In government’s mad rush to build a house for everyone that wants to live in Jackson Hole, they’ve alienated and angered many longtime citizens. Taxpaying residents who thought they bought a house on a quiet, single-family street are watching their property values plummet and their neighborhood ruined. Local government is now playing real estate developer – buying the lot nextdoor […]
A broad community effort to protect the Genevieve Block is gaining momentum. Locals want preservation over the massive hotel the developer proposed on West Broadway. While Friday’s kick-off was a big success with 335 grassroots donors, a whole lot of work still needs to be done. Here is the Other Side of the Story of May 1:
Voters have repeatedly said they want a livable Jackson Hole. And in 2017 Save Historic Jackson Hole once again stood with them. First, we can report that our weekly “Other Side of the Story” articles continue to receive positive feedback. Originally we planned to run for just 6 weeks, highlighting news and opinion that is under-reported by local media. Here […]
Last year had its mystery and intrigue. But the biggest mystery remains a mystery. Why was the Big-Growth takeover of Jackson Hole ignored? In a small town where most everything gets reported, the will of the voters was ‘reversed’ and it went unreported. In November, 2016 voters said NO to the extra 1-cent sales tax for housing and the START […]
Okay, ‘mitigation’ isn’t the easiest topic, but it’s vitally important. What’s mitigation? It’s the ‘housing’ a new building project must provide in order to gain approval. And our local requirement is pitifully low. Let’s say a developer wants to build a new hotel that will need a staff of 80. Our current 25% mitigation means the developer must provide housing […]
START has problems, we all know that. We see the empty buses endlessly circling town. No riders! That’s the problem. When you’ve got no customers you’re out of business. That’s how business works. Not so for government, they can hold onto a failed idea for decades. It’s easy when it’s not your money. Even by ‘Mountain Ski Town’ standards, START […]
In his famous Gettysburg Address, Lincoln emphasized a ‘Government of, by and for the people.’ Have we drifted away from that? Too often we’ve become a government by the consultant and for special interests. The ‘Bigger and Grander’ agenda has never been on the ballot, but it’s what our local electeds keep promoting. If we were truly a ‘Government of, […]
Front page news like last week’s “Muldoon studies Aspen’s parking fix” is evidence the “Last of the Old West” needs defending. Without certain nonprofit advocate groups making quality of life an issue there would be no opposition to Town’s rush to massive growth. Jackson’s Mayor wants to bring paid parking to downtown Jackson. He got his idea from Aspen—a mountain […]
Note the time and date: It was a historic moment to be sure. On October 16, just past 4pm, town councilman Don Frank uttered a truly profound statement. Something that, if only heeded decades earlier, could have helped Jackson Hole avoid its current housing crunch. “Suggesting that a ‘fee-in-lieu-of’ is actually going to park a car is not realistic,” Frank […]
“Time runs out for Bar J plan. Developer withdraws application.” That was the front-page headline in last week’s News&Guide. Lawyers for the developer are calling it a defeat by delay. It isn’t so. Excessive greed killed this development before it had an opportunity to kill countless moose, deer, elk and all the other animals that depend on the Bar J […]
