Pat Stuart

Perhaps you’ve heard? Park County is the soon-to-be recipient of $6 million in Federal development funds with another $6 million following next year — money that comes without the usual kind of strings. Bottom line. Our county commissioners are already deciding how to spend $12 million.

Their first thoughts? A list of projects that need doing sometime in the future when, in the normal course of events, they would be paid for out of the budget or by cap taxes. So far, it’s all things like roads and septic and water lines and windows and accounting systems. So far, there’s been nothing from the courthouse on using that windfall capital on infrastructure investment, i.e. investing in projects that will grow the tax base, build our quality of life, and improve the overall economy. 

So, how do Park County voters think about this? The answer, I would suggest, is to be found in the discussions we’ve had on usages for the money that would/could come in from a cap tax. Each time the conversation focused on two things:

1). Should we have to assess ourselves more to pay for things like roads and bridges, curbing and paving, pipe repair and sewage lines?  

2). Or would we vote to pay for infrastructure investment projects — like the Cody library and the Powell swimming pool?

Well, you know the outcomes. We passed the infrastructure investment initiative. Cody got a new library. Powell built a new pool. Meeteetse upgraded their pool. All of our population centers benefited from these facilities and continue to do so.

Then, we narrowly passed a replace and repair tax. Next, the voters clearly said that enough was enough, that they wanted the county and towns to spend on routine items within their budgets. I heard a lot of people saying things like, “I’d be willing to pay an extra penny for projects that build our future but this ... .”

These results make me think that many of you would feel the same about what we should do with a gift of $12 million. Be that as it may, I’m in the second camp.

I recently wrote in the Cody Enterprise that: The federal windfall of $12 million soon coming to Park County turned my mind to visions of ways to multiply it.

I repeat this here because a lot of you don’t read both papers. In the Enterprise, I proposed one idea — that some of those millions be spent on an equine event center in Cody. That’s a natural for Cody and a project that could add substantially to the tax base and the overall economy. But it doesn’t address the necessary question of what would be done for Powell if Cody got such a big boost.

To me, the answer is easy. The commissioners should use part of that $12 million to ensure that we can expand the Powell library in the near future, to top off whatever the state library awards Powell from its federal windfall.

At this point, we have no idea how much that grant from the state for the library will be, but it’s highly unlikely to be enough to allow us to actually get the money.  

“What?” you say.  

There’s a catch, you see? There is a deadline on expenditure of the award. For example, if the award is $5 million but we can’t find the remaining $7 million (current architect’s estimate) to begin construction, then we would lose the $5 million and be right back where we are now. Looking for money.

And you know how that story goes.

In short, having the county guarantee funding for what is, after all, a county building could make all the difference between Powell getting a library with the kind of facilities the town will need to carry it into the future or not.

So, ... those are my thoughts on two projects — one at either end of the county — that will help build our quality of life, our tax base, and our economy for years to come. Some of you probably have other ideas.

Let’s get them out there. This is the time to engage in a community discussion. Do we want our commissioners to engage in many small upgrades or allocate the bulk in big chunks to invest in the future? Whatever your views, I hope you will make them known, because $12 million is at stake.