If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The Cody Conservation District has clearly taken that to heart. On Tuesday, the district again asked Park County commissioners to approve a special mail-in election in which the district could ask Cody area voters to approve a 1 mill property tax to fund the district. 

Commissioners declined to fund the $26,000 request, which died for lack of a motion. A number of commissioners suggested the district instead try putting the question on the 2026 general election ballot, which would not add extra costs. 

Among the state’s 34 conservation districts, the Cody and Powell-Clarks Fork districts are the only ones that do not have a regular source of funding, being limited to grants and fundraising. 

The Cody district has asked voters to support a new property tax for years, but they’ve said no so far; the last two attempts failed in the 2020 primary and 2022 general elections.

Since then, the district has switched tack and looked at the potential of running a special mail-in election. If approved, it would have been next May and involved sending a ballot to every registered voter in the Cody Conservation District. 

Board member Richard Jones said they’d like to do a mail election as a way to achieve a turnout more limited to just those who may know and care about the district. 

When Commissioner Scott Steward questioned whether the county paying for an election with a low turnout would be worth it, Jones had a ready answer.

“If three people return a ballot and two are positive, we still win,” he said.

It really didn’t matter how many ballots were returned, Jones added, although he imagined many rural voters in the district who know about the district would vote yes, while those who don’t, such as new and urban residents, likely wouldn’t bother returning a ballot. 

Jones said the district runs on roughly $150,000 a year and has struggled to keep employees due to the uncertainty of relying on grants. 

In comparison, the Meeteetse Conservation District, which receives a voter-approved mill, collected roughly $117,650 in property taxes last year.

The funding of the mail ballot has been an issue for the commissioners in the past. In February, then-district chair Russ Dwyer suggested the district could pay for the special mail election, but Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric said state law requires the county to pay.

Dwyer lost his position on the conservation district board over the summer, after he was sentenced to prison in Yellowstone County, Montana, on a felony count of sexual abuse of children.

And after approving a reduced budget over the summer, commissioners balked at the $26,000 request. 

“I totally understand the predicament you’re in,” Commissioner Kelly Simone told Jones, adding, “But to me, I would be more in support of it going on the general ballot. We all have the same type of predicament. We have to tighten our belts.”