GOVERNOR'S GROWTH CONFERENCE
In Wyoming, Saying the Words “Planning” and “Zoning”
By Brodie Farquhar, 1-10-08
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| To listen to the conference Jan. 10 and 11, visit www.caspercollege.edu/events. | |
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Something highly unusual happened Thursday morning in Casper, where Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal convened his two-day “Building the Wyoming We Want” conference at Casper College.
No one was shot, tarred ‘n feathered or invited to attend a Western necktie party.
And numerous people—including the governor—repeatedly uttered that communistic word “zoning” without being struck by lightning.
“I’ll tell ya, I’m scared to death by this,” said Freudenthal. He compared holding a state-wide conference about growth, to rubbing a lamp to get a genie. Only trouble is, he said, he doesn’t know whether to expect a curvaceous Jeannie of the lamp, or a big, ugly, mean and blue one with a sword and a bad attitude.
Apparently, Wyoming has changed since the 1970s, when Freudenthal was a junior member of Governor Hathaway’s administration, which was wrestling with explosive growth in the coal fields of the Powder River Basin. Back then, said Freudenthal, everyone was talking about the need for planning and zoning, but at the same time, no one really wanted to say the actual words of “planning” and “zoning.”
“This time, talking about managing growth has to start here (in the middle of Wyoming), not in Cheyenne,” said the governor. The rapid growth of energy development and rural housing development has left county commissioners all over the state with “money and problems that they haven’t learned how to deal with,” he said.
Suddenly, county commissioners are faced with building and maintaining roads, hiring sheriff deputies and creating new fire districts. “Pretty soon, if the water table isn’t very good, the homeowners approach the Wyoming Water Development Commission and ask for money,” said the governor, noting that in the past decade, the state of Wyoming has spent $100 million on water systems for rural developments.
“We pick up on the public side, that which normally would be picked up by the free market side,” he said. “We have a development pattern of off-loading development costs onto the public.”
Ironically, Wyoming imposes much stricter development rules and regulations on the coal industry, than it does on rural housing developments. He reaffirmed his respect for the free market and private property rights, but declared “we need to hold ourselves to the same standards of mineral developers.”
Freudenthal also reaffirmed his love for Wyoming, that in 2030, he wants his kids to enjoy what he has through the years, though he darkly muttered something about how he hasn’t drawn an elk license in three years.
Yet Wyoming is full of contradictions, he said. Last summer, during a state-wide conference about sage-grouse, he attended a gathering at a Casper home where the owner said he didn’t want any interference in what he does with his land, because of the sage-grouse and a possible Endangered Species Act listing for the bird.
Yet that same man, said the governor, wanted the state to do something about the jerk across the street, who’d put a trailer on the lot—right across from this nice home.
The general attitude in Wyoming, said the governor, is don’t regulate me—regulate the other guy who’s doing something I don’t like.
Speakers so far have included U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-WY; Luther Propst, executive director for the Sonoran Institute; Bob Budd, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust; Ellen Hanak of the Public Policy Institute of California; Mike Purcell, director of the Wyoming Water Development Commission; Terry Moore of ECONorthwest and Ken Connelly, chairman of the Lincoln County Commission in southwest Wyoming.
You can listen in on the conference at www.caspercollege.edu/events.
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Comments
Robert: an encouraging number of legislators here. Maybe not this session, but maybe in '09?
Brodie, the only time I've ever seen the Wyoming legislature rise to the occasion is to pass another subsidy or tax break for Wyoming's various industries.
I hear there's another call for predator control funds this coming session.
“Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can."
The other problem, actually two problems, with zoning is that most zoning advocates look at this stuff prescriptively. In short, they want to prescribe the future....when it would probably be better if they looked at things from an anticipatory standpoint. In short, where do people want to be, and what are they going to need, and what's the most effective way to serve them.
So, the prescriptionists look at zoning as a plan for the enemy, but old Feldmarschall von Moltke warned that plans never survive contact with the enemy...and that war is always a matter of expedience.
Yep.
By the way I was proud when Presidents Bush and Clinton banded together to energize Americans to support tsunami relief. I was very proud when the people of our country came together to help the Gulf Coast after Katrina. That sort of trascendent spirit towards matters of great importance makes me very proud. Our nation is not some sort of dismal Chomski abstraction. We are OUR nation. We may have warts but we have spirit. Our institutional structures will continue to evolve as we continue to learn as a nation united in purpose and shared destiny.
That it is thought by many to be otherwise is evidence of that delightful--but apocryphal--notion that a lie told often enough will begin to seem like the truth.
I really love the trailer trash comment, commoners just don't knwo their place do they. A family can buy an old cheap trailer, fix it up and have their own home. don't like it? don't look.
Yes, Robert, the state is planning to pay for the damage done to private property by the introduced wolves. It is up to us. The freeloaders that had them hauled in on the taxpayers dollar certainly have no intention of taking any responsibility. I do not happen to feel that individual families should have to pay the whole tab for the entertainment of wolf lovers.
They pay it in the form of grazing fees, which haven't risen since 1905 or so! Inflation doesn't exist if you know the right politicians (or have a wide enough stance).
Nope, I don't own a single cow, but I do like beef and prefer it be affordable. I get no benefit at all from those who want the "public land" for their private use.
Like everything else in this nation, public lands are being allowed to languish--along with every other infrastructure except for the military.
The notion of maintenance --in the form of taxes--is anathema to Americans of whatever political stripe.
The notion of maintenance--by way of user fees--is considered insulting--particularly by users...
Do YOU have any standards? Or do you allow the lowest forms of human trash to hang around your house? I doubt it. When TOO many people act in an Inappropriate way in a LIMITED area - standards are developed and everyone suffers! many of us that live here now - came from failed areas and what they did is trying to come here; WE WILL STOP IT!! Wyoming DOESN'T Always know what is BEST for WY!!
Since statehood, the "states" of the Northern Rockies have been (resource) colonies of corporate industries operating for profit on state and federal subsidies. Wyoming, and its neighboring (welfare) states will "know best" when they are forced to survive on their own economic decisions.
A healtlhier mix of small and micro-businesses will replace the giant, multi-nationals when the federal subsidies dry up.
State's rights almost brought the nation down in 1861--here in the west, at least, it is still a paradigm knocking about like a runaway cannonball...
As for eliminating states rights, sovereign rights, and private property rights....feel free to find a country that agrees with you. The needs of Wyoming are vastly different than those of NY and we should be allowed to manage ouor own needs, not theirs.
Before you guys get too enthusiastic about all you want to do to remove Wyoming from the country, remember a big chunk of that federal money paid into the state is for our share of the mineral royalties. You may not realize it, but a huge chunk of your energy supply comes from our state. Of course you can always rely on Hugo Chavez....as long as you don't tick him off.
Not a small amount of food comes from here too.
By the way I went to Casper Jr. College in the '50s instead of UW because my "rich rancher" parents couldn't afford for me to go to Laramie, even with scholarships.
It really is true that we are not favorably impressed with the self important types that come from where they ahve already messed everything up and want to do the same here.
The tough living conditions, namely the weather is pretty much what has limited growth in the state....and we don't mind if you don't come here.
If the future of WY isn't going YOUR way - YOU can leave too. Please get up to speed with REALITY - Hippies; come on; they are as extinct as the; Dodo, slavery, indian raids - ect!!
Remembner - YOU will die someday; then the rest of us will have to clean up YOUR mess; instead of that, we are preventing you from trashing the place! I CHOOSE who lives in my town, comes to my house and who plays in OUR playgrounds!
Seeing that the Cowboys were the only college team in the state, sports fans pretty nearly had to go there; but the sports teams were about the only thing about the university most reactionaries in the state supported--or respected...
A recent event that helps explain how politicians in Wyoming see development and planning was when they changed the name of UWs Soldier Field (named to honor those who served our country to keep it free) to Jonah Field (named after a natural gas field in Sublet County).
Go Pokes.
Did you get lost on your way to say something and happen to post in a Wyoming thread?
Somehow I missed the name change. I think you may be confusing U of Wyoming with U of Wisconsin, who did change the name of their field, but not to Jonah. Considering the uproar of the change of the cowboys colors when Dubois came to town, I really think that renaming the football field would cause more than a little controversy.
Caleb, YOU choose who is allowed to live in your town???? What a nice person you must be. Move a lot?
Just take care of your own mess, don't worry about other people, we are cleaner than you may realize.
Strange you bring up Private Property Rights for Wyomingites, when you have stated before that Montanan's shouldn't have any. Case in point; the Yellowstone Ranch Preserve's rights.
You mention that Wyoming knows what's good for Wyoming, yet your state has over 20 Elk feed grounds, aka breeding grounds for disease, and you think THAT is good for Wyoming? What about the oh so dreaded Brucella?
So seems to me, Marion, you are doing EXACTLY what the Governor stated above.
"The general attitude in Wyoming, said the governor, is don’t regulate me—regulate the other guy who’s doing something I don’t like."
It's still War Memorial Stadium all right. But by gum the playing surface is the only one in all the land named after a piece of non-renewable resource extraction.