34 minute read
Jackson Town Council
Arne Jorgensen
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Lives: East Jackson
Years in Jackson: I am a Jackson native and have spent a total of 43 years in Jackson, I was fortunate to return home permanently in 1989.
Occupation, and how it has prepared you
to be a town councilor: I’ve been an architect working in Jackson since 1989. I’ve also served on multiple public and nonprofit boards; including a founding board member and emeritus member of the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, a Wyoming Community Foundation emeritus board member after serving on the board for over 20 years, past governor-appointed member of the Wyoming Board of Architects and Landscape Architects, where I served for 12 1/2 years, and many committees of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.
Each of these experiences prepared me to be a thoughtful and effective member of the Town Council, including awareness of both the intent and implementation of regulations and working with widely diverse groups of public and private stakeholders to efficiently implement appropriate policy direction.
About the candidate
Jackson’s housing crisis is at the top of the list of items Jackson Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen wants to keep working on if he wins a second term on the Town Council.
Jorgensen lives in East Jackson with his wife, Teresa de Groh, and is the son of longtime state Rep. Pete Jorgensen. He has witnessed firsthand the difficult challenges facing a town where many cling to Jackson’s Western heritage and character, and the amount of wealth is driving longtime residents from the area.
“During my four years in office — and especially in the last two years — I have seen the real-life stressors and pains of making ends meet in an increasingly more expensive region,” he said. “I will continue to provide a thoughtful, positive voice to our dialogues in a way that improves the place that we have been fortunate enough to call home for all community members, not just the loudest in the room.”
He added that with the challenges come opportunities.
“Throughout much of our history, our potential is really a combination of our community and the amazing place, the environment where we live, the place where we live, and that hasn’t changed,” he said. “It also represents the challenges, right? How do we maintain that community? How do we respect the place we’re in?
“So I think we’re poised well to take advantage of our opportunities, but there’s a lot to do.”
While Jorgensen cited housing as one of the greatest challenges the town faces, he also listed progress made since his election in 2018 on housing among the achievements of which he’s most proud.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is the lowincome [rental] tax-credit project on West Snow King,” which will break ground in August after the Teton County Fair. “That one took a lot of effort, working with the state of Wyoming to unlock those funds, those federal funds. And this is providing new housing, rental housing, at a truly affordable level. It’s something we’ve not been able to do at this scale in the past.”
Jorgensen also emphasized ecosystem stewardship; the town’s ability and willingness to connect failing wastewater treatment systems outside the town’s service area to the town’s wastewater plant; successfully navigating pandemic-related issues; and effective and efficient budgeting processes as other points of pride during his current term.
Why are you running for town councilor?
I am running because Jackson is a community of people in an incredible community of place, and it is critical that we retain a sense of — and protect — both communities. When I was growing up in Jackson my parents instilled in me an awareness and deep appreciation of our environment. While spending time both in and out of Jackson, I have come to recognize the uniqueness of our people and that many are not represented in our political discourse. I have the appropriate interests and skills to ask the unasked questions and would be honored to continue to serve on the Jackson Town Council.
I’ve worked hard under the guise of “all of the above” when it comes to a discussion of housing tactics. My efforts with affordable housing for nearly 33 years have been based on four guiding principles from which I have never wavered: 1) Provide opportunities to those who are committed to our community, 2) Develop and support efforts that deliver housing security and stability, 3) Ensure that any homes that are presented as affordable or available to community members are protected as such over generations of residents, and 4) Be respectful. I support the three-pronged approach our community is pursuing: 1) Shift density to appropriate locations, 2) Mitigate for impacts of our individual actions, and 3) Wide community-based efforts such as private donors and public tax support.
Possibly, more than our other challenges, easing traffic congestion is something we can all impact with the personal choices we make about how we move around our valley. As a community we should be considering how we incentivize fewer single- occupancy vehicles, how we use the corridors we have, expand alternative means of transportation, and address redundancy, particularly related to public safety and acceptable levels of service.
Using federal dollars and unexpectedly high sales tax revenue, I am proud of the efforts to invest in additional START services in South Park, on commuter lines, to Teton Village, and to increase the level and quality of town service.
Our first Comprehensive Plan was adopted in the late 1970s and, along with subsequent Land Development Regulations, has been updated to reflect our community goals of managing change in Teton County and Jackson. These documents, with town and county budgets, serve as foundational documents that should be reflective of our community priorities and should establish our community vision. They are not static and require ongoing review and work to ensure that our path forward achieves the goals we have set for ourselves. It is critical that LDRs should be designed to achieve clearly articulated goals; we should not rely on intended or unintended consequences of regulatory action to achieve indirect growth and change related outcomes.
increase of meaningful property tax relief programs structured to provide relief to those on limited or fixed budgets, renters and small business owners. This would then permit both the town and county to strategically use the current unassessed property tax. These programs could include a homestead exemption, capped or limited rate of growth in tax increases, create different classes of residential property, and more robust refund options for small businesses and lower income renters.
This being said, an optional property transfer tax should take priority. This is the tool that most directly targets the source of the issue, high property values, and can be structured to reduce impacts on the vulnerable in our community.
We need to do better on recognizing that we are at the center of the largest intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states. This fact, along with a history of large landscape conservation, is what distinguishes us from nearly every other gateway or resort community. Our stewardship of this place must always be in the forefront of our policy discussions.
How we balance the needs of our ecosystem with those of our community is our greatest challenge — the new Housing Preservation Program is a great example of how this can be done. This is a voluntary program that purchases restrictions on existing homes, thus providing ongoing affordability and access while removing an existing home from the speculative market without the addition of a new home.
Yes. Any such implementation must be based on a community-wide effort to actively manage our parking infrastructure. The town currently has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our parking and street infrastructure. Such investment should be more actively managed. Whatever the details of long-term solutions are, they should be based on the most updated tested technology.
Address “last mile” connectivity, infill missing segments, and improve budgeting to better account for maintenance and management.
What else should voters know?
I’ve sat down with business owners, nonprofit directors, town staff and community members to hear about our collective goals for Jackson’s future. One critical element that is consistent that has been barely addressed with this questionnaire are questions related to budget. These are the resources needed to provide our core services along with investing in our priorities of housing, conservation, transportation, and health and human services. Our discussions need to be more than policy goals and have to include budget impacts.
I am proud of the increased transparency of the budget process and presentation of town programs in a way that provides for a much higher level of clarity than we have seen in the past.
The other budget reality that the town is beginning to highlight is the challenge faced by our reliance on sales tax revenue that is just not keeping up with the community’s expectations for addressing our priorities. I will work to continue to raise these budget questions and focus on long- term budget improvements.
A second topic barely touched on in the questions are issues related to COVID. We have lived through a worldwide pandemic and are arguably in a transition from epidemic to endemic. For the most part I am proud of how our community conducted ourselves: how we supported each other, how our institutions of government, nonprofits, health care, and businesses conducted themselves, and how we stepped up to support our residents and visitors. I am particularly proud of how the town of Jackson gave voice and weight to our local and state public health experts. Yes, there were disagreements on how we were responding yet we have been very successful as a community that hosts literally millions of visitors in keeping in check the most harsh outcomes such as deaths and hospitalizations. Any death or significant hospitalization is a tragedy; our rates of occurrences are lower than national or state averages.
Katherine ‘Kat’ Rueckert
Lives: East Jackson
Years in Jackson: 4
Occupation, and how it has prepared you to
be a town councilor: I am a project engineer for a local construction company. I believe my skills for budget management and project organization will be beneficial as a town councilor to balance the budget and manage the operations of the Town of Jackson.
About the candidate
Rueckert did not respond to multiple requests for an interview but did fill out the candidate questionnaire below.
Why are you running for town councilor?
I believe our representative government flourishes when elected offices are a revolving door of new people, new ideas and fresh perspectives. I see running for local office as my civic duty, not a career path. I’d like to get in, get stuff done and get out.
Jackson has available land that is designated for housing. It’s time we develop northern South Park with affordable, high-density housing and affordable, single-family homes for local families.
I will remove the bollards lining Willow Street. It is an immediate action that will open up more park-
Katherine “Kat” Rueckert
COURTESY PHOTO
ing and, in turn, help alleviate traffic congestion.
Prioritize the most pressing issues (examples: housing, traffic and infrastructure).
Review the town’s budget to determine how much money we have to work with, and reprioritize if funds aren’t available.
Deliberate on appropriate solutions, and allocate budgets, with stakeholders and community members. Execute on projects within the allocated budget.
For sustainable growth the town government should operate within its means — as in, complete the prioritized projects when it has the funds to do so. This helps keep the government — and spending— in check while giving the community what it needs most.
Absolutely not. How can we expect to retain working families in our town if we tax them into oblivion? After reviewing our town’s budget we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Instead of raising taxes I propose we cut spending.
Conserving the character of Jackson. This means upholding our Western heritage, revitalizing the community of Jackson, embracing our land and wildlife and encouraging local, longtime residents to remind/educate us of the small-town way of life.
Nope. I think there are a lot of unintended consequences that will come with paid parking. For one, the extra policing needed will be substantial and, frankly, the police in our community have much more pressing issues than writing citations for expired parking slips. Also, there will be drivers who will not want to pay for parking, and I foresee parking spillover into the neighborhood side streets, which will not be welcomed by homeowners.
Council candidates cite town budget as a key issue
At forum they discuss rising property taxes, gentrification, child care and more.
By Timothy J. Woods
Town Councilor Arne Jorgensen and challengers Elliott Alston, Katherine Rueckert and Devon Viehman fielded questions on issues from housing to property taxes, traffic congestion to parking, and their own personal strengths during an online forum coordinated by the League of Women Voters, Teton County Library, KHOL radio, Buckrail and the News&Guide.
Town Councilor Jonathan Schechter, running for reelection, was unable to attend due to a previous family commitment, but he had a three-minute statement read at the beginning of the forum. Candidates David Scheurn and Joel Smith did not attend the forum, though both were expected by organizers.
Among the policy questions asked was what is the most critical issue facing the town.
Responding first, Jorgensen said, “One of the challenges is that it isn’t any one thing, it’s many, many of them.”
Jorgensen went on to list housing and providing core services — housing, transportation, conservation, and health and human services at the top of that list — among the items he’s prioritized in his first term on the council. Jorgensen said that while the town does a great job providing core services to residents, it has to look to a new, sustainable “revenue package” to continue providing other services Jacksonites have come to expect.
Alston acknowledged that he “can’t say that I’m an expert in any one of those four parts of our community, though I do truly care about this community, and I’ve given a lot to it.”
He said there are enough educated people in the community that he hopes “we don’t continue down this road that we’ve seen of some of these cycles of what some communities would call ‘hyper-gentrification.’”
Rueckert pointed to a community trying to pull itself out of the COVID-19 pandemic and said that from what she’s seen of the town’s budget, the council could better serve residents.
“Our expenditures are expected to outweigh our revenues for the adopted budget in 2023, and I don’t really see how that’s viable in a town that’s already dealing with increased property taxes, already dealing with increases everywhere else,” Rueckert said.
As a councilor, she said, she would try to ensure that only items that have sufficient funding would be included in future budgets and that the character of the town would be preserved.
Viehman, meanwhile, said that “our town is fed up … and they don’t like what’s going on” regarding a laundry list of items. Included among those are downtown developments, child care and keeping Jackson’s senior residents from being pushed out of town.
“We’ve got to have decision-makers at the helm who are ready to make those decisions and have those uncomfortable conversations and move forward,” Viehman said.
Later she added that she is prepared to make prompt decisions to help move the community forward.
With the town levying a half-mill property tax in 2021 — the first time the town has had a property tax in about 40 years — and overall property tax bills skyrocketing this year, the candidates had plenty to say about whether an increased town levy is a viable revenue stream.
“No more property tax, period,” Viehman said. “We’ve got to find other ways to look for money. … I’ve seen so many local families this year get their tax bills, and they have to leave. They’re selling their homes that they’ve had for 30 or 40 years because they can’t afford it anymore.”
Viehman and others pointed to the state and legislators in Cheyenne to provide relief programs to help the working class and those on fixed incomes remain in their homes.
“The real core response to that question is at the state level,” Jorgensen said. “They are making some progress. There’s state Constitution changes that have to happen, as well as legislation.”
He said Teton County has three tax-relief programs for qualifying residents and noted that only about 25% of property tax money stays in the community, with the rest going to the state.
“We’ve been talking to the state about this for 20 years, and they ... don’t understand why this is an issue,” he said.
Alston said he has seen a number of local families who have had to leave Teton County in the past couple of months as a result of spiking property tax bills.
The next step, he said, is working with the state as best as possible, imposing a lot of restrictions and “trying to make it viable so that people in this town can retire or that you can have the ability to come here and raise a child,” he said.
Rueckert acknowledged the problem at the state level but again pointed to the town’s deficit budget and said the approximately $250,000 raised by the town’s half-mill property tax means little when looking at the town’s overall expenses.
“What are we looking at as a deficit in [fiscal year] 2023?” Rueckert said. “We’re coming in short $6 million, [and] $250,000 isn’t going to do much for that. So I don’t know why this was voted on in the first place. What it looks like to me is we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”
While the candidates addressed several other issues, including traffic and paid parking, they also revealed what they believe to be strengths they have that separate themselves from the rest of the field.
“I’m 25 years old. I think I bring an energy and a fresh perspective,” Rueckert said. “I understand that the town has operated in a certain way for a certain amount of time, and I think it’s time to stir it up a little bit” with new ideas.
Viehman pointed to a recent conversation she had with a friend about the various leadership roles Viehman has taken on and her mentorship of future leaders.
“She said, ‘Devon, you lead with your heart and make decisions with your smarts,’ which is really true,” Viehman said. “I’m a human being; I don’t always use the perfect words. I care deeply about this community, though.”
Jorgensen talked about his and his family’s history, not only as Jackson Hole residents but also serving the community in various ways, from the state Legislature to his wife’s 20 years as a volunteer for Jackson Hole Fire/EMS.
“I was born and raised in this community,” Jorgensen said. “This is home, and I’m absolutely committed to it. Public service is absolutely baked into my soul.”
Wrapping up the answers to that question, Alston, who is Black, said he doesn’t think the council is “representative of what our town looks like, of what our community really looks like.”
Alston said he wants to represent Jackson’s marginalized populations.
“I’m not to be swayed by a lot of these entities and powers that be,” he said. “I do like seeking information and getting to the bottom [of things] to make an educated decision. ... I’m not going to make the same decisions as a lot of people who have come forward in front of me because I don’t think a lot of people look like me and have had my experience in this town.”
Jonathan Schechter
Lives: Indian Trails subdivision (the wild western edge of town)
Years in Jackson: 35
Occupation, and how it has prepared you
to be a town councilor: I am a Jackson town councilor. I am also founder and executive director of the Charture Institute, a nonprofit think tank helping communities and ecosystems simultaneously thrive.
Charture studies the causes and consequences of the rapid growth and change upending places like Jackson, then helps residents address challenges and embrace opportunities.
My work has given me a singular understanding of the range and complexity of Jackson Hole’s challenges and opportunities: economic, social and environmental. It also gives me a unique ability to offer meaningful solutions to our increasingly difficult challenges.
In my work and public service my goal is to help Jackson meet its extraordinary potential as a place to live and visit and as a model of how people and the ecosystem can co-thrive.
About the candidate
Schechter is touting a “Sustain What Matters” slogan in his bid for reelection. His goals for the town and the length of time it can take to achieve them are among the reasons why he believes Jackson voters should give him the nod.
Schechter said he thought long and hard about whether to run again. He opted to do so because, he said, another term in office would be the best way he could “give back to this place that you and I and so many others love so deeply and care so much about.”
He looks forward to continuing the policymaking he’s done since 2019.
“Running is a very ‘me, me, me’ kind of exercise where you say, ‘This is why you should vote for me and this is what I’m going to do.’ It’s an individual sport,” Schechter said. “But governing is a team sport. And the team is not just you, but it’s your colleagues on the elected body.”
The team also involves town staff, residents, visitors and business owners, he said.
“It’s everybody who interacts with the town, and it’s a complex web of interests and it takes a long time to get that figured out.”
A point of pride Schechter identified from his first term is working with Town Manager Larry Pardee and Finance Director Kelly Thompson to turn the town’s budget, which he called “a complex beast,” into something more digestible and understandable for the public. The town has shifted in the last couple of years from a line-item budget to a “priority-driven” budget in which the council sets its priorities for the town, and the budget more closely reflects those identified priorities.
Why are you running for town councilor?
To help Jackson Hole sustain what matters.
What matters is our environment. Our community. Our economy. The qualities that make Jackson Hole one of the most remarkable places on Earth.
I have spent the past 20-plus years of my professional life studying and working with Jackson and similar communities across the country, helping them identify and sustain what matters to them.
As a town councilor, over the past four years I have focused on the town of Jackson, helping us face unprecedented growth- and change-related challenges. All of the pressures and challenges we face will only accelerate during the next four years, and I want to continue using my skills, knowledge, and ability to get things done, helping the community, the region and the people I love so dearly and who have given me so much.
While running for office is a “me, me, me” exercise, governing is “we, we, we.” By myself I can do nothing to address community issues. Working collaboratively, though, I can do two things:
Continue to work with other electeds to support and enhance affordable housing efforts. These were underway before I came into office, and I continue to support them.
Work with staff, electeds and other partners to explore and pursue all ideas for funding and developing more housing.
Jonathan Schechter
While we need to do more, we’ve had great success. Since I took office we’ve added 201 affordable homes (44% of all homes built), and 604 more deed-restricted homes are in the pipeline. Add in northern South Park, and during my time in office we’ve built, approved, and planned over 1,500 new affordable and workforce homes.
There are no “me, me, me” solutions to traffic. Its causes are multifaceted, including tourism, a growing population and a changing economy. We need to continue our holistic approach, including expanding mass transit and encouraging pathway use. Roads should be expanded only if it makes clear sense. The best thing elected officials can do is provide the financial and political support our transportation team needs for its long-term, multimillion-dollar efforts.
Over the past four years we’ve made great strides. Today START handles more people than ever, over a broader region. Better still, over the next few years START will expand routes and capacity. We need to continue and grow these efforts. We must also recognize, though, that it will take years for today’s efforts to fully pay off.
Another “me, me, me” question.
To succeed, any strategy must build on what I’ve learned in 20-plus years studying and addressing Jackson Hole’s growth and change. Profound changes in technology, the economy, transportation and values have made it increasingly easy to live here, creating unlimited demand for our tiny supply of land and housing.
These trends will accelerate, making it even harder for Jackson Hole to sustain what matters. To effectively manage our future will require government not to solve our problems but bring us together for a clear-eyed conversation about what’s occurring, why it’s occurring, what we value and what steps we are willing to take. This will not be easy, but without such an effort Jackson Hole will find it increasingly hard to sustain what matters.
Jackson Hole is a 21st-century community with a 20th-century operating system. Sales taxes produce 80% of Jackson’s core revenues yet account for only 15% of our economy. A $1 cup of coffee alone generates more tax revenue than Teton County’s 2021 combined figures of $1 billion in services revenues plus $3 billion of real estate sales plus $4 billion of investment income. Given the rising cost of services, the community has a basic choice to make. If it’s OK with fewer government services, then the current system is fine. If it wants government to do more or even just maintain current services, we will eventually need to generate more government revenue.
For a number of reasons, raising Jackson’s property taxes is a bad idea. Raising the sales tax by one cent is fairer and more efficient.
The Jackson/Teton County Comprehensive Plan’s vision statement reads: “Preserve and protect the area’s ecosystem in order to ensure a healthy environment, community and economy for current and future generations.” Not the town’s nor county’s ecosystem, but the area’s ecosystem.
This is why I led the effort to create Jackson’s first-in-the-nation ecosystem stewardship administrator position. The position lets the town take a holistic approach to dealing with the area’s many and interrelated conservation issues — we can’t address only one issue and hope to preserve and protect the area’s ecosystem. Among the many important challenges we face are water quality, climate change, preserving habitat and, critically, our inability to assess ecosystem health. Each is vital, and now local government has staff devoted to that job.
Paid parking downtown is inevitable. Far less clear is how to do it fairly. Figuring that out will determine when it is implemented.
Jackson Hole is a 21st-century community with a 20th century operating system. One of our 21st-century challenges is far too many cars for our constricted road system. One aspect of our 20th-century operating system is that government doesn’t generate enough revenue to properly address our transportation needs, including parking-related issues during peak traffic hours.
Our current parking system works well much of the time. The challenge is to complement the current system with a fair “high-demand” system that addresses peak-period problems (e.g., employees taking up parking intended for customers). Any plan I support must equitably address both issues.
Complete the in-town system and deal with ebike-related hazards. Each requires more funding, which highlights the challenges posed by the growing disconnect between our economy and how we fund government.
What else should voters know?
H.L. Mencken once observed: “For every complex issue, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” Jackson Hole faces a host of tremendously complex issues, none of which can be solved by one individual alone. Nor can they be solved by looking at them individually.
As I commented at the Town Council’s July 5 meeting: “We need to ask whether our current rules are producing the community we want.” My point was that we need to take a new approach to our challenges.
Every candidate will talk about housing, transportation, growing income inequality and related issues. As we should, for all these and more need our attention. These issues, however, are only symptoms of our larger challenges. If we want Jackson Hole to be truly successful for both current and future generations, we need to do more than just address “symptoms.” Instead we need to collectively identify and address the core issues underlying these “symptoms,” which in turn means looking at the key goals set out in the Comprehensive Plan’s vision statement:
What is a healthy environment? How do we know? How do we assess its health?
What is a healthy community? How do we know? How do we assess its health?
What is a healthy economy? How do we know? How do we assess its health?
If I am reelected, these are the questions I will push to have us explore and answer — collectively, as a holistic community. I will do this because I believe that exploring and addressing our core issues will give us the best possible chance of meeting our potential as a community, as a destination, and as a worldwide model for how we can sustain what matters.
Devon Viehman
Lives: East Jackson
Years in Jackson: Since I was 10 (roughly 30 years).
Occupation, and how it has prepared you
to be a town councilor: As a Realtor for 18 years I’ve seen homeless youth and the conditions some families in our community live in, which is why housing is at the forefront of my goals.
I’ve served on local, state and national boards. I’ve been treasurer for a multimillion-dollar budget. I served as the youngest ever Teton Board of Realtors president. I know how to work cohesively with others and govern an entity. Many policy decisions made in Cheyenne and Washington, D.C., affect us locally, and I have built meaningful relationships as a lobbyist for housing protections and chair of the Land Use, Property Rights and Environment Committee for the National Association of Realtors.
I will work tirelessly to make the changes we need to create more workforce housing and not luxury real estate. Before I am a Realtor, I am a Jacksonite. My heart is with this community.
About the candidate
There is such a thing as too much “studying,” Viehman told the News&Guide ahead of her campaign announcement.
“Our community is really upset. They’re mad. I hear them,” Viehman said. “Talking about housing isn’t going to actually build the housing.”
Viehman was the first to formally announce a run for the two open positions in the nonpartisan Town Council race.
Unlike what people assume about Realtors, Viehman said, she wasn’t opposed to local Rep. Mike Yin’s latest version of a real estate transfer tax bill, and she thinks government has a bigger role to play in shepherding affordable and workforce housing projects.
While she did not bring up specific actions, she said that “the community doesn’t understand why we keep having all the studies and paying all this money, but bigger results aren’t happening.”
As a Teton County Planning Commission member, Viehman has recently voted in favor of workforce housing proposals in meetings where neighbor opposition has dominated the chambers, including 17 homes for Lower Valley Energy employee housing and for the Darwiche family’s 57-unit workforce apartment proposal for Legacy Lodge.
“I’m not afraid to step up and say the right thing even though the right thing is sometimes the difficult thing to say,” she said.
She also pointed to supporting private tools like the Community Housing Fund, a nonprofit she started to give agents and sellers the opportunity to donate to local affordable housing at each transaction.
The fund is young enough that she doesn’t have first quarter numbers, but the end of last year saw over $300,000 donated, she said.
When asked about election heat in 2020 for receiving $5,000 from a local conservative partisan political action committee — funds she later returned — Viehman said she’d stick with a nonpartisan race.
“I will take money from any individual that wants to give me some,” she said, “or a nonpartisan PAC.”
And while housing is her expertise, Viehman said she also cares deeply about community health and human services, especially having lived though her biological father’s death by suicide and as someone diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I’m putting myself out there this time,” she said. “I’ve committed to being genuine and people really see me for who I am.”
Devon Viehman
Why are you running for town councilor?
I am running because our community is frustrated and so am I. Individuals in the working and middle classes increasingly can’t afford to live here, and if they do, most of their monthly budget goes toward housing. It isn’t sustainable, and we continue to lose valuable members of our community: young people, retirees and everyone in between. The quality of life isn’t what it should be in this special place. Our community isn’t a commodity, but it sure feel like that is what it has turned into. We need data-driven, but swift decision-makers at the helm. I am that person.
While I will be only one vote, I will advocate for policy, zoning and regulation changes immediately. We need to take a step back and fix what is broken. For example, transitional neighborhoods were created to encourage multifamily units, but what happened was the prices were driven so more big boxes with vacant accessory residential units were built. I will vote “yes” for housing, and I have demonstrated that during my time on the Teton County Planning Commission.
The first initiative I would work on would be to expand the START On Demand service with more regular runs from Idaho and south of town. After that we can explore avenues for securing START services to Melody and Rafter J. We could also continue to move on the regional transportation authority initiative. We can’t solve anything without our neighbors. But I think firstly, I would try to expand START On Demand.
We have only so much land left in our county and even less in town, so there is only so much growth that can happen here. We do need to manage the number of visitors Jackson receives so that it’s sustainable with our environment and our local residents. Do we need more luxury townhomes and hotels? No. Not until we can create stable, affordable housing for the people who keep our community running. If commercial real estate is developed, the stakes need to be higher for it regarding housing their employees. We must also strike a balance so that we do not continue to make it nearly impossible for small-business owners to develop.
No more taxes! Longtime members of our community are being forced out because they cannot pay their property taxes. That is wrong. The town enacted a small property tax recently, which could open the door for more taxes. Renters are affected by property taxes too. The landlords pass these increases onto them and force more people out. If we keep making it more expensive to live here, we’re adding to the affordability problem.
Water quality is imperative to healthy humans, wildlife and wild spaces, and right now our water quality is at risk because of many factors. Hundreds of failing septic systems are in the county. The town owns the wastewater treatment plant, and it does have a maximum capacity. Sewage is the No. 1 cause of fecal bacterial contamination in our water systems likely due to seepage from older septic systems and sewer lines near our groundwater. I would like to see the county add a wastewater treatment plant on the West Bank and create a program to help residents replace their failing systems. A new septic can cost $10K to $20K, so many folks can’t afford to replace them. It is not only a conservation issue but also a public health issue we need to address.
No. I do not oppose the idea of paid parking downtown. People are used to paying it in other places, and perhaps it would get more people to walk or bike. However, we need to ask some questions before we sign the dotted line. For instance, why aren’t we building a parking deck at the Home Ranch lot? How will paid parking affect local businesses? I need to learn more about all of the options before I can commit to saying with certainty that paid parking is the right decision.
Path connector finished south of town and speed limits in high pedestrian areas.
What else should voters know?
I will only be one of five votes on the council, and accomplishing anything requires a multitude of factors. Trust is the most important thing, and you can trust that I will make the best decisions for our community. We don’t have the luxury of time anymore. Change must happen now, and I am ready to step up. If you are frustrated with the status quo like I am, then give me the opportunity to shake things up.
Elliott Alston attended the online candidate forum (see related story on page 4E) but did not respond to the News&Guide questionnaire. David Scheurn did not attend the candidate forum, respond to News&Guide requests for interviews or fill out the questionnaire. Joel Smith did not attend the candidate forum and did not provide contact information on his candidate filing form. Find a link to the Youtube video of the online town candidate forum at TCLib.org/candidates.
Other town candidates: Alston, Scheurn, Smith
Don’t miss a beat!
