A message from county commissioner candidate Wes Gardner:

JACKSON, Wyo. — Teton County Commissioner candidate Wes Gardner’s primary motivation in running for office is to combat climate change and create in Teton County a model other communities can look to for creative solutions. 

“When you look at what we can do in Jackson Hole to affect climate change, skeptics on both sides would say, ‘Not much,’” said Gardner, who is currently serving as a board member to the START transit system. “I turn to those folks and say, ‘If not us, who, and if not now, when?’”

Gardner said he’s a “total optimist” about Teton County’s ability to affect global climate change by pioneering systems and creative solutions that other communities can model. He added that other communities have inspired him as he’s studied their commitment to environmental stewardship. 

“Community leadership is exportable,” Gardner said. “I want stewardship to be our top exportable commodity in Teton County.”

He said Teton County can become a net exporter of ideas, strategies and solutions for other communities, allowing the county to play a leadership role in global climate change efforts.

In three specific areas, Gardner is seeking to do just that through his Teton County Commissioner candidacy, community involvement, and current and past board positions for the START transit system and Integrated Solid Waste & Recycling. 

As a mountaineer, Wes understands the need to tread lightly and reduce our carbon footprint, which is why he wants to decrease traffic problems by increasing START bus availability. Photo courtesy of Wes Gardner.

Transit & traffic solutions

Over the past decade, Highway 22 has begun to feed backups that snake all the way to the Town Square and beyond. On the surface, this seems like a traffic problem, but at the heart it’s a climate change problem addressable through creative transit solutions.

Studies show that roughly 70 percent of local emissions come from local surface transportation in Teton County. And with the housing crisis worsening for the core workforce, roughly 8,000 commuters are coming to and from Jackson every day from bedroom communities like Alpine and Victor, Idaho. Those daily commutes drive emissions skyward while also worsening traffic for everybody.

However, where the rubber meets the road and emissions meet the air, fewer than 300 people choose to ride daily commuter buses provided by START that lessen traffic and emissions. 

“My focus is really on an efficient and frequent START system with schedules that make sense for workers and funding mechanisms that shift costs away from the riders and toward the employers,” Gardner said.

Additionally, he said as a START board member he’s been working to improve the feel, speed, and enjoyability of the ride itself. 

“My goal is to create a bunch of carrots in and around the transit system,” he said. With relatively small infrastructure investments (like that included in SPET ballot item #3), he said the county could install smart signals in tandem with routers on buses that help buses have more green lights without interrupting the flow of traffic. 

“The goal is to make ride times competitive with drive times,” he said. 

He also wants to increase from three daily commuter runs to eight, add Wi-Fi on buses, and generally make them a better place to be while saving commuters money as gas hovers at record highs.

“We don’t have to drive single-occupancy vehicles to get to work every day,” Gardner said. “That’s what I fight for as a START board member and that’s what I’ll fight for as county commissioner.”

Water Quality Solutions

Gardner is committed to making the water flowing out of Teton County as clean as the water flowing in.

“Situated as we are at the headwaters of the Snake River, we have a special responsibility to be good stewards of this water — both for residents of our valley and the millions of people downstream,” Gardner said.

As a Teton County Commissioner candidate, Gardner aims to protect our vast watershed from contamination by faulty septic systems like those in Hoback where water is already undrinkable for some. Photo courtesy of Wes Gardner

With water woes looming, Gardner wants to fast-track a solution for the contaminated aquifer in Hoback. Further, he is committed to getting ahead of clean water issues on the West Bank, setting the county up for a clean-water future.

Currently, an overreliance on septic systems in the Snake River floodplain have damaged water quality, even making it so pregnant women and children can’t drink the water in some areas of the county. 

“We’re dangerously close to the line because we’re not taking this seriously and aggressively tackling this problem,” Gardner said. “If we don’t face our water crisis and take care of that asset, then we’re all going to be drinking out of bottles.”

To fiercely defend our water resources, Gardner supports the $10 million SPET ballot measure #15 to fund water quality measures including the Wilson sewer project. 

Visitors contribute nearly 60 percent of the funding for SPET measures, which generally attract matching federal dollars. That way, each dollar the community invests can almost magically turn into up to $10 of infrastructure. 

Pollution Solutions

In 2019, Teton County instituted a single-use plastic bag ban which has since resulted in a 95 percent reduction in the local distribution of plastic bags–almost 5 million bags per year.

While anyone who buys groceries is likely familiar with the change, what few people know is that Gardner played a key role as a citizen activist in getting the significant change to go through. 

In 2018, despite general support from the Town Council, the ban was in jeopardy as council members voiced concerns over the roughly $10,000 price tag for implementation. 

As a citizen activist, Gardner advanced the town of Jackson $10,000 in plastic bag fees to help enact the plastic bag ban that has helped curb the use of about 5 million single-use plastic bags per year in Jackson Hole. Photo courtesy of Wes Gardner

Gardner, the owner of Teton Toys, decided he didn’t want money to stand in the way of the decision. So he offered to pre-pay $10,000 of bag fees as a way to finance implementation costs. 

That creative solution helped the ban pass unanimously and demonstrates Gardner’s approach to leadership and commitment to positive change.

“I figured out a way to put the money behind the ban and prevent any hesitation over financial concerns from the council,” he said. 

It’s that approach of becoming a student of a problem and championing a creative solution that Gardner will bring to his leadership as a Teton County commissioner.

Read more on Gardner’s platform at his website:

Read more from Wes Gardner on Buckrail: