TOJ in full retreat

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-High on a hill overlooking sleepy cow fields and the bustling town of Jackson, noble men and women last week plotted the future course of a mountain community founded on heartiness. Life in 1914 Jackson, when the town was incorporated, was tough. Only the best stuck it out. Making a life in Jackson might not be any easier in 2014. New challenges face government officials in a still-tough Western town where billionaires continue to muscle out millionaires, and the middle class is becoming as forlorn as the Shoshone.

“Poverty with a view,” some call it. And what a view. Town officials met at the so-called Valenta House in Spring Creek Ranch and Resorts for their annual weekend retreat. It was the fourth time the group had chosen the spot 700 feet atop East Gros Ventre Butte. The discussion was relaxed with an easy pace. Staff prepared meticulous binders for the electeds and department heads as they worked through numerous issues, guided by Town Administrator Bob McLaurin, who acted as facilitator.

For town leaders, the retreat is a chance to get some perspective; to be freed of the daily bushwhacking called planning items, resolutions, and ordinance readings and to take in the forest. To see where they’ve been, where they got off-trail, and where they want to be headed.

Town officials wrestled with some important issues like how to encourage short-term rental units if no one wants them next door and the feasibility of town/county consolidation. They also tackled less glamorous items like what to do about the rising costs of making citizens’ poopy go away and is the motto “Town is Heart” or “Town as Heart?” (It’s officially “Town as Heart,” by the way, and sewer issues are serious enough to keep Larry Pardee up at night.)

In the end, progress was noted, areas of improvement were identified, and goals were established once more. And best of all, the process was wrapped up early on Saturday. Saturday was a bluebird day, and this is, after all, a ski town at heart.
JH Weekly culled some highlights from the weekend’s numerous discussions. We hope it gives our readers more insight into their elected officials, town staffers, and agency heads. We were there. And now, so were you.

On energy use
In 2007, the Jackson Town Council and Board of Teton County Commissioners took action to improve energy efficiency and reduce heat trapping gas emissions by forming an Energy Efficiency Advisory Board (EEAB), tasked with improving energy efficiency in local governmental operations.

In order to provide focus for the newly formed board, an aggressive energy reduction target was adopted, committing to 10-percent reduction in electricity and a 10-percent reduction in fossil fuel use by the year 2010. Town officials declared the goal attained just a little behind schedule, in June 2011.

McLaurin: What are we going to do with the next energy program? Ten by ten is done. In the spirit of “there is no finish line,” we have to continue with something.
Pardee: And it won’t be easy. The Town of Jackson has grown up. It is imperative that we pay attention to energy resources in the future. We are fighting, just like everybody else, population increase. Keeping up with all the new subdivisions tying into our system has been troubling. We use a huge amount of energy doing more frequent [wastewater] treatments.

In fact, we are way higher energy users than other similar towns of our size. We are not bad people because we use a lot of energy. We are just a victim of our circumstances. We are a town of 20,000 souls—9,200 in town according to the latest census data—but we have three million guests come through every year and we live in a harsh climate—two factors that drive up our energy use.

Robinson: The 10 by 10 initiative was an easy, catchy phrase. I don’t know if ’20 by 20’ will be the same. Also, where is the baseline? Do we continue to use 2006 or 2012 and start over? And our early projections for the wastewater treatment plant show we have achieved the 20 percent savings in electricity already.

Pardee: We already got the check. [The Town of Jackson received $457,711 in energy efficiency rebates from Lower Valley Energy for its upgrades to the sewer plant.]

Barron: We should state that the town pledges to maintain the reductions of 10 by 10 and …

Pardee: With 10 by 10 we had a fixed goal. After adding the visitor center we had to reduce our energy consumption by 16 percent. I suggest we take into consideration square footage. Whether we take on additional facilities or sell some or whatever, we will still have an achievable goal that will make sense.

Also, with fuel consumption, instead of gallons used, we should take into consideration we may have grown or reduced our fleet of vehicles during any given period. We shouldn’t focus on whether the Chief [of Police] is using 10,000 gallons of gas if he adds five officers or shrinks. We have to measure quantitatively.
And should we be tracking something like recycling?

Robinson: And if we do strictly the same goal as a 10 by 10 thing we ignore important things like ridership in START and efforts to be carbon-neutral. Fuels reduction in the PD depends on square miles patrolled. Weather normalizing needs to be considered. A renewable goal might be requiring that x percent of new buildings will be powered by renewable energy.

Wackerly: We had a 116,000-gallon net reduction in 2011. That’s the amount of fuel that would have been burned by passenger vehicles if not for the START Bus. That’s the largest we’ve ever had.

Barron: Maybe the Council should consider this for a workshop. I think we are talking about some big hairy audacious goals. I would like to have the discussion between staff and the Town Council and I would like us to establish a new goal.

McLaurin: I do think it is important to have a big hairy audacious goal. I had one of the employees ask me back in December, “Can I turn the lights on now?” Of course, we have to move forward in a way that continues to provide the services required. We could park all the police cars and turn out the lights at Town Hall just to achieve an energy-savings goal but that is not going to happen.

Obringer: I’m for all that, but how are we recording the story about this energy savings we’re doing? The data is there but who knows what we have accomplished?
McLaurin: We are not telling the story. We don’t have a public information officer cranking out the latest updates. At some point I want to talk about Rachael’s [Fuller] position. We haven’t had a PIO since Shelly [Simonton] quit.

Obringer: It just seems like it’s a real important story to be telling.

McLaurin: This organization has been doing some amazing things. But we have done the easy part. We’ve changed the light bulbs, now we need to change the culture of behavior.  We’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit already.

On generating revenue and stimulating the economy
Jackson’s main industry, be it winter or summer, is tourism. Driving visitors to the Hole, keeping them entertained and happy, and convincing them to spend while they’re here puts money in the coffee can. A new Travel and Tourism board was put into place last year, tasked with the chore of spending revenue generated by the Town and County’s new 2-percent lodging tax. Speed bumps include a deteriorating situation at Snow King and an ongoing rivalry with Teton Village for a fair slice of the pie.

Town and county officials are in agreement over one thing: Construction and other industries are important to the area, and the valley needs to diversify, but, ultimately Jackson Hole lives and dies by sightseer spending.

Barron: We need to be exploring new revenue sources. Maybe a sales tax on groceries or bring up again a real estate transfer tax. We need to think about these things now so when the day comes and we are broke, we are prepared.
I’d also like to see more music downtown, for one.

Turley: I agree with supporting special events downtown and music, but my question is: Where are we with the [Travel and Tourism] board? Are they together with us on this? Shouldn’t we tell them we want to see more music downtown?
Lenz: I support the music. I understand the music business, sort of. But there is already a parade of events almost every weekend on the Town Square.

Barron: It doesn’t have to be on the Town Square. I think downtown includes the core area a few blocks from Town Square. I would like to see music on the green lawn at Center for the Arts, for instance.

Lenz: Well we are not going to go into the special events business, right? We will just help drive sales tax, pure and simple.

McLaurin: Snow King is in the process of revising their economic plan in an attempt to have the mountain pay for itself. They are talking to the Forest Service about a zip line; Manuel is interested in doing that. To his credit he is trying to figure out ways of making the mountain more viable. Mountain biking is very popular and we are seeing what that is doing for the Village. The Ski Club is very interested in a terrain park.

Of course, all of these things are done with OPM—other people’s money. The hotel is up for sale, though, so who knows what is going to happen. Snow King will never compete with the Village or those mega resorts. But what about training for ski races early in the season when we get the French ski team to come here. Or maybe we should look into trying to get into the ski race business. We should talk with [Ski Club president] Carrie [Boynton] about maybe picking off a sanctioned women’s race and partner with the FIS.

Obringer: There are a lot of opportunities at Snow King once someone with some money gets a hold of it. It’s the same problem we had when the McCollisters had [Jackson Hole Mountain Resort]. We can put it on our tickler list about what we would do with OUR property at the base. Nevermind what they are going to do at Snow King.

McLaurin: Vail has been progressive about bringing in world-class events.

[McLaurin was once Vail’s town manager.]

Obringer: We don’t have 10,000 rooms like Vail and Aspen have. We always talk about being something they are.

McLaurin: That’s why we are Jackson Hole, thank God.

Turley: What about the creation of a first-class conference facility in town?

Miles: Teton Village has the beds now. Lodging is so nice there. The Village scene is so much tighter than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Our scene in town does not have the modern beds.

Obringer: How much fun would it be to get in a car and go out there to Teton Village and see what has become of it? Calico is a fine dining place now; all the kids are gone.

We can talk about what we want to do in town and put on the full court press, but there is only one quadrant, north of town, that we have to work with. What about the 50 percent of our population under the age of 40 that all came here with a master’s degree in something? They are all looking for an intellectually stimulating job and a chance at real housing. How do we make room for them?

Mayor: It comes down to: What do we want to see on the ground in the next 50 years? Painted Buffalo and many others have gone into temporary housing. We should be allowing newer room base to replace old room base. It might come in as a PMUD or whatever, but we have to be willing to push the envelope on that. That Painted Buffalo plan was wonderful but ended in a lawsuit.

If we don’t do something to allow the redevelopment of a really old bed base in Jackson, we’re going to be screwing the pooch. That new bed base will drive and feed all of those cool restaurants we’ve got going now. As we go through these next few months working through those character district maps, we need to be on the ball and remember that there has been a push to make town a more residential place than business. But the town serves many needs. The thing that keeps getting chiseled down is that business community aspect of town.

When I talk about upgrading the bed base, I’m not talking about increasing footprint. Just a move to more quality places like The Wort Hotel and the one Jim Darwich [Woods Motel/Stage Stop] is trying to get built. It would encourage retailers to be open in the evenings. Places like the Virginian have a 55 percent annual occupancy rate. That is pitiful. There are numerous lodging facilities that need to be scraped and replaced.

On the Comp Plan
Discussions about finalizing the document that will steer our community into the next decade or more are nearing completion. Input regarding what the public values most and least has been digested by government officials. Now the hard part: where to put it?

Wednesday, January 11, the town will hold a Character District Mapping workshop at 5:30 p.m. The county will hold a similar meeting on January 12 at 1:00 p.m.

Miles: How many years are we in to the Comp Plan now?
McLaurin: About three-hundred grand worth.


Mayor: We better have it wrapped up by mid-April ‘cause I’m going on vacation then so we need to be signed off on that thing.

Miles: We need a Comp Plan wrap up. Let’s get this thing done.

Sinclair: April 18th is the target date to be finished with the Comp Plan. That would make it four-and-a-half years.

Obringer: And when are we cutting the county loose from our conversation on the Comp Plan? After character district discussions about Wilson and town, then are we going to separate ourselves?

Mayor: We separate ourselves on Wednesday night.

Obringer: We are really good at conversations about Comp Plans and whatever but, generally speaking, most people are still asking the question: Why?

Face it, there is going to be no more subdivisions in the county. The only affordable housing mitigation will be what they sting the big houses with. We set a value line as a group of 10 [County Commissioners and Town Council] but the affordable housing mitigation falls on us five. I think it’s safe to say that.

The last four years, all the impacts are moving into town, generally. We also have an increasing number of people who want to move here with meaningful employment. People want to move here, live their lives out here, and get planted in the Aspen Hill Cemetery when it’s over. But everyone else says, “I don’t want it here or there.” You need to ask why 65 percent of the people here collect their checks every other Friday and we count their wealth not their worth. They are not a part of the community.

photo by Jake Nichols
Greg Miles, Melissa Turley, Bob McLaurin, Mark Barron, Bob Lenz and Mark Obringer

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TOJ in full retreat | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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