Lee Livingston

Rather than deter him from seeking another term on the Park County Commission, Lee Livingston says the ongoing pandemic confirmed that he wanted to stick around in the role.

“In a weird way, this crisis kind of brings home why I’m wanting to be a commissioner: It’s helping the folks out here locally,” Livingston said.

The 54-year-old Wapiti outfitter and Republican announced last week that he will seek a third, four-year term on the commission.

“I sure enjoyed the support from the last two elections, and I hope that the folks of Park County feel that I’ve been doing a good enough job that they want me to continue,” Livingston said.

He acknowledged that the county is facing some tough times. The oil and gas industry — a major source of tax dollars for the county government — has taken a pummeling this year, setting the county up for a particularly tough budget process a year from now. And the county had already been looking for cuts after dipping into reserves a year ago.

“There’s going to be some critical decisions about how we move forward,” said Livingston, but he believes his years of service on the commission will help.

“We’ve been cutting the budget ever since the first year I got in there, so I’ve got a lot of experience there,” he said. Livingston added that, “I figured the first four years [in office], a lot of that was learning, so you’ve got to give some of that back.”

The county will balance its budget regardless of what happens, he noted, but if there are further reductions, residents will start seeing services and, potentially, personnel reduced.

Livingston supports asking voters for an additional 1% sales tax to fund local government this year; he says more revenue is needed to continue the current services.

“I don’t know of a household out there that hasn’t seen everything they buy go up in price. And it’s the same thing at the county level: Everything we buy goes up in price,” Livingston said. “And if our revenues remain static and our expenses increase, something’s gotta happen.”

As for accomplishments from his first seven-and-a-half years, he mentioned the county-led Wyoming Public Lands Initiative. Although that process ultimately did not result in a concrete recommendation for the future management of the county’s wilderness study areas, Livingston said bringing together and gathering input from a wide range of citizens and stakeholders was an accomplishment in itself. He also called it a “pretty big deal” that the county was able to rebuild a large portion of the upper South Fork Road with mostly federal dollars (the county paid roughly $2.36 million and the federal government more than $12 million). Then there’s the accomplishment of “just keeping the county held together with the revenues that we’ve had at our disposal,” he said.

Livingston said he’s also built up relationships with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Forest Service and the Wyoming Legislature.

“I’ve really started doing a lot more work down in Cheyenne during the legislative session; I’ve developed some really good relationships down there,” he said. “And I think that’s going to be key moving forward.”

Livingston spent a couple of weeks in the Capitol for last winter’s budget session, representing the interests of the county and, to a lesser degree, the outfitting industry.

He’s the owner of Livingston Outfitting, which offers guided hunts and horse pack trips.

“There’s many times that I will pack a trip in and either ride back out that night to make a meeting the next day or ride out the next day to make a meeting, and go back in and join the trip,” Livingston said, adding that, “I feel I’ve been able to balance it.”

On the five-member commission, the seats held by Livingston and fellow Republican Commissioner Jake Fulkerson are both up for election in 2020. Fulkerson has said that he, too, will seek re-election.