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Allegations of Graft Sparks Investigation

BREAKING...7:48 p.m.

Police confirmed today they're investigating an alleged embezzling scam involving the county office of "lien and title".

“I was shocked to learn that a trusted employee was suspected of embezzling funds,” Teton County Clerk Sherry Daigle said in an official press release Friday.

Her face flushed behind her desk, Daigle said late Friday that a county employee had been fired earlier today. Due to the ongoing corruption probe, however, she declined to identify that person. But an official close to the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they believed the scandal involved only one county worker.

Jackson detectives reported targeting a local government employee who “was (allegedly) over charging customers and converting the fraudulently gained funds into her personal use.”

(*See editor's note at end of this article for additional background on this story) [more]

Snake River Canyon Re-Opened to Traffic

BREAKING...Update 8 p.m.

Wyoming's Department of Transportation is reporting that U.S. Hwy. 26-89, which cuts through the Snake River Canyon southwest of Jackson, reopened Wednesday evening.

The highway had been closed for several hours after two large mudslides covered the road in the west end of the canyon.

WYDOT crews from Jackson and Afton worked into the early evening to clean off the highway near Alpine, about 35 miles southwest of Jackson.
[more]

Who Do You Trust to Tell the Truth on Iraq?

A freely available investigative OPINION

Last week, a local philanthropist, Republican moneyman and apologist for Vice-President Dick Cheney went on a full-blown marketing campaign questioning the integrity of a local anti-war group, calling on critics of the Bush administration to raise the tone of the bitter debate over Iraq to something he deems “civil.”

With clever derring-do, in his full-page color advertisements run in the uncritical local press, Foster Friess turned the tables on Jackson’s rising and vocal minority of anti-war protesters.

Some of those present at the march and rally on Aug.11, and afterward, charged the vice-president and other Bush administration officials with publicly "sexing up" the case about WMD and Saddam’s hand in 9/11, accompanying White House drumbeats leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In his ad, Mr. Friess opines that it’s the protesters who are lying, patronizing them, as if he alone held a monopoly on the truth, as: “(I)ll-informed or deceitfully willing to destroy another’s reputation to advance their own selfish political agenda.”

You’d think someone as sure of his own moral superiority and pedagogic denunciations of others would have thoroughly vetted his sloppy essay before allowing it to be published and so nakedly available for all the world to do for him. [more]

Peacenik Critiques Anti-War Protest

Dear Editor:

I took part in the Aug. 11 protest-peace rally and march in Wilson.

As a child of the ‘60s, I believe a well-conceived and executed presence is a powerful form of exercising our rights.

My co-marchers and I have mixed feelings about the day. Upon hearing of the march, we knew we wanted to participate. Subsequent to deciding to take part, we learned of the existence of a Dick Cheney effigy that might or might not be:

A) Dragged in the dirt
B) Toppled
C) Beheaded
D) Detonated
E) Boiled in oil
F) Hung
G) All of the above

[more]

SPET Money Builds Paths

Officials have announced the start of construction on two new pathways and a meeting of the Jackson Town Council next Tuesday, Sept. 4.

According to a press release, workers are constructing a 2230-foot pathway on the south side of South Park Loop Road across from Melody Ranch between Kestrel Lane (Cortland Drive) and the Flat Creek Bridge. This segment will be linked to the existing Von Gontard trail along U.S. Hwy 89 later this year or early next spring by a pathway that will be constructed by Melody Ranch Development Corporation.

“The plan is to eventually complete the loop around South Park with a separated pathway,” Jackson Hole Community Pathways Coordinator Brian Schilling said in the news bulletin. “This year’s project provides a much-needed connection from the west end of Melody Ranch to the Hwy 89 pathway and gets us a little closer to our goal of a pathway all the way around South Park. It is our intent to meet the needs of the community and provide safe biking and pedestrian facilities for the folks in those neighborhoods.”

Construction on the Park Loop pathway is funded by a $156,250 TEAL grant awarded to JHCP in 2006, with Teton County responsible for a 20% match, or $31,250, of the total grant. [more]

Romney, Richardson Need to Get Real

A freely available OPINION

After a week of lolling about the free world's financial and political capitols -- where the medias’ cult of tacky hyperbolic scandals is a 24-7 sensory-experience in New York and D.C. -- it was restorative to reflect upon covering last week two '08 presidential candidates first campaign stops in that discriminating outback of modern America known as Jackson, Wyo.

Ahhh...last week: A now bygone era of idyllic America I shall call “B.L.C,” or “Before Larry Craig,” where serious political journalism and citizen participation went hand-in-hand with democratic esprit d’ corps. A time before the nation lost its collective head over the balding Idaho senator’s unsavory airport restroom escapades.

In comparison, both Mitt Romney and Bill Richardson impressed me as intelligent, personable, fully-dressed and formidable politicos who appear to have the right stuff to be president.

They also struck me as shrewd and charismatic performers whose pat answers to probing queries designed to get beneath their target-market rhetoric raised even more questions left unanswered.
[more]

Is Freedom God's Gift To Humanity?

Republican Mitt Romney became the second White House hopeful to visit Wyoming and attend fundraisers in as many days, arriving here Wednesday afternoon for a standing-room-only gathering in a humid motel conference room.

Late the night before, Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson attended a Jackson fundraiser before jetting off to Nevada the same evening.

On Wednesday, some 50 to 75 people sat or stood inside and outside the 49’er motel conference room as Romney, immaculately groomed in a pinstriped dress shirt with French cuffs and links, took the small, makeshift stage aside flags of the United States and Wyoming. The event was open to supporters, detractors and the media.

“The civilized world and America is in a perilous situation and is under attack" by “radical jihadists” who want to drag it “back to the 8th and 7th centuries," Romney said.
[more]

First By a Day, Romney Due Next

The first presidential hopeful of the 2008 campaign season to visit Wyoming touched down Tuesday evening at Jackson Hole airport.

Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, one of eight Democrats vying to become the next president of the United States, entered the Cowboy state by chartered jet last night, likely beating former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts by less than a day when he landed here at 8:37 p.m.

Running over two hours late because of a breakdown with his original flight out of Las Vegas, New Mexico, Richardson scrapped a scheduled airport news conference.

Before jumping into a black SUV, whisking his small entourage of friends and aides to a fund-raiser of about 35 guests at the Jackson home of art dealer Gerald Peters, Richardson fielded a question about why, with Wyoming’s traditional-based economy in fossil fuels, voters here should consider him and his clean, alternative energy proposals. [more]

Murder Suspect Collared in Texas

A fugitive wanted for the alleged strangulation and rape of a Rock Springs motel worker was captured in the Texas Panhandle Monday afternoon, some 786 miles from the scene of the crime.

Kerrie Sullivan, 25, was found dead at about 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Economy Guest Village Motel in Rock Springs. Police have said that Sullivan’s body was discovered in a room that had been registered to Dawayne K. Myers, 23. [more]

Take Your Showers the Night Before!

Water mains to upper Cache Creek Drive will be turned off Tuesday between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., according to a recent Town of Jackson news bulletin.

Officials say the Town of Jackson Water Department spends much of its summer fixing leaky water mains. According to the bulletin, to complete the repairs, shutting off the water to surrounding homes and businesses for short periods is necessary.

In addition, residents living east of Rancher Street, including Lodgepole and Cedar, will also be out of water during that time.

On Friday, August 24th, between 6: 30 a.m. and 11 a.m., maintenance workers will turn off the water to the Flat Creek Business Center – including, Carol Owens' Dental offices, the Foxy Lady and El Gorditos.

Those with questions can call Public Works at 733-3079 or Town Hall at 733-3932, extension 110.

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