 KENTUCKY 1 3 2 63 48

Boydston, Morgan

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 3/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

Boydston, Morgan

When we asked folks if all these Californians are welcome in Idaho, we heard mixed responses.

"Do they feel welcome? Yes, I would think so because they move in and they treat it like they've lived their entire lives. But the problem is they're stepping on a lot of people's toes who have lived here the entire lives," one native Idahoan, Justin Johnson, said. "What we notice is there's a huge surplus of the that come here... It creates a lot of animosity towards Californians from Idahoans, and vice versa."

Johnson's advice for Californians moving to Idaho: Dump that California license plate.

"Do your research first, know what you're going to walk into. Do attempt to assimilate within the cultur you've got to leave some of those bad habits of California behind: the speeding, the tailgating."

"I'm OK with it. I think they need to remember they left California for a reason so don't come to Idaho a try to make Idaho like what they're used to. But I think Idaho is a great state and I'm happy to share it w anyone who wants to come and see it," native Idahoan Trina Bowen added.

"Whatever group happens to be the highest in transition somewhere is always going to be the group t gets picked on. It's just the nature of the beast," David Wali, who moved to Idaho from California three decades ago, told KTVB. "The Northwest and West has always had a kind of anti-California twist to it. Y see it in , Oregon, Washington, we saw it here in Idaho when I first got here."

Wali says the growth and influx of Californians seems more in-your-face now because of social media technology.

"But you definitely see it from multi-generational Idahoans that say, 'Hey, wait a second, you're coming my town,'" Wali added.

"There's a lot of negative things you can associate with California," one California transplant, Kieran Macintyre, said.

"I feel like the people that are moving here don't have a respect or a reverence for the land that - it alm brings tears to my eyes - the people who were born and raised here. Because that's what makes Idaho Idaho," native Idahoan Debbie Florence said. "I feel like we're losing our small town values, we're losin space, we're losing our land."

Florence believes for the most part, natives want Californians to stop coming.

"They keep driving up our rental prices, our housing prices," she said. "If they came here and perhaps have a sense of entitlement, if they came here and didn't try to impose their values on us, maybe if the weren't driving up our cost, maybe if it wasn't affecting us so badly then it wouldn't be so bad," Florenc added.

"Well, certainly they're welcome. We've been talking about this for the last 50 years and, you know, we heard people talk about Californication and all that kind of stuff but I think that we've brought a lot of talented people in, gives some diversity to our population," Idaho native and former Idaho Supreme Co Chief Justice Jim Jones told KTVB, "Sometimes you feel like maybe some of the things they bring with them are not great but it's a country that I think is better served by diversity so I welcome them."

Our population is growing exponentially, increasing 2.2 percent from 2016 to 2017, which was the faste rate in the country.

A closer look at the data shows people moving into the Treasure Valley from California are most likely the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area. In a top-10 list of metro-to-metro areas compiled by U.S. Census Bureau and provided to us by the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho (COMPASS), there are four other California metro areas, including Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, S Francisco-Oakland, Hayward, San Diego-Carlsbad, and Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade.

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 4/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

Boydston, Morgan

Last year alone, Idaho Transportation Department data shows 11,797 people surrendered their Californ licenses and identification cards in Idaho - up from the year before when there were 10,682 surrender The age group surrendering the most California ID's for Idaho ID's were folks 61 years of age and olde followed by people ages 21-30 years old.

Data shows Ada County saw the highest influx of California transplants last year, followed by Kootenai Canyon counties.

ITD Copy of DL Migration by State and Age 2015-2018 Ytd (002) by Sean Deter on Scribd

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 5/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho?

Net surrenders of drivers licenses an identification cards, 2017 Compares out of state surrenders in Idaho (IN) with Idaho license surrenders in other states (OUT)

20 and younger 21 - 30 IN OUT Net IN OUT Gain United States ALABAMA 10 7 3 54 16 ALASKA 36 10 26 198 60 ALB ERTA 0 0 0 5 0 AMERICAN SAMOA 1 0 1 1 0 (ISLANDS) ARIZONA 65 10 55 519 100 ARKANSAS 11 1 10 57 2 BRITISH COLUMBIA 0 0 0 3 0 CALIFORNIA 252 2 250 2723 145 CDLIS - PSEUDO STATE 0 0 0 0 0 COLORADO 40 10 30 508 103 CONNECTICUT 0 1 -1 26 11 DELAWARE 2 1 1 6 1 DIST OF COLUMBIA 0 0 0 3 14 FEDERATED STATES OF 0 0 0 0 0 MICRONESIA FLORIDA 19 21 -2 229 164 GEORGIA 9 12 -3 153 111 GUAM 2 0 2 6 0 HAWAII 9 0 9 71 41 ILLINOIS 13 8 5 175 83 INDIANA 8 0 8 93 1 IOWA 11 0 11 89 2 KANSAS 12 3 9 110 49 KENTUCKY 1 3 2 63 48 Ada County ITD Copy of Migrating Into State (003) by Sean Deter on Scribd

2015 2016 2017 MIG/IN MIG/IN MIG/IN 2016/2017 % of Total for % of Total ADA ADA ADA % chg Country/Region for All ALABAMA 6 11 13 18.2% 0.3% 0.3% ALASKA 43 55 33 -40.0% 0.7% 0.7% APO-FPO AMERICAS 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% APO-FPO EUROPE- 0 0 0 CANDA 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% APO-FPO PACIFIC 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% ARIZONA 247 214 235 9.8% 4.9% 4.9% ARKANSAS 10 14 15 7.1% 0.3% 0.3% CALIFORNIA 1197 1507 1626 7.9% 34.1% 33.9% COLORADO 154 179 195 8.9% 4.1% 4.1% CONNECTICUT 5 13 7 -46.2% 0.1% 0.1% DELAWARE 3 2 1 -50.0% 0.0% 0.0% DIST OF COLUMBIA 4 1 4 300.0% 0.1% 0.1% FLORIDA 98 80 94 17.5% 2.0% 2.0% GEORGIA 41 42 31 -26.2% 0.7% 0.6% GUAM 1 0 1 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% HAWAII 26 20 24 20.0% 0.5% 0.5% IDAHO 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% ILLINOIS 56 70 79 12.9% 1.7% 1.6% INDIANA 30 37 38 2.7% 0.8% 0.8% IOWA 19 32 20 -37.5% 0.4% 0.4% KANSAS 14 26 33 26.9% 0.7% 0.7% KENTUCKY 15 17 11 -35.3% 0.2% 0.2% LOUISIANA 8 6 12 100.0% 0.3% 0.3% MAINE 7 5 2 -60.0% 0.0% 0.0% MARSHALL ISLANDS 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% MARYLAND 32 25 24 -4.0% 0.5% 0.5% MASSACHUSETTS 22 16 25 56.3% 0.5% 0.5% MICHIGAN 35 38 44 15.8% 0.9% 0.9% MINNESOTA 45 44 52 18.2% 1.1% 1.1% MISSISSIPPI 7 7 4 -42.9% 0.1% 0.1% MISSOURI 23 32 32 0.0% 0.7% 0.7% MONTANA 83 74 62 -16.2% 1.3% 1.3% NEBRASKA 15 21 16 -23.8% 0.3% 0.3% 145 155 166 7.1% 3.5% 3.5% NEW HAMPSHIRE 9 9 12 33.3% 0.3% 0.3% NEW JERSEY 19 25 14 -44.0% 0.3% 0.3% 55 46 29 -37.0% 0.6% 0.6% NEW YORK 48 37 43 16.2% 0.9% 0.9% NORTH CAROLINA 47 48 64 33.3% 1.3% 1.3% NORTH DAKOTA 26 43 29 -32.6% 0.6% 0.6% OHIO 30 43 49 14.0% 1.0% 1.0% 24 22 20 -9.1% 0.4% 0.4% OREGON 329 423 333 -21.3% 7.0% 6.9% PENNSYLVANIA 37 56 31 -44.6% 0.7% 0.6% RHODE ISLAND 2 0 1 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% SOCIAL SECURITY 0 0 0 ADMINISTRATION 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% SOUTH CAROLINA 17 26 18 -30.8% 0.4% 0.4% SOUTH DAKOTA 17 24 16 -33.3% 0.3% 0.3% TENNESSEE 26 36 49 36.1% 1.0% 1.0% 154 160 150 -6.3% 3.1% 3.1% UTAH 308 311 291 -6.4% 6.1% 6.1% VERMONT 6 2 5 150.0% 0.1% 0.1% VIRGINIA 78 88 78 -11.4% 1.6% 1.6% WASHINGTON 425 466 557 19.5% 11.7% 11.6% WEST VIRGINIA 6 4 2 -50.0% 0.0% 0.0% WISCONSIN 25 36 36 0.0% 0.8% 0.8% WYOMING 32 30 42 40.0% 0.9% 0.9% Total 41 11 4 67 8 4 76 8 1 .9 % 99.4% ALBERTA 0 1 0 -100.0% 0.0% 0.0% BRITISH COLUMBIA 2 1 2 100.0% 66.7% 0.0% MANITOBA 1 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% NEW BRUNSWICK 0 1 0 -100.0% 0.0% 0.0% NOVA SCOTIA 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% NUNAVUT 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% ONTARIO 1 1 1 0.0% 33.3% 0.0% QUEBEC 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% SASKATCHEWAN 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% Total 4 4 3 -25.0% 0.1% GUANAJUATO 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% MEXICO (STATE) 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% Total 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% AMERICAN SAMOA 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% BAHAMAS 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% BARBADOS 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% BOSNIA & 0 0 1 HERCEGOVENA 0.0% 25.0% 0.0% BYELARUS 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% CANAL ZONE 0 0 0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% CHILE 1 0 0 0 0% 0 0% 0 0%

When you talk to Idahoans - native or not - about why some aren't embracing Californians with open a they cite increased housing prices and cost of living. There's a perception Californians are bringing in cash after selling a home in the Golden State.

"I don't see all cash. I see people coming in from all different walks of life in California," a local Realtor Boise Regional Realtors, Kerri Ohara, said.

Californians are raising the demand, but Realtors say they're not the sole reason costs are creeping up

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 6/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho? "No, we don't have any inventory. Inventory is our bottom line," Ohara said. "Our inventory has been un two months now for a long time. So no matter who is looking, whether it's somebody from California o someone from Texas or someone from Boise looking to move to Meridian or Meridian to Boise, we do have that much to offer."

On top of the lack of homes, there's a lack of space on the roads, with increased traffic.

"I would say the traffic is the biggest thing," Adrien Stephens, who was born and raised in Idaho, said. just incredible how much traffic we have."

And many feel they're bringing bad driving habits.

"They still drive like they're in California, bob and weave. So it angers a lot of us off because we like to it slow," Johnson added.

In the counties with the most Californians moving in, a look at ITD data shows California transplants m up 34 percent of the people swapping their state license plates for Ada County plates in 2017. Of the 4 license plates surrendered in Ada County in 2017, 1,626 were California plates.

Californians accounted for nearly 29 percent of people trading in plates in Kootenai County; of the 1,86 surrendered out-of-state plates, 542 were California plates. Thirty-six percent of out-of-state plates surrendered in Canyon County were California plates, with 472 of the 1,320 plates from the Golden Sta

Another big issue Idahoans raised is seeing a historically red state turn blue. Democrats turned out in record numbers for the May primary election, but political experts say: don't expect the political playin field to change.

"Idaho is a really, a pretty strong conservative base so it would really take a lot of people moving here really shift that very quickly," Boise State University School of Public Service assistant professor, Jaclyn Kettler, told us.

Dr. Kettler says conservatives from California are likely migrating here to escape California's politics an regulations and settle somewhere that aligns with their views and values.

"We're not just having people from Bay Area move to Ada County that are liberal. We are having conservatives from Orange County move to northern Idaho or Canyon County. So there is diversity in population that is moving here but a good amount of them are leaning conservative," Kettler said.

Growth and the pace at which it's happening is upsetting to a lot of native Idahoans.

"it's changing and it's changing fast and it's just too much of a culture shock for a lot of Idahoans," John told KTVB.

"Change and growth can be good but I don't want our state to be destroyed," Florence added.

"I know it's a big change but we need to embrace that because it's not going to stop," Stephens said.

But like it or not, with growth change is bound to happen.

"We're not trying to like take over and make it into another California. We love Idaho, we love what it h offer," Strong said.

"I can completely empathize with Idahoans feeling encroached but I would hope they think some of th people moving here are nice," Neale said.

"Most people in Idaho who have been here their whole life are worried about the face of Idaho changi And when I talk to these people that are moving here: why are you moving here? And that's one of firs questions I ask: why Idaho? Why do you want to be here? And they go down and they talk about how grew up in California when there was an orange grove and an avocado field, etc, etc. and they saw the of their state change as laws were changed and as political views maybe have changed," Ohara told K https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/do-californians-feel-welcomed-in-idaho/277-557258526 7/14 5/23/2018 ktvb.com | Do Californians feel welcomed in Idaho? "People that are moving here - that in my experience, from what I'm hearing from them - is that they're moving here because they want to be part of Idaho, they want to be part of the mindset here."

© 2018 KTVB

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