Powell, Cody, county leaders give measure near unanimous support

Local government leaders agree: Let voters decide the fate of a 1-cent sales tax for infrastructure.Park County commissioners on Tuesday joined Powell and Cody council members in agreeing to send the fifth cent tax proposal to voters in November’s general election. To make the ballot, the proposal needed the endorsement of two out of the three municipalities and the Park County Commission. The Meeteetse Town Council was slated to consider the proposal Wednesday night.

The 1-cent tax is to be used exclusively for local infrastructure construction and maintenance.

Mayor Scott Mangold noted the decision is up to voters and not government leaders.

“We’re not going to decide. We’re not kings. We can’t impose a 1-cent sales tax, but we want the voters, finally — this will be the first time it’s ever tried — to come up with a decision. Do you want to continue with the nice streets, do you want to continue with the projects that we have, or do you want to stay with the 4 percent?” Mangold said.

County Commissioner Loren Grosskopf said finding out what voters think about the tax — even if they say no — is important for future planning for the local governments.

“We need to know their input into what they believe,” Grosskopf said Tuesday.

Park County is one of three counties in Wyoming that does not currently have the tax.

Mangold said Big Horn County leaders are discussing a sixth-penny tax.

“Sometimes those fifth pennies are used to keep governments going. Big Horn County couldn’t survive without their fifth penny. Park County — I think we can survive, we just can’t deal with the issues that are pending,” Mangold said.

“It’s really important to remember that what we’re talking about here is the future … we need to seriously consider that when we turn over the infrastructure to our kids and our grandkids, that we turn it over at least equal to what we enjoy right now,” Grosskopf said Monday.

Without adequate funding for infrastructure and maintenance, local municipalities and Park County have been forced to defer projects for years, said local leaders who organized the effort to get the tax proposal on November’s ballot.

“We have an aging and expanding infrastructure system that continues to need maintenance. Park County has grown over the years, and it has been very difficult to keep up with the cost of this development,” said City Administrator Zane Logan during a presentation to the Powell City Council on Monday.

Mayor Mangold said local governments have been “patching and Band-aiding all these years” to get by.

“If you talk to any of the staff, the people in the trenches, they’re saying, ‘Yes, this is something that’s needed,’” Mangold said of the tax.

During last week’s Cody council meeting, Councilman Steve Miller expressed similar thoughts, but went a bit further in saying the city is putting Band-Aids on top of Band-Aids.

“We’ve reached a point where we have to do something and we have no other choice but to try to do this (propose the tax),” Miller said. “Like I said, this is not an easy situation.”

Mangold told commissioners that Cody, Powell and Meeteetse alone have a combined $88 million of needs they’ve identified.

If approved by voters, the tax would generate an estimated $6.5 million a year to be split among the local governments in Park County. It would last four years and then have to go back to voters before being extended.

Collecting an additional penny of tax could also make it easier for the local governments to tap into state dollars: Cody City Administrator Jenni Rosencranse and Grosskopf both said state leaders have been reluctant to give money to Park County because it’s not collecting a fifth cent.

“We all know we’ve been criticized (by the state) for not doing all we can to help ourselves, which is the 1 percent general purpose tax,” said Rosencranse. With the state budget expected to shrink under bleak natural gas prices, the competition for dollars will only be getting tougher, she said.

As a part of the agreement between the governments, the money could only be spent on infrastructure, like roads, bridges, sewers and water lines.

The proposal was generally met with a favorable response from the local governments who voted to put it on the ballot.

Cody Councilman Donnie Anderson said it makes more sense to take care of projects now, with prices low and before infrastructure is completely shot.

“Now it’s time for us to step forward and think about the next generation and realize that things are not necessarily getting better in the state, things are not necessarily getting better in the country, but things can get better in Cody,” added Cody Councilman Charles Cloud, who’s running for the state Legislature.

A couple officials made sure to specify they weren’t voting for the tax, but only for sending it to the voters.

“I have never said that I actually supported the tax,” said Cody Councilman Bryan Edwards, apparently referencing a prior news account. “I do support the resolution that it goes to the voters.”

Commissioner Dave Burke — who voted against forwarding voters a proposed tax from West Park Hospital two years ago — took the same tack as Edwards in saying this proposal for infrastructure was appropriate for the voters to decide. “For that reason and that reason only,” Burke said he was voting to put it on the ballot.

“I agree the voters can have a say in it, but as elected officials we’re facilitating, we’re promoting this. Whether a person says so or not, in my view, you’re promoting it by first forming a committee to promote the idea and then ... pushing to get it on the ballot,” countered Commission Chairman Tim French.

French had said a year ago and again recently that he wouldn’t support the tax. He was the only official to vote no and to openly criticize the proposal, saying he disagreed with trying to “tax yourself into prosperity.”

French, a farmer, also noted the expected larger impact the additional cent of tax would have on agricultural producers — likely several times that of the average county household. He also suggested the need had been overstated and that 27 percent, and not 30 percent, of the tax would be paid for by tourists.

Shortly before the Cody City Council unanimously endorsed forwarding the proposal to voters at their May 1 meeting, Mayor Nancy Tia Brown called it “a big decision, but the decision is to put it on the ballot for you (the public) to make the decision.”

Cody Councilman Jerry Fritz, a WyDOT worker, asked voters to drive around town and see the places the council wants to fix, such as the Beacon Hill Road.

“It’s up to you if you want it to keep deteriorating or if you want to see it improved in the next couple years,” Fritz said.