A diverse representation

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

By Richard Anderson

These days aren’t the first that Jackson Hole has found itself facing tough decisions about what we want to be and how we’re going to engineer it.

Our economy has been in transition before – from ranching cows to ranching dudes and then, later, from a summer economy when folks had to make their hay during three or four clement months of summer to a year-round economy when they had to alternate between tool belts and ski patrol jackets.

There have been many waves of immigrants over the decades – homesteaders, dudes, ski bums, millionaires, Latinos, billionaires – and still, the town of Jackson remains, largely, a real town, not just as a place to shake a few shekels out of the pockets of passers-by, but a place where people can carve out a niche, settle down, even raise a family if they figure it all out.

There are those, however, who wonder if those days are gone, folks who believe they have read the writing on the wall and that it indicates that Jackson Hole turned a corner sometime recently.

They fear – and sometimes, I admit, I share their apprehension – that the days of 20-somethings coming out here to ski or climb for a summer and finding themselves here 10 or 15 years later, having started a business or having worked their way up or just having figured out a clever way of making ends meet are a thing of the past.

Well, maybe. But then again, there are signs of hope, one of which, I think, is the fact that the two new members of the Jackson Town Council – Melissa Turley and Bob Lenz – appear to represent such different demographics.

I know neither of them personally, but I like to imagine that Turley speaks for that next wave of 20- and 30-somethings that will keep the valley young and vigorous, that won’t let fear of the unknown stop them from trying. Some might call them callow; I like to think of them as bold.

And Lenz, who moved to Jackson in 1975, represents in my mind the institutional knowledge needed to prevent us from making the same mistakes over and over again, the slow and steady sort that settled these parts to begin with and through luck and often bitter experience figured out what it takes to survive and even thrive through droughts and floods and blizzards.

When charting an uncertain future, it’s good to have a balance of youth and experience, and it’s what will keep Jackson Hole sustainable. It may sometimes result in confusion and conflict, too, but in the end it can result in a better plan. Planet Jackson Hole recognized the unusual dichotomy of these two decisions that town voters made last November, and so we decided to sit down with Lenz and Turley to see how they have weathered their first three months on the council and ask about a few hot-button issues they’ll be deciding in the future.
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A diverse representation | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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