JACKSON, Wyo. — The Teton County Library’s auditorium was packed last Wednesday to hear from candidates vying for three open seats on the Teton County Board of County Commissioners.
Democrats Brent Blue, Karyn Chin, Ali Dunford, Wes Gardner, Mark Newcomb and Luther Propst all participated in a Q&A with media partners after uncontested candidates Vicky O’ Donoghue (Rep.) , Melchor Dylan Moore (Rep.) and Alex Muromcew (Ind.) made brief introductions. Three of the six Dems squaring off in the primary election (held Aug. 18) will advance to the general election.
Topics covered at the forum included affordable housing, collaboration with the Town of Jackson, the 90 Virginian Lane project, diversity in local government and more. Below, see one key quote from each of the six Dem. candidates, presented alphabetically:
Brent Blue, discussing how the public could benefit from the valley’s concentration of wealth: “We need to work with the state legislature to get a transfer tax. It makes no sense that there’s no transfer tax. We have to fund a lot of the infrastructure policies. … We need a graduated property tax. People who have these huge homes should be paying a higher percentage of tax than someone who has a small home. … The other thing I think we need to do is have a tax on all the jets that come into Jackson — the private jets. These people are paying literally tens of thousands of dollars per hour to fly on a private jet into Jackson, and they’re having an impact on our community, and basically they are not paying anything for that impact.”
Karyn Chin, on the demographics of Jackson’s population and its local government: “I want to make a fine point of this: If we push out all of the young people, all of the families, all of the critical service workers, all of the small business owners, if we push everyone out who is not older [and] wealthy, you are just going to see a more aged, more single demographic County Commission. Your leadership is going to look like the people who are only allowed and able to stay in this community, so I think it’s critically important that our leadership reflects our community, but it is also true in reverse, that our community is reflected in our leadership.”
Ali Dunford, on her vision for the future: “I want you to imagine the boldest, bravest, most beautiful future you can for our community. What are you seeing? Whatever it is, I believe this is possible. You see, I have been to the future and we won. This is what I saw: We rediscovered how to disagree without becoming enemies and began finding common ground. From there, we saved more than just the Block. Instead of mega-hotels and vacation rentals, vacant lots were becoming community assets: housing for locals, childcare and community centers, food forests. Expanses of Kentucky bluegrass have become explosions of aster and goldenrod. There was a boom in biodynamic farms and regenerative ranches. We hosted potlucks and book clubs, and mutual aid was abundant. We turned aging homes into duplexes for teachers and firefighters instead of empty third homes for private equity partners. We no longer lost our mornings and evenings to Highway 22. We healed our watershed and our children played freely in Flat Creek once more.”
Wes Gardner, on balancing community with tourism: “I’ve worked retail downtown for 30 years. I’m going to say something a little controversial: the visitors take a lot of flack, a lot of flack for the traffic, a lot of flack for the lines at restaurants, and the truth is people who complain about traffic the most are in traffic the most. We need to look in the mirror a lot more. I’m proud to serve on the Destination Stewardship Committee … What I’ve learned through that is a healthy community creates a positive visitor experience. When folks who are frontline workers are happy, the visitor experience is a lot better. I’ve worked hard on that committee to try and make sure those frontline workers have the support, have the incentive programs around what they do, to take training so they understand what the benefits are for the visitor. I’m always going to side on the side of community, but you’re also going to hear me advocate for the visitor, because when the visitor experience is positive, the community experience is also positive.”
Mark Newcomb, on the 90 Virginian Lane project: “One of the ways that some of the ‘negotiations,’ quote-unquote, happened is that staff did arrange for two Commissioners or one Commissioner and one Town Councilor to meet with the developer, and that might sound a little bit worrisome to you out there and I kind of hope it does, because no one of us should be the negotiator, no one of us should be bringing our negotiation skills to the table and saying, end-all, be-all, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’ … There were real problems with that process and those problems bubbled to the surface the longer it went on and that was part of tipping me over the edge. Really tough. Ali [Dunford] is exactly right: We have to learn from this.”
Luther Propst, on creating affordable housing: “Affordable housing should not be a function of more growth. We’ve got to decouple affordable housing for the people who make this community a community, we have to decouple that from more and more hotels, more and more high-end homes — that’s not a formula that’s going to create the kind of community that people who need housing are going to be able to afford. Secondly, in our affordable housing, we need a variety of housing types. We need everything for people who are here seasonally for one year to work as a bus driver in the winter or to work at a camp in the summer. We need the full variety from that level to all the way to department directors, people whose entire careers are here, and need executive-level housing to stay in the community. … We need special focus on first responders, our firefighters, our law enforcement officers … also the school teachers and the people who provide the retail services that make this place work, more than we need to just have more growth and build eight new apartment buildings in order to accommodate a new hotel.”
These candidate forums are presented by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming, Teton County Library, the Jackson Hole News&Guide, KHOL Radio and Buckrail. News&Guide reporter Jasmine Hall moderated the conversation, and questions were posed by Buckrail’s Monica Stout, KHOL’s Evan Robinson-Johnson, and Charley Sutherland with the News&Guide. Stay tuned for more forum events ahead of the general election this fall.
