One More For The Road

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<title>One More For The Road: Friday, April 7, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Always good to get in some cardio...

One More For The Road: Friday, April 7, 2023

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

Wyoming lawmakers meeting Thursday in Lander promised a crowded room repeatedly that they would fix a $3.9 million decrease in public school sports and activities funding that shocked parents and schools this spring.

The Legislature passed its new $2-billion-per year school funding model in March. A mix of hated and beloved changes have roiled the school districts. For example, teachers are on track for a roughly 12.8% raise, while other needs and wants have taken a hit.

The package’s architects voiced surprise in May, when the Wyoming High School Activities Association dispatched a plan for dealing with the $3.9 million activities shortfall that involved cutting sports, reducing travel and other reductions.

“I can tell you quite frankly that parents in Lander, myself included, are really aggravated about this,” said one parent, Randy Weisz, at the Thursday meeting of the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration, held in Lander’s school district central building.

“Lander’s taken a hit, but I had no idea what all these other schools were getting hit with. My son said, ‘They should be really mad,’ and I completely agree with that.”

Committee Co-Chair Rep. Scott Heiner, R-Green River, reassured meeting attendees repeatedly that the committee seeks to fix the issue.

“In my mind and I think in the mind of most of the committee members here, activities are an extension of the classroom,” said Heiner. “It provides benefit for our students and we don’t want to stop that. We don’t want to deemphasize how important activities are for our students.”

Committee members and staffers floated multiple different strategies for fixing the problem.

Those range from putting activities costs into the rigid but well-funded “silo” of money the Legislature has reserved for classroom teaching costs, reverting to the old activities funding model but adding a 5% increase, or letting school districts choose the more generous of the old activities model and the new one.

The committee didn’t adopt one method Thursday. It meets again Aug. 25 in Cheyenne.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now For The Numbers"}]

Laramie County School District 1 – the state’s largest – is on track to lose more than $600,000 for activities. Lincoln County School District 2, based in the Star Valley region, is on track to lose $400,000.

Not all districts are losing money: 26 are slated for increases and 22 for decreases.

That’s because the new funding model doles out money for activities based on district population, not schools.

Anticipating that smaller schools have less economy of scale for propping up activities programs, the model historically has given more money for smaller schools and less for larger ones, on a per-student basis, 

 by Legislative Service Office fiscal deputy administrator Matt Willmarth.

But now the Legislature gives money based on the whole district’s population, not each school’s population.

So if a larger district contains a far-flung, tiny high school of 45 students, apart from its bigger high school of 1,000 students, the little high school still gets less per-student allocation for activities because it sits within a populous district.

That’s what happened to Cokeville’s high school within Lincoln County School District No. 2, multiple people testified Thursday.

“This legislation created a $130,000 hole in Cokeville that would have killed all activities in Cokeville within a single year,” said school principal Kenneth Dietz, who appeared via virtual link.

Dietz and other school administrators who addressed the committee over the two-day meeting thanked lawmakers for giving classroom instructors such substantial raises.

But they also lamented – resoundingly and on both days – that they can’t pull money from the instructional silo to fund other areas that may be suffering shortfalls.

Dietz voiced the same thoughts. He said the teachers at Cokeville have been willing to see money go toward activities that they knew were helping kids.

Other administrators cast it as tension-inducing, that their classroom educators are slated for big raises while other staffers aren’t.

[{"type":"text","text":"This One’s An Oldie"}]

The teacher silo is the culmination of an old struggle between the Legislature and the education sector. 

Lawmakers hear that teachers need more money, or that schools need more money to hire teachers. So they furnish more money to the districts.

In multiple cases, the money goes “sideways” – as House Speaker Chip Neiman would say – into other areas of education.

To be fair, Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, has told Cowboy State Daily in the past, those other areas have seen shortfalls as well.

Johnson County School District No. 1 Board Chair Travis Pearson echoed that Thursday.

“The same year we got the 8.5% raise to the teacher based (salaries), utilities got bumped 11%,” Pearson said.

Some committee members voiced reluctance to abandon the classroom silo. It's been a great compromise that carried the new funding package, committee Co-Chair Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, told the public Wednesday. 

"If I had to do a recalibration over again, I'd do it again," Salazar said. "Those salary increases had to occur. And if you monitor the state legislative process on recalibration, it was not at all certain (they  would have)."

Administrators gave varying answers on the extent to which the raises in the teacher silo would have reached the teachers without that restriction. 

that they didn't foresee the activities shortfall.

Willmarth said that this new method was known in January while they were sculpting the new spending package, but schools didn't voice outrage over it because the teacher silo - locking funds that could cover the shortfall - wasn't yet cemented into the legislation. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Mike Yin’s Idea"}]

House Minority Floor Leader Mike Yin, D-Jackson, offered the idea of letting districts use whichever model was more generous: the old one that funded activities based on the school’s population, or the new one funding them based on the full district’s population.

Most of Wyoming’s high schools suffer under the new model, and high school activities are slated for a $5.9 million reduction statewide.  

Middle schools gain $1.69 million and elementary schools gain $340,845, however, which is why the total decrease for activities shakes out to $3.87 million.

[{"type":"text","text":"Smaller districts with fewer schools benefit from the new model."}]

Niobrara School District No. 1, based in Lusk, is set for a nearly 30% increase to activities funding.

Goshen County School District No. 1 is set for the biggest decrease, percentage-wise, at 30% less for activities. Lincoln County School District No. 2 is next, at about a 28% drop.

Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, told lawmakers that even with Yin’s proposition, schools might still fall short.

That’s because schools have pulled from other budget categories to fund activities above what the model allocates and recommends.

In school year 2024-25, the districts spent $4.3 million more on activities than the Legislature envisioned and allocated.

So right now with the $3.9 million reduction and the freezing of “siloed” instructional money that once helped cover the districts’ $4.3 million boost, the activities bracket is falling closer to $7 million shy of the school system’s past provision, said Farmer.

Wyoming’s courts require the Legislature to adopt a cost-based funding model for public K-12 schools due largely to the state Constitution’s promise of a complete and uniform education system.

Rothfuss urged school administrators to communicate with lawmakers about shortfalls and excesses.

“You’re telling us we don’t provide enough funding: where? Let’s see the details of the expenditures versus the funding model spreadsheet you’re generating,” he said. “Get us that data so we can start to understand where we’ve fallen short in these categories.”

Rothfuss in February advanced significant changes to the new funding  model so that it provided more money for electives and other offerings, but so that some areas – like insurance costs – anchored more directly to each district’s demands.

Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, worried aloud that Yin’s proposition strayed from the court-mandated mission of the Legislature.

“Not to throw cold water on it,” Biteman said. “You know I just want to make sure we’re evidence-based and cost-based here, not just going on what feels good.”

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<title>Wyoming Lawmakers Start Work To Fix $3.9 Million School Activities Shortage | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming Lawmakers Start Work To Fix $3.9 Million School Activities Shortage

Crime & Courts

Next week Idaho will adopt the firing squad as its primary execution method due to availability and failure problems with lethal injection. 

A lawmaker tried to give Wyoming a firing squad option while the state still had a convicted rapist and murderer on death row in 2014, but the bill didn’t clear the Legislature. 

Wyoming law calls for executions by lethal injection. If lethal injection is found unconstitutional, the state can use a gas chamber.

Dale Wayne Eaton, the “Li’l Miss” killer, was convicted in 2004 for kidnapping, raping and murdering Lisa Marie Kimmell 16 years earlier in Wyoming. The jury called for the death penalty.

But in 2014, while Eaton’s appeal was ongoing, many states were running short of the chemicals to perform lethal injections.  

“So we may have had a problem coming up with the drugs needed for the execution,” 

Burns, a Republican of Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday phone interview.

It would be expensive to build a gas chamber, Burns reasoned, adding, “I always thought gas chamber the most gruesome form of execution anyway.”

Idaho is spending $1.2 million to retrofit an execution chamber for its new firing squad method, the 

[{"type":"text","text":"It doesn’t have to be that expensive, Burns countered."}]

“I don’t know that you’d necessarily need to build a room,” he said. “Even if you did, it could just be cinderblocks.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eaton case fizzled in the years that followed."}]

A federal district court judge overturned his death sentence in 2014 because defense lawyers hadn’t pursued a mental-health defense despite Eaton’s mental-health problems.

Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty again on the re-trial, and the trial court ordered a mental evaluation. Then in his mid-70s, Eaton had suffered strokes, dementia and depression, and the trial court found him incompetent to stand trial.

Prosecutors withdrew the death penalty case in 2021 and he was re-sentenced to life in prison the next year.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now 81, Eaton remains in Wyoming's prison system.  "}]

Burns’ 2014 bill made national headlines and surfaced on late-night commentator Stephen Colbert’s show.

“This was back when (Colbert) played the faux conservative,” recalled Burns, a Republican who had represented Sheridan. “It had a picture of me with the graphic ‘thrift justice.’”

The Senate rejected the bill 17-13 on its introductory vote. In even-numbered years, non-budget bills require a two-thirds vote to clear introduction and enter the chamber.

Burns’ legislation resurfaced as a Joint Judiciary Committee bill in 2015, when it had a longer trajectory.

It cleared the Senate and House of Representatives both. The House margin was narrow: 32-28.

In Burns’ view, “the House screwed it up six ways to Sunday and it got to conference committee and it died.”  

Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, who remains in the House today, secured an amendment requiring Wyoming to administer a sleep drug to a convict before having him shot.

Burns said the “knockout drug” was part of the drug shortfall for lethal injections in the first place, however.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nicholas could not be reached for comment by publication."}]

Burns, Nicholas and other lawmakers later attempted a compromise, saying the state would offer, rather than require, sedation. But the bill failed two conference, or negotiation committees and it died.

[{"type":"text","text":"Look, Speaking Practically"}]

Wyoming Department of Corrections Dan Shannon declined Thursday to speak to the moral and humaneness questions around the death penalty and different methods.

“I consider it’s my responsibility to follow the law and perform the duty as required, and I’d certainly do so,” he said. He added that as for Idaho, “whatever Idaho decides is best for them.”

But if his agency received a death warrant, it’s important to have multiple methods available, Shannon said.

“A primary, or only method, I think, can really get you tied up in court,” he noted.

More than 20 pharmaceutical companies, including 

, banned the use of their medicines in lethal injections in 2016. States scrambled for substitutes. As they did, the number of botched executions spiked, 

[{"type":"text","text":"Some states “compound” or craft the concoction themselves."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I believe that’s not the approach,” Shannon said."}]

 For one thing, he said, compounding lethal drugs provokes even more litigation than already surrounds the death penalty.

“In the event that we received a death warrant, I’d approach the legislators and I’d ask, one, that we leave the lethal injection and second, (they’d adopt) nitrogen hypoxia,” or gas, Shannon said.

When Burns’ bill started circulating in 2014, the DOC recommended $30,000 to adjust for the firing squad adjustments. That would be much higher now, noted Shannon, referencing Idaho’s $1.2 million price tag and inflation.

[{"type":"text","text":"No One On Death Row"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"This issue is distant from Shannon in reality, however."}]

 Mark Hopkinson’s lethal injection in 1992 – 13 years after he was convicted.

Hopkinson had ordered the torturous murder of 23-year-old Jeffrey Green, who was set to testify against him for the 1977 bombing of an attorney’s home in which three people died.

The last-minute question of whether then-Gov. Mike Sullivan should commute Hopkinson’s death sentence in 1992 harrowed the governor, he told Cowboy State Daily in an interview last May.  

“You’re not faced with that kind of decision very often,” Sullivan said.

 He had support from others. His priest stayed with him in his office in Cheyenne the day of Hopkinson’s execution.

The depths of contemplation Sullivan reached changed him, though he now can’t pinpoint exactly how. After people surmount decisions that serious, they become more introspective, more thoughtful, he said.

On the one hand, Sullivan knew the state he led was about to take a life. On the other hand, not even the rigid constraints of federal prison had kept Hopkinson from having Green killed.   

That was Sullivan’s chief consideration when he ultimately chose not to commute the man’s death sentence, he said.

Wyoming’s former DOC director Bob Lampert told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that he disagrees with the death penalty.

[{"type":"text","text":"He has a lot of experience with it, he noted."}]

He served in Texas prisons and ran security at the Ellis One unit in Texas, which housed death row. He also worked in the Huntsville unit, where the executions unfolded, and he was part of the team involved in those executions, he said.

Lampert said he opposes the death penalty now “for a variety of reasons: one of the largest is the impact it has on the (prison) employees as well as the other inmates that get to know the condemned.”

In Idaho, the state is seeking police officers to volunteer as firing squad marksmen.  

After having spoken with multiple condemned inmates just before their executions, Lampert said, none of them considered Texas’ death penalty had factored into their thinking as a deterrent. Their passions, or drug involvements, overwhelmed any such considerations, Lampert recalled.

To pursue a full death penalty case through appeals costs around $1 million, plus the lengthy time they’re incarcerated throughout, he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Ultimately it’s an irreversible penalty,” said Lampert."}]

Lampert led Wyoming's prison system for nearly 17 years before retiring in 2023. He recalled how scarce lethal injection drugs grew during that time – a consideration that remained on his mind since he worked for a death penalty state.

In both Wyoming and Texas, “I had to decide if the position I was in – and being responsible for involvement in death penalty cases – was something that I could personally live with despite my opposition to capital punishment,” Lampert reflected. “And I was able to make that adjustment. Because it was the will of the citizens that I worked for. So I was always prepared to carry through with whatever responsibility I had.”

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<title>Idaho's Reviving The Firing Squad. Wyoming Almost Did For Dale Wayne Eaton | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Idaho is switching from lethal injections to firing squad executions on July 1. Wyoming almost added firing squad executions as an alternate method in 2014 because lethal injection drugs were scarce and 'Lil Miss' killer Dale Wayne Eaton was still on death row.

Idaho's Reviving The Firing Squad. Wyoming Almost Did For Dale Wayne Eaton

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Fishing

Upper Sunshine Reservoir near Meeteetse is popular with local anglers, particularly for ice fishing, but the reservoir is being drained so fishing there won't be an option for two years.

The Greybull Valley Irrigation District is draining the reservoir “to perform critical irrigation infrastructure repairs,” according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Upper Sunshine is expected to be completely drained by Sept. 1, so engineers can inspect infrastructure and determine what repairs are needed.

It will start refilling Oct. 1 but will be drained again in 2027 for the repair work. Repairs are scheduled for completion by April 2028.

“Game and Fish will not stock the small pool that will form during the 2026-2027 period, as it will be drained again in the fall of 2027. Stocking to rebuild the fishery will resume in the fall of 2028, once repairs are completed and water levels stabilize,” according to the agency.

Dalton Epperson of Cody and his friend Tyler Geving of Meeteetse have fished at Upper and Lower Sunshine reservoirs for years.

Upper Sunshine is primarily for ice fishing, they said.

“It’s usually the first thing that’s frozen” in the area, Epperson said.

Upper Sunshine doesn’t have much fish variety, he added.

“It’s all suckers and cutthroats,” he said.

Meat from the suckers makes good lake trout bait, he said.

Because this past winter was so dry, Upper Sunshine Reservoir wasn’t in the best shape anyway, Geving said.

“It was pretty low during ice fishing season,” he said.

Even so, with plentiful fish and easy access, it’s remained popular, Geving said.

“Upper Sunshine is a good starter lake. It’s a good place to take somebody and teach them ice fishing because you can catch 14- and 15-inch cutthroat all day long,” he said.

The reservoirs are the site of an ice fishing derby during the first week of February.

Epperson said Upper and Lower Sunshine are go-too fishing spots for Park County locals because they're about 40 minutes from Cody.

And from Meeteetse, “locals can be there in about 10 minutes and have their boats on the water,” he added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Long-Term Goals"}]

While the drainages and construction will tank fishing at Upper Sunshine Reservoir in the short term, the repair work should have lasting benefits for the fishery, according to Game and Fish.

“Recent sampling has indicated reduced growth rates in stocked Yellowstone cutthroat trout, likely due to an overabundance of longnose suckers competing for resources, and the drawdown will significantly reduce the sucker population,” Cody regional fisheries biologist Jason Burckhardt said in a statement from the agency.

Refilling the reservoir will release “a surplus of nutrients” from plants and soil, he added.

That will boost plankton production, so trout should grow faster and bigger, Burkhardt said.

While Upper Sunshine Reservoir is down, anglers can turn their attention to Lower Sunshine Reservoir and other waters in the region.

Some of those include Boysen Reservoir south of Thermopolis, Buffalo Bill Reservoir west of Cody, and Meadowlark Lake in the Bighorn Mountains.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Let’s Go Splake Fishing"}]

Epperson and Geving said draining Upper Sunshine Reservoir will put a pinch on their local angling opportunities. But they understand the work has to be done, and there’s no shortage of other places to fish.

“I know they’ve got to upgrade stuff and keep things fixed, to keep the reservoirs running right,” Geving said. “And Lower Sunshine is more fun to fish because it’s got lake trout and splake, and bigger fish.” 

Splake are a sterile hybrid species popular among Wyoming anglers. They’re produced in Game and Fish hatcheries by crossing male brook trout with female lake trout.

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<title>Upper Sunshine Reservoir Near Meeteetse Drained, No More Fishing For Two years | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Upper Sunshine Reservoir near Meeteetse is popular with local anglers, particularly for ice fishing, but the reservoir is being drained, so there won’t be any fishing there for two years. It’s expected to be completely drained by Sept. 1.

Upper Sunshine Reservoir Near Meeteetse Drained, No More Fishing For Two years

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

A Texas man is accused of exposing his erect penis and "wiggling his hips" in the parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant in Jackson on Tuesday evening before driving away intoxicated.

The alleged incident involving Anthony Joseph Durkas happened at 7:42 p.m. outside El Abuelito Restaurant, a popular family eatery about a five-minute walk west of Jackson Town Square.

A caller told dispatch an intoxicated man pulled down his pants, exposed his genitals and was "swinging it around" in the parking lot before climbing into a white Chevrolet Silverado with Texas license plates.

The public indecency allegation, however, stems largely from what police say happened before officers ever arrived, documented in a probable-cause affidavit filed Wednesday by Sgt. Justin Lancaster of the Jackson Police Department. 

A woman who witnessed the encounter showed Lancaster cellphone video she recorded from the parking lot before providing it to investigators for review. 

The video appeared to show Durkas "passionately kissing a woman" before she reached toward his crotch. 

Lancaster notes the video showed Durkas "appeared to undo his pants facing the female." 

Then, he wrote, Durkas "turned to the side which showed his penis was erect and exposed to the general public."

According to the affidavit, Durkas then began "wiggling his hips, which caused his erect penis to move in a circular motion."

Lancaster wrote the incident occurred during the dinner rush with passing motorists and at least one witness nearby.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"DUI Arrest"}]

As officers arrived, Lancaster reported seeing the pickup backing out of a parking space.

When the officer approached the driver's window, he said he immediately smelled a strong odor of alcohol along with the faint smell of marijuana coming from inside the truck.

Lancaster wrote that Durkas had bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech, and appeared unsteady on his feet after getting out of the vehicle.

Lancaster also said Durkas was "slow to follow commands and/or was unable" to comply with instructions.

He noted that Durkas did not respond to a request to perform standardized field-sobriety tests.

Durkas was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and taken to jail. His pickup was impounded because, according to Lancaster, it was partially blocking the parking lot.

During an inventory search of the truck, officers found a clear plastic bag labeled "MAC GALACTIC" containing suspected psilocybin mushrooms.

Inside a camper shell, officers also reported finding what appeared to be burned and unburned marijuana in a pipe along with a grinder.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Court Proceedings"}]

Durkas appeared Wednesday in Teton County Circuit Court, where he was arraigned on one count each of public indecency and driving under the influence, along with two misdemeanor counts of possessing controlled substances.

If convicted on all four counts and ordered to serve the maximum penalties consecutively, he could face up to 3½ years in jail and $4,500 in fines.

Teton County Circuit Court Judge Erin E. Weisman set a bond at $3,000 cash or surety and scheduled a jury trial for Oct. 27, though the matter could be resolved through a plea agreement or another disposition.

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<title>Texas Man Accused Of Flashing Penis Outside Busy Jackson Mexican Restaurant | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Texas man is accused of exposing his penis and "swinging it around" in the parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant in Jackson on Tuesday evening before driving away intoxicated. If convicted on all four counts he could face up to 3½ years in jail.

Texas Man Accused Of Flashing Penis Outside Busy Jackson Mexican Restaurant

Politics

Wyoming congressional candidate Reid Rasner, who works as a financial advisor, was “discharged” from his broker clearinghouse company in late April on allegations that he “engaged in unapproved outside business activity,” 

Reid Rasner is also running in a 10-candidate Republican primary race to win the party’s nomination toward Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat. Last year he announced, and later suspended, intentions to buy the tech giant TikTok amid congressional efforts to transfer the Chinese-involved company into American hands.

 also appears in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission profile, which says he started working through the investment clearinghouse LPL Financial LLC on March 1, 2019, and remained there until spring of this year.  

LPL Financial discharged Rasner on April 24 due to allegations he engaged in unapproved outside business activity, the profile says in a “disclosure” category. The disclosure doesn’t elaborate.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) profile of Rasner says he was registered previously as a broker “and is currently registered as an investment advisor.”

He’s held state registrations in New York and Wyoming, the profile says.

Wyoming congressional candidate Reid Rasner, who works as a financial advisor, was “discharged” from his broker clearinghouse company in late April on allegations that he “engaged in unapproved outside business activity,” federal filings say.

One More For The Road: Friday, April 7, 2023

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