Stuff The Ballot: Planet JH Guide to Election Day Part I

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

By PJH Staff

Hello there, you beautiful, intellectual, and, most importantly, politically aware dear reader, you. In your hands is Stuff the Ballot, Planet Jackson Hole’s guide to elections that will directly affect Jackson Hole, Western Wyoming and The Equality State. (And also, to a shorter, though greatly important extent, the direction of this nation as a whole.)

We tried to bring to this special issue a level of gravitas with some, uh, balanced reporting, though we forwent further discussion on town elections after Herry Sweets’ in-depth cover story last week.

We wanted to include a little bit of constructive fun. For example, to see how your own view on some local issues matches up with the candidates, check out Sam Petri’s who-said-what pop quizes. Micheline Auger returns with two “Verbatim” columns, asking local men-(and women)-on-the-street about their takes on elections, and both sound a like Jackson Hole to us. Enjoy and Happy Voting!

Barber poll sees few close shaves
With the exception of the incumbent U.S. Senators, Teton County will largely vote for the Democrats on Election Day, according to this year’s Teton Barber poll.
And the majority Jackson Hole voters favor incumbent elected officials over their opponent at the county and state levels, the community poll suggests.

Teton County Commissioners Andy Schwartz and Leland Christensen – a Democrat and a Republican respectively – will keep their seats on that county board, while Mayor Mark Barron, the poll indicates, should beat challenger Mike Lance by a margin of nearly 15 points.

The race for two seats on the town council is nearly too tight to call, with Greg Miles and Louise Lasley leading by only a few votes over current councilmember Mark Obringer. Meanwhile sitting councilmember Abe Tababtabai appears rather clearly to be out of the running.

The Teton Barber poll has become an election season tradition that goes back more than 25 years, sometime before shop co-owner Mike Randall began barbering there. Randall closed the poll, which is open to the general public, on Oct. 23.

“We don’t always get it right, but we’re usually good on predicting the county,” Randall said, noting the poll is most accurate at predicting local elections. It is not uncommon for Teton County voters to break with voters in other parts of Wyoming, especially when it comes to favoring Democratic presidential candidates over their Republican opponents.

“We went for [former President Bill] Clinton both times and again for [2004 presidential candidate John] Kerry,” Randal noted about the county’s relative liberalism in this largely conservative state.

And Teton County voters overwhelmingly favor one of their own: the poll suggests the Democrat running for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat – Gary Trauner of Wilson – will easily carry Teton County.

Though the office of Teton County Sheriff is not up for grabs in this election cycle, Randall must have had the characteristically mustachioed face of current Sheriff Bob Zimmer in his head. After receiving an old-fashioned straight razor shave with steaming face towels, hot lather and a soothing tonic, this reporter looked in the mirror to see his own facial curls lopped off, his beard reconfigured to the Zimmer look: a mustache that wraps around the mouth like a horseshoe. PJH

Mayoral race at a glance
This Tuesday, Jackson residents will make their choice for mayor and only the colorblind won’t know where the two candidates stand.  Jackson’s next mayor will take the reins just as the town is in the process of revamping its comprehensive plan. He will also likely inherit something the valley hasn’t seen nor heard of in more than a decade – economic stagnation. All this for $30,000-a-year and a gavel.

Mark Barron
The incumbent, Mark Barron, is green. Green for go? During his six-year tenure, Jackson has grown from a ‘town’ into a ‘city,’ quite literally. Population has increased 50 percent and downtown development has shown equal signs of vigor and velocity.

The plan, according to the man seeking a fourth consecutive two-year term as mayor, is to build-up to avoid build-out. Containing sprawl means more density in the downtown core district. But density equals higher buildings which means someone is always in the shadows.

Green is the planet. Barron’s 10x10 initiative pledges bold conservation ideas that are innovative and hip, even if the Town Square Christmas lights are off-blue – they suck less Strawberry Creek go-go juice. The faster bike wheels spin in town, the slower spins Lower Valley Energy meters. That has Barron peddling all the way to the lead in the barbershop poll – 57 percent to 43 percent.

Mike Lance
The challenger, Mike Lance, is orange. The blend of color between slow and stop on a traffic signal. Growth is inevitable, Lance admits, but it doesn’t have to swallow east Jackson and tear holes in Snow King Mountain. Lance leads a groundswell of NIMBYs and slow-growthers who would like to gaze up at the night sky in Jackson and see something other than a construction crane.

Orange is old school. Hunter (blaze) orange stands for safety in the woods … maybe FOR the woods. Lance has said his main motivation for deciding to accept the ‘nomination’ of six write-in votes was to ensure a future for the children of Jackson, including his own. The next generation is graduating and moving away – frightened off by astronomical housing prices and replaced by Russians, Mexicans, and the uber-wealthy who hire them to tend to their lawns.

Planet JH readers like Lance-a-Lot. He won the online poll convincingly, 64 percent to 36 percent.

Lummis, Trauner get down to wire
The race for Wyoming’s lone house seat is getting tense. Recent polls have not been able to establish a statistically accurate leader in the race, and attack ads running on television have become more pointed as Election Day draws near.
Lummis says Trauner wants to raise taxes and meddle with gun rights, while Trauner says Lummis wants to privatize social security. Both candidates are saying that what the other says is not true.

Jim King, a political science professor from the University of Wyoming says it is no surprise to see the blows flying at this point in the race.
“The way you run a campaign is you give people a reason to vote for you, and then the ones that are undecided, you work on them with why they shouldn’t vote for the other one,” King said.

But now that it is getting down to the wire, what message can we expect from the candidates to sway those undecided voters in the last moments of the campaign?
“Its important to us that people consider the effect of having an Obama presidency, a Pelosi speakership and Harry Reid as the majority leader in the senate - and that scenario is likely,” Lummis said. “That hurts Wyoming terribly… and the importance of a vocal and loyal minority to protect, for example, Wyoming coal, to make the bush tax cuts permanent and to protect Wyoming’s values is tremendously important.”

Lummis said that she knew the race against Trauner would be tight, and her strategy has been to focus on tax cuts.

“Our race has been discussing our need to keep taxes low,” she said. “Gary Trauner opposes making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent, he says they never should have happened in the first place, so that amounts to a tax increase for Wyoming families.”

She said she knew the race would be tough, but has stuck with her platform of conservative ideals: less government, lower taxes a “culture of saving” in Washington. She said her volunteer base has kept her campaign afloat.
“Gary Trauner has been campaigning basically since he was narrowly defeated by Barbara Cubin, and he has tremendous financial support,” Lummis said.
Trauner said that the last days of the election would see more talk about the economy, energy and the right kinds of government intervention that can solve those issues.

“Clearly it is the economy that’s on everyone’s minds, … and were going to keep talking about that,” he said. But he added that “We need an Apollo moon policy for energy independence for our country,” spanning fossil fuels extraction as well as expansion of renewables with tax credits. And he said he would be offering specific solutions to save struggling homeowners – helping them to refinance broken mortgages and restore those mortgages to secure investments.
Trauner says he offers non-partisan solutions to the needs of Wyomingites, and a chance for Wyoming to get it’s voice back in a house where he says Barbara Cubin has forfeited the respect of the nation.

But Trauner says he is in favor of Bush tax cuts, with the exception of cuts for the top one percent of money-earners in the nation, people earning a million or so dollars a year, he said.
Trauner said Lummis has been a tough opponent, but not for the reasons that Lummis has said.

“It’s hard to run a campaign and tell people how you want to solve the issues of the day when the other side is making stuff up about you and pulling dirty tricks,” he said. “The way you campaign is the way you are going to govern, and when you make stuff up about people, that’s not a goods sign of the person you are going to be in government.”

So how do you make up your mind?
King says in this day and age there is no excuse to decide your vote on what one candidate says about the other. Just go to their Web site, read their platform, and let that guide your decision. PJH

Sixteen plus 22 equals reform
Since incumbent Monte Olsen was hospitalized last year by a domestic dispute involving a sport utility vehicle, Wyoming House seat 22 is up for grabs.
A small business owner and banker from Pinedale, Charles Stough (R), and a construction contractor from Wilson, Jim Roscoe (D), are vying for the seat.
Both candidates say lower property taxes and responsible energy development are the most important issues in the race. But Roscoe has based his platform around the environment, and Stough is really going after the property-tax issue.

Stough owns a ranch in Sublette County, and has a construction crew there as well. He said that during door-to-door campaigning around the district (which is about the size of Connecticut), people have said that property taxes are on most people’s minds, and he wants to bring relief to his constituents.

Stough is stumping on property tax reform. Stough has been a small business owner as well as a banker in Pinedale, and said he has sat on both sides of the table when it comes to economic issues. He thinks this is the year for property-tax reform.

“There are a number of property tax reform proposals that have come and gone,” said. “But I think they’ve built sufficient momentum and I really expect something to be accomplished in the next legislative session.”
Stough also said that proper reclamation of energy development sites is something he has been working on for year, and said the Wyoming legislature needs to do more to ensure that scarified lands are properly restored.

Teton County Republican Party Chairman Joe Schloss is hoping to unseat incumbent Pete Jorgensen in a race for Wyoming House District 16. Jorgensen has held that seat since the district was drawn six years ago.

Joe Schloss is a retired Department of Homeland Security officer and has spent decades of service in the Boy Scouts of America. Schloss said he wants to go to Cheyenne to make sure Teton County can get property-tax reform.
Schloss said that Jorgensen hasn’t done enough to write and pass legislation in the legislature, and Teton County needs someone in Cheyenne that will bring results back home.

Pete Jorgensen has spent six years on the appropriations committee of the Wyoming House of Representatives, and is now the ranking minority member. Though he favors some sort of property-tax reform, Jorgensen said Wyoming needs some sort of need-based requirement, because owners of multi-million dollar second homes should have to pay their fair share of taxes as well.

Jorgensen said he has been trying to understand the inner-workings of Wyoming politics, to foster an understanding in Cheyenne of the needs of Teton County – especially preserving its natural treasures. Since all of the House bills pass through the appropriations committee then, for six years, he has been able to keep a bead on the kinds of legislation that Wyoming accepts, he said. PJH

Libertarianism
The Wyoming Libertarian Party Web site includes a countdown of Bush’s days left in office, a growing tally of the cost of the war in Iraq, the estimated total body count from that war and the number of American deaths reported.

Libertarians think that the war in Iraq is wrong, but they espouse conservative values. And the war isn’t the only issue where they side with liberals.
“I get a kick out of the marijuana issue,” Dr. David Herbert, Libertarian candidate for Wyoming’s house seat and chairman of Wyoming Libertarians said, “To me, it’s this big red herring that keeps lots of people employed trying to catch people doing it.”

Herbert thinks the government should not spend money telling people what to do, unless those actions infringe on other people’s rights. But Herbert is far from a liberal. In fact, he claims to be more conservative than Republicans.
The party grew out of the Republican Party in the late 60s, and attracted the followers of Barry Goldwater. They are called Libertarians because they support the enforcer of liberty: the U.S. Constitution.

Citizens, they say, give something to the government (taxes, forfeited rights), and the government gives them something in return (infrastructure and security). But Libertarians think that those sacrifices should only be made if they protect liberty.
Herbert aligns himself with Ron Paul, a Republican candidate for president who once ran as a Libertarian, who Herbert says is a pragmatic Libertarian, speaking out against government excess, but realistic about small government.

“There are a number of functions of the government that you can’t do with a private enterprise,” he said. “That includes a standing military and certain free-market oversight. We believe in capitalism, but large corporations are not necessarily the best way to run a free market either.”

Libertarians embody conservative ideals that Republicans claim: less government, lower taxes and a strict adherence to the constitution. However, they don’t always side with Republicans.

Herbert said, “the Republicans talk a good line, but when it comes to going into Congress, they really will compromise away their values. Individual liberty is one side of the coin, and the other side is individual responsibility.”
Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President, has a press department that spins silky words about liberty, and sends out press releases about Washington’s mistreatment of it.

Many of these press releases make it to the Planet JH editor’s inbox. Here are a few excerpts: “It appears that President George W. Bush should say that we are all socialists now; “both the Republican and Democratic Party presidential nominees believe the federal government should play Big Brother when it comes to education;” and “Democracy Subverted for the Benefit of Technology.”
Barr would say that he is holding Washington up to the principles handed it by the constitution.

And Wyoming, Herbert reckons, might be the second most Libertarian state behind New Hampshire, who’s motto is “Live Free or Die.”

Are you a Libertarian?
Take the test.
I took the “Libertarian Purity quiz,” found on the Wyoming Libertarians Web site, which basically asks how much governing you think you need.
A pure Libertarian scores  160 out of 160, though the less dedicated score as low as 30. My score was 36.

The Libertarian purity quiz is administered at county fairs all over the state, and Wyomingites typically score high on it, Herbert said.
You can find the quiz by visiting www.wyolp.org, and following the link that reads “Me? A Libertarian? Moi?” PJH

St. Johns Hospital Board
A seat on the Board of Trustees and St. Johns Community Hospital continues to be one of the most sought after in town, despite being demanding, unpaid and exposed to the scrutiny and harsh criticism.

People take medical care very seriously. And the hospital has been in the news over the last year – criticized for an attempted lease of operations to a second party organization, a CEO bonus of around $80,000 dollars and multi-million dollar homes purchased for doctors and administrators.

But some candidates say those issues are red herrings compared to some of the future issues that the hospital might face.

The price of service at St. Johns is high, and the patient base is too small to support lower prices. Attracting more patients could lower prices, and one way to do that is a merger with Teton Outpatient Surgery (TOPS), a business that some say “skims” the well-to-do, paying patients while the hospital must lose money on those who can’t pay.

But that move is attracting controversy because it would require a multimillion dollar campus redesign in the midst of national credit crisis, and some say the extra spending is too much for a hospital trying to lower its prices.

Another big issue candidates are talking about is community-wide health insurance. If the hospital wields its influence, they say, uninsured residents could be pooled at the county or state level, to find more affordable coverage. The community benefit is obvious, but it would also mean more money for the hospital, because right now uninsured people are receiving service and merely not paying.

Current president of the board Ed Riddell said St. Johns prices have been climbing more slowly than national prices, and a recent endeavor to ensure quality service that is equitable for the hospital or necessary to the community has been successful.

John Cardis has been behind some of the really positive efforts in the hospital recently. He said that he brings a career of management to the table, which helps him understand the ins and outs of running a multi-million dollar organization. He said that things are improving, at the hospital, and wants to stay on board there.
Bill Best moved here from Chicago where he served on the board at Chicago Children’s hospital. He wants to bring his experience to Jackson’s community hospital, and has some creative ideas about bringing health insurance to the community.

Smokey Rhea wants to put the community back in “community hospital.” Considered by some to be the duchess of social services in Teton County, Rhea says that she has a better bead on need than perhaps any other person in town. She advocates lobbying in Cheyenne for community health coverage.

Dr. Emmy Knobloch saw a demand for doctors in Jackson, and since she moved here she has become one of a couple who don’t deny general practice medical care to people without insurance. She said that communication between staff and administration needs to be improved, and she is running as a voice for the patients and staff.

Bruce Hayes is a fixture in the valley. He is another known to provide medical services to those who can’t afford it, from ski bums to Mexican immigrants. Hayes says that tensions among staff and administration at the hospital have worsened in recent years. He also thinks that prices are too high. He said if they are lowered, the patient base will grow.

Herb Hazen, a business owner, has been upset by his experiences at the hospital, and he thinks they have very little transparency and too-high prices. They spend too much money and want to “minimize local competition,” which he thinks is unethical and monopolistic.

Peter Moyer is a former lawyer for the hospital, and he says that the corporate mentality at the hospital needs to change. He wants to do what he can to bring affordable services back to St. Johns. He said their prices need to be competitive with the prices in Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls, not Aspen and Vail. PJH

Town cleans up loose laws,outdated language
Wyoming sure has its share of wacky laws that no one has bothered to change. For instance, taking the picture of a rabbit is prohibited during certain times of the year. This presumably does not pertain to the infamous ‘jackalope.’ And don’t even think of getting on the monkey bars if you are overweight. Wyoming prohibits “fat” people, (defined as 100 pounds overweight), from using playground or park equipment.

Some antiquated state laws make sense. It is illegal to wear a hat that obstructs peoples’ view in a public theater or place of amusement. And being drunk in a mine could get scofflaws a year in jail.

Perhaps Wyoming’s biggest embarrassment of little known law is the state statute making it illegal for a woman to stand within five feet of a bar while drinking. This from the Equality State, first to give voting rights to women.

Wyoming municipalities also have their share of dated decrees. In Cheyenne, citizens may not take showers on Wednesdays. An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyo., specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store’s walk-in meat freezer. No mention of whether they can do it lying down.

Politicos in Rock Springs, Wyo., once passed this law regarding buxom Betties in bikinis: “No such female between the ages of 16 and 21 years shall appear in a bathing suit within this community unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club.” Tough town. This amendment was soon after added to the original ordinance: “The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 350 pounds, nor shall it apply to female horses.”

Jackson joins the bizarre
With nothing better to do, we blew the dust off the town’s municipal codes to see if Jackson had any interesting such oddities of law. Boy, were we surprised to see someone had beaten us to it.

Town attorney Audrey Cohen-Davis and town clerk Roxanne Devries-Robinson are currently busy rewriting the town’s municipal codes. “We are just bringing it up to date,” Devries-Robinson said. They are looking for redundancies and inconsistencies, but have also come across a few gems from a forgotten era.
As recent as 1995, not only was it illegal for a woman to drink beer near the bar, according to state statute, but she couldn’t be on the other side of it either. Not in Jackson. “No female shall be employed as a bartender in a room holding a retail liquor license,” read Ordinance 90, in part. Ordinance 516 repealed that law.

There are also other little-known facts of Jackson law. The town may never go into debt financing the Aspen Hill Cemetery. Also, every year Town Council contracts with a snow removal company to shovel various walkways downtown when, according to municipal code 12.20.020, responsibility for clearing many of these sidewalks falls to the residents and businesses that are abutting them … within six hours after the snow stops falling.

Another ordinance, passed in 1926 and amended in 1982, practically makes the modern day Cowboy Bar unlawful: “Any person keeping a dance house within the limits of the Town where lewd or disorderly persons assemble together for the purpose of dancing, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined in any sum as provided in Section 1.12.010 of [Municipal Code 9.28.010].”

Chief of Police Dan Zivkovich initiated much of the revamping of Jackson’s municipal code. It’s his department that must enforce many of the ordinances. “By and large, we weren’t in too bad of shape,” he said. “Most of the outdated stuff has been fixed, but there are still some interesting older terms that are still appear.”
Zivkovich pointed out the 1973 ordinance making it illegal to take part in an ‘affray.’ That’s an agreement by two or more persons to fight in a public place. “I mention that because most people don’t know what an ‘affray’ is,” he said.

Occasionally, laws that are never really enforced are eventually repealed. One such item makes all cyclists responsible for registering their bikes with the town. Zivkovich admits most don’t and his department doesn’t make a big stink about it. In fact, the town’s newest ordinance doing away with the law was passed on Monday. Bikers still can’t race on any city street or alley, however – that’s been illegal since 1965.

The municipal code of Jackson is a living document. New regulations are constantly added. Two such laws are the ‘Scoop the poop’ ordinance, added in 2005, requiring dog owners to clean up after their defecating dogs within town limits, and an entire chapter, written into the code which made it unlawful for the “unauthorized removal of newspapers before they reach their intended reading public.” This ordinance was passed into law in 2006 after Planet Jackson Hole papers began disappearing from newsstands when certain unflattering news items appeared that week.

According to Devries-Robinson, the town is about halfway through their process of cleaning up the municipal code. They are on Chapter 8 (Health and Safety), which includes regulations about street numbers – minimum three inches high and visible from the street or a fine of a dollar a day for every day in non-compliance.
By the way, it’s against the law to climb a tree on public property in Jackson. You’ve been warned. PJH


PERMALINK:
Stuff The Ballot: Planet JH Guide to Election Day Part I | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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