As I write, we sit on the brink of a very important election. Our very future and fate are on the line, and we will absolutely feel the repercussion of it for some time.
And no, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with the President of the United States. The President has very little to do with our daily lives and for the most part, your vote for POTUS in Wyoming doesn’t count. At most, you can influence the margin of victory for the Republican. The GOP will win all three of our electoral votes, but we determine if it’s by 100,000 votes or 100,001 votes.
The most important elections for us in Goshen County are our local elections. The Torrington City Council has two seats up for grabs, and the Goshen County Board of Commissioners has one. There is one seat at the state House of Representative up for grabs – that of Shelly Duncan.
At this point, the candidates have emerged. On social media, there’s a common discourse that says ‘oh, they’re all the same anyway.’ But let me tell you, as the other guy in the room where decisions are made, that’s absolutely not the case.
A common rallying cry around town is that our local governments do nothing and actively drive away business. Every day, someone else cries out that we need ‘something for the kids.’ We need to bring in more business, manufacturing jobs, and all of the above.
It’s high time we take a look at what government – and our local governors – can do, and can’t do.
In this community, we absolutely need ‘something for the kids.’ There’s no doubt about that – but what? Would a giant YMCA-style community center provide that? What about a skating rink? A bowling alley?
Those are all common suggestions on local forums, and they’d all be great on the surface. But the stark truth is that there was a skating rink and a bowling alley in Torrington, and they both closed. Successful businesses, supported by locals, don’t close. And if they close due to retirement, there would be no shortage of buyers to step into a profitable turnkey business. Yet, those things are gone.
County commissioners and city council members can’t just open these kinds of businesses on government dollars. If they choose to, it would have to be paid for by tax dollars, which means that it would run as a community service and, just like the pool, golf course and our parks, run at a deficit. They don’t turn businesses away, and it’s not their job to lure in business either – the city pays the Goshen County Economic Development Corporation $30,000 a year to do that, and we all pay the GCEDC out of the ¼ cent sales tax. And you know what? They do a great job with what they have to work with.
A YMCA-style community center would be fantastic, until you dig in to the one issue that underlies every other – cold, hard cash.
YMCAs aren’t free. The Johnson County YMCA in Buffalo, which is of comparable size to Torrington, costs an adult $480 for an annual pass, plus a $50 sign-up fee. If you choose to pay monthly, it comes to $40 a month. Students aged 10-18 cost $216 a year, or $18 a month. It has to have support, and it has to be financial supported. That’s what they have to charge to keep the building up, keep equipment working, and pay a minimal staff.
When there was a potential YMCA on the table in Goshen County, it would have cost around $1 million a year to operate. If it failed to generate that much revenue, local governments had to foot the bill.
So, could a community that just lost several of its biggest employers, watched one of the main irrigation canals go dry after a tunnel collapse, and stands to be one of the hardest hit by the economic impact of COVID-19 (because large budget cuts at the state level will be reflected in Goshen County School District No. 1, Eastern Wyoming College, the Wyoming Department of Corrections, and every other government agency that provides things like water and power, and unlike other areas, we don’t have the energy and tourism industries to support all of that) foot an extra bill of, say, half of that, $500,000?
We rely on state and federal grants to buy ambulances and provide stipends for firefighters. Is there a grant to fund a rec center?
Maybe – but those are being cut, too, because our nation handled the pandemic so adeptly.
I don’t want to shoot down anyone’s ideas, but I want to ground them. These are things everyone wants, but we can’t sit back and blame our local governments because we don’t have them. In this instance, and for the foreseeable future, they’re going to have their hands full balancing significantly reduced budgets while still providing services with skeleton crews.
Change and progress happen at the street level and they always have, ever since the Founding Fathers chucked that tea into the Boston Harbor. If you want something for the kids, find funding, find investors, figure out how to do it. Nothing has ever been accomplished by complaining and whining.
Social media can be a valuable tool in organizing a movement, but it can’t stop there. And it can happen here – look at the Candy Thompson Memorial Dog Park. They had an idea, they put in the work, found the supporters, lobbied for their location – and they got it. It won’t be long until a portion of Jirdon Park becomes a play place for pets. A PLACE to PLAY, a community development organization in Fort Laramie, is another perfect example of what can be achieved when people work together constructively.
For everyone who blames our local officials for the community’s shortcomings, it’s downright amazing how few of them have the courage to actually show up at a public meeting and try to do something about it. And yes, that includes some so-called candidates for these very offices who make these very same complaints.
The people have a voice, but no one can hear it in absentia.
