Primary Voter's Guide Part 1

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

By PJH Staff

Development, affordable housing and sustainable economic growth are the issues highlighted in this year’s campaign for the open seats on both the Town Council and the Board of County Commissioners. With the Aug. 19 primary just around the corner, this week’s Planet introduces voters to the candidates and their positions on some of these important issues. Next week we turn to the district races for the Wyoming Legislature and the state’s Congressional delegation. This week’s issue focuses on local races, including the mayor’s uncontested bid for re-election. Here’s a breakdown of what’s at stake at the polls.

TOWN COUNCIL:
The Jackson Town Council is made up of four members, who each serve four-year terms. This year, two seats are open, Mark Obringer’s and Abe Tabatabai’s. Seven candidates are challenging the incumbents for a total of nine candidates. The Aug. 19 primary will narrow the field of candidates to four, with only the top four vote-getters appearing on the November ballot.

The Town Council primary is nonpartisan, meaning it doesn’t matter to which party the council candidates belong. It’s simply a matter of who gets the most votes.

MAYOR’S RACE:
Mayor Mark Barron is running unopposed this year as he seeks his fourth term. If he wins again, he will serve another two years. There is a possibility for write-in candidates in this race.

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS:
Eight people are running for two open seats on the Teton County Board of Commissioners. Commissioners Leland Christensen and Andy Schwartz are the incumbents in this race to serve the county for four years. Five of the candidates are Republicans and three are Democrats.

The Aug. 19 primary for the board is a partisan race, unlike the Town Council race. Two Democrats and two Republicans will be elected out of the larger pool of eight candidates. Only four candidates will appear on the November ballot.

ALSO:
 One additional seat will need to be filled after the death of Commissioner Bill Paddleford, who passed away on July 7. Since Paddleford was a Republican, his party will nominate three names to the commission. The commissioners then will vote from this list for his replacement to serve out the remainder of the four-year term. This will take place before the November election.

City, county consider merging
They’ve done it in big cities like New York, Boston, Denver and San Francisco. They’re thinking about it in Albuquerque, Memphis, Toledo, Ohio, and as far away as Fairbanks, Alaska.

In the quest for a more streamlined government, many cities and towns are opting to merge with the county they are located in. The city of Jackson has been considering such a merger with Teton County for decades now, and the issue is once again heating up.

“I think it makes some sense and is worth looking at,” City Administrator Bob McLaurin said. “We’ve had no formal talks on ‘consolidation,’ but what we have been doing since 1974 is working together with departments like Parks & Rec, Fire/EMS, START and Pathways.”

Population growth within city limits has climbed 11 percent since 2000, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau headcount completed last year. The numbers are mirrored in the county where a steady 10 percent increase during the past seven years shows county population topping out at 20,000. Coping with growing pains has local government exploring all options, as the process of revamping the Comprehensive Plan chugs slowly along with significant public input.

“The local population deserves the opportunity to redesign their local government if they so choose,” Mayor Mark Barron said. Barron, a proponent of consolidating city and county services, said only half-joking that his ultimate goal would be to work himself out of a job. “We have different neighborhoods: Hoback Nation, Alta, Wilson. And town and county do compete for a voice. But socially, we think of ourselves as living in Jackson Hole. The valley is one social and economic system.”

Merging a municipal corporation (city) with an administrative division of a state (county) is not a new concept, but it has been trending in the United States, especially in the lower Midwest. The arrangement is often predicated by economic concerns. Duplicating delivery of services like public health, police and fire, and planning departments is unnecessarily costly. Many successful mergers, however, have been the logical result of a single municipality growing to the point of ‘becoming’ its county.

Teton County may qualify as a cohesive ‘community’ by the sole rationale that it is the only county in the state with one town in it.

“We have ‘X’ amount of land with 40 percent of the population within two square miles,” Barron said. Opponents of urban sprawl take solace in the success of the ‘Town as Heart’ movement, while others see growth within city limits as moving too fast and too tall. And it would be these voters – city and county residents – that would ultimately determine the fate of any proposed consolidation.

State Rep. Keith Gingery, a Republican from Jackson, said the commission of a charter would be the first step. “Everyone in the community would vote on whether they even want a charter to be formed to study the idea of [consolidation],” he said.

Currently, Wyoming statutes do not allow for a town and county to combine their governing jurisdiction. The town of Lusk has expressed interest in merging with Niobrara County to save money, and in Cheyenne, the state capital has trapped itself with surrounding ranchette suburbia, prompting interest in redesigning their government structure for land use planning reasons.

Gingery sponsored a bill last year that was never introduced. He said he hoped to see a committee-sponsored bill again in 2009.

“I think Jackson and Teton County are taking the lead and pushing the movement forward,” McLaurin added. “Jackson pushed the lodging tax, and we have a history of being somewhat aggressive in the past.”

For Jackson-Teton County, a merger would not be based on money. Both the city and county balance their budgets so neither would be assuming any debt. “But each [governing body] has to build an administrative building and other office buildings,” Barron noted.

Perhaps the biggest driving force behind talks of consolidation stems from owners of businesses in Jackson that reside outside of city limits.
“What I hear the most is, ‘I have a business in town and I don’t have a voice,’” Barron added.

Affordable housing 101
In a valley where the average home price steadily climbs past $1 million, an increasingly scarce number of working class residents can afford to live and work in Teton County. A major issue in the upcoming town and county elections is how to keep a living, breathing workforce in one of the most expensive resort communities in the world.

What does a shortage of affordable housing mean?

A housing needs survey done in 2006 by the Teton County Housing Authority said that at least 65 percent of Teton County workers need to be housed within the county for it to function as a robust community. Christine Walker, director of the Housing Authority, said the county is “at that tipping point where it starts losing vitality” and the ability to support its own businesses.

Candidates for town and county office are becoming aware that if the percentage of workers housed in the valley slips below that number, Jackson will lose its persisting character and ability to support its own members.

Opinions vary on how to solve the shortage of affordable workforce housing, but most candidates agree that the solutions will only come from dialogue between creative, interested citizens of Teton County.

How are we solving the problem now?

Deed restrictions made on houses available for sale or rent allow people below a certain income level to buy or rent that house for a fraction of market value, and ensure that the value of the home won’t rise more than a few percents a year. When a residential or commercial development project is approved, it must devote a percentage of the floor-space it builds to deed-restricted housing to be built on site or at another location.

Developers of new projects – both commercial and residential – must devote 15 percent of floor-space to affordable housing when building in the town, and 25 percent when building in the county. The Housing Authority manages the deed-restricted units. If developers can’t build the units, they pay what’s called a fee-in-lieu, which is a monetary compensation to the Housing Authority.

In addition to the Housing Authority, the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust also manages deed restricted ownership units. The trust is a non-governmental organization that raises money, purchases land, and acts as its own contractor to build deed-restricted units on it.

Where are we coming up short?
Despite some progress, critics say the tools to engender more affordable housing have not been able to keep up with the scarcity of affordable housing, especially rental units.
The word “condominiumization” refers to the conversion of an apartment complex into condominium units that are then sold individually. Many candidates are coming out against this trend, arguing that developers make quick cash and turn hundreds of apartments, which were once rented at an affordable rate, into ownership units that can be bought by only a select few.

“With one vote of the town council they could wipe out 300 units of affordable housing, and that takes the housing trust 20 years to replace,” said Brian Grubb, a candidate for county commission.

In addition to this “condo-ization,” as free-market homes change hands, buyers are likely to be second-home owners who will not live in Jackson. These absentee owners will still require services that create jobs, but not rent their houses out to local workers, further reducing the rental supply.

Many candidates said that affordable rentals are needed more than ownership units, so that seasonal workers or short-term residents can find a place to live.

Also, numerous sources say that the fee-in- lieu payments are based on outdated information from 1994 market figures, and new fee in lieu requirements proposed by the Housing Authority are nearly 1,000 percent of the current ones. Some candidates propose raising the fees to the rates proposed by the Housing Authority, and other propose abolishing the fees altogether.

Mark Obringer, a Town Council member seeking re-election this year, praised town and county efforts to provide affordable housing to residents thus far, but warned that the solution is currently only a factor of how much development is going on in the valley.
The money needed to grow affordable housing reserves that are not linked to mitigation fees will have to come from somewhere.

“The biggest question in my mind always ends up being: How do we pay for it? There are opportunities out there for recurring types of revenue streams, but all of them would require community support … they are all a tax,” Obringer said.

Not only will it be difficult to play “catch-up,” candidates say, but also as long as workforce housing is tied only to development, the problem will exacerbate itself.

What are the possible solutions?
The two most widespread proposals among candidates are an increase in mitigation rates exacted from developers and alleviation of the rental shortage.
Community businesses are stepping up to provide rental options for their own workers, but some say the government should lend a helping hand in the process.

Tommy Wood, who is running for Town Council, thinks businesses could subsidize dorm-like housing for their seasonal workers if the town government helped provide the space for that to happen. He proposed building seasonal “dorms” on top of the new START bus hub to be built in the near future as the first step to solving the problem. He also thinks that free market rentals could be subsidized by a government agency, so that longer-term residents would spend a smaller percentage of their income on rent and gain a financial foothold in the valley. Wood said that a tax on hotel rooms, or some other boon of the tourism industry, could help pay for these subsidies and not hamper the local economy.

In addition to rental alleviation, some candidates are asking to raise mitigation rates in the town and county, some as much as 60 percent.

Matt Lee, who is running for Town Council, proposed a gradual change, and said that a record setting construction industry could handle a higher exaction rate.

“If we are not developing at a sustainable pace and setting records every year as we have for a few years right now … slowing and pulling back the throttle is not such a bad thing,” Lee said. He suggested trial phases to see how much, or how quickly, the mitigation requirements can increase before having an economic impact on the valley.
How can we preserve

Jackson’s character?

The candidates offered these solutions as well as many others, but any large-scale planning decision could have a major ripple effect.

Obringer warned that higher mitigation rates could drive up commercial real estate prices, which would then leave local businesses with nowhere to go. He cited the town of Aspen, Colo., where commercial space is occupied by upscale boutiques.
“That’s the kind of the genesis we saw on the [Jackson] square over the years, mom and pop businesses giving way to businesses that cater to the lifestyle person who buys $100,000 of artwork,” he said. “All that is fine. We just have to be aware that every action we take has a reaction.”

Lee also used Aspen to describe an undesired future for Jackson. There, deed restricted housing is common, but density chokes out open space.
“If we play the game by the same rules that everyone else does, we’re going to lose,” he said. “Whether it’s building up big and losing our character, or losing all of our workers to keep the look, but lose the feel, of a small town.”

Peeking into war chests
With the primary a month away, most candidates for both Town Council and County Commission are only now beginning to seriously fundraise and campaign for the first electoral round.

Some of the candidates, including the incumbents, have campaign committees to raise funds for their election war chests and print and distribute buttons, stickers, signs and literature about the candidates. Other candidates are hoping to receive some donations. But most candidates expect to spend some of their own money, though some have yet to spend even a dime of anyone’s money.

Campaign donation and spending records on file with the county reveal that for the 2006 primary, the campaigns to elect Town Council candidates Melissa Turley and Bob Lenz spent between $3,000 and $4,000. Both candidates went on to win the November general election.

For county commissioner, successful campaigns to elect Ben Ellis and Hank Phibbs spent between $2,000 and $3,000.

From now until the primaries on Aug. 19, candidates will increase campaigning and seeking solicitations for more funding.

But, in a smallish community like Jackson Hole, winning is not always about who summons the most money for door hangings and namesake paraphernalia.
Elections Clerk Sharon Nethercott has been involved in Teton County elections since 1972, shortly after the county switched to punch cards from ballot boxes.

“Sometimes the candidate with the most wins,” she said. “But the thing people really pay attention to is the forums, where they go listen to the candidates speak.”
Face-to-face meetings are the best way to reach out in a small community like this, said County Commissioner Leland Christensen, who is seeking re-election this year. “It’s a challenge, knocking on doors, and there’s never enough time in a day or a summer to get it done.”

Brian Grubb, a Democrat seeking a seat on the County Commission, said his campaign’s goal for the entire election cycle is to raise around $20,000, a figure in the ballpark of money spent to elect the late Bill Paddleford to the same board in 2006.
Some, like Town Council candidate Louise Lasley, had neither spent money nor done any formal campaigning as of early July. Lasley said she intended to begin campaigning on foot within the next week.

Jackson Hole is a community in which it is not uncommon for major or well-known candidates to advertise with signs and bumper stickers baring only the candidates’ first name. Take, for example, “Andy,” a bumper sticker for County Commission Chair Andy Schwartz, a Democrat seeking re-election. And now “Claire,” a slogan for Democratic candidate and political newcomer Claire Fuller, who also is running for County Commissioner.

But election success, particularly for incumbents, does not always boil down to whose name is most widely pasted throughout the valley.
“It takes a lot of time and commitment,” Nethercott said. “If you don’t put that in after the election, you won’t get elected again.”

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Primary Voter's Guide Part 1 | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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