‘A huge unknown adventure’: City Council president to leave Boise. Where’s she going?
Boise’s most senior City Council member is resigning and moving to Washington, D.C.
Holli Woodings, the council president, is relocating to the nation’s capital later this month, where she has purchased a home with her husband, Ryan Woodings.
The major life change for Woodings, 44, will shake up the City Council, which has already seen two departures this year.
The couple owned a technology company called MetaGeek for over a decade and sold it last year, which Woodings said marked an opportunity for a transition for her family.
“We started looking at different opportunities and what opportunities might exist outside of Boise, and Washington, D.C. was the place,” Woodings told the Statesman Tuesday. “I’ve always loved cities. I remember being a little kid growing up in Eugene and Boise and living in a small city, but always being enamored with big cities.”
The membership of Boise’s City Council has been in flux in recent months. With Woodings’s departure, half the council will have left their seats this year. Woodings plans to resign on July 21, and Mayor Lauren McLean is now accepting applications to fill the seat, mayoral spokesperson Maria Weeg told the Statesman.
Long-time Council President Elaine Clegg left in January to become CEO of Valley Regional Transit, the public transit agency. Lisa Sanchez lost her council seat after she moved out of her district and has sued the city, arguing that officials improperly removed her.
Council Member Patrick Bageant has announced he won’t run in the fall, meaning that at least four of the six council members elected this fall will be newly elected.
Woodings was first elected to the council in 2017, and she won reelection in 2021. The council president leads the council and is usually selected by the other members each year.
What’s next for Woodings?
Woodings said she was a finalist for the White House Fellowship this year, a program that places fellows with senior government officials at the White House or in other department agencies.
Woodings was not selected. But the process of applying left her still wanting to go through with the move and pursue other career paths, though she said she’ll miss Boise, its people and its river.
“It just felt like, ‘well, we’ve come this far,” she added. “Going through that process made it clear that a lot of opportunity exists for someone with my experience and my public service experience, so we decided to go for it anyway.”
Woodings said she has “forever” envisioned raising her children and growing old in Boise. Her two children are in elementary and middle school.
“It’s definitely a big departure from that, but I think I’ve always tried to stay flexible and not be too set in one particular path,” she said.
In May, Woodings announced that she would not seek reelection. She previously served as a Democratic representative in the Legislature. She ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in 2014.
“I have a lot of faith in the folks who are currently serving on council and running again, and also some of the folks who have come forward to run, that the city will be in good hands,” she said.
She added about Boise politics, “even when we go through dirty, ugly things, we come through it better and stronger than we were before. And I think that we proved that with the last mayoral administration shift. I think Boise is in a great place.”
After working on Boise’s new zoning ordinance — which is set for final adoption at her final meeting July 18 — Woodings said she picked out a home in D.C. that is walkable, close to transit, a grocery store, and her children’s schools. The Boise ordinance aims to make the city more urban, dense and amenable to public transit.
“I’m just excited to have that experience,” she said. “And then I’m sure we’ll learn more about D.C. politics in the coming months.”
