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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Monday, January 8, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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Daily Smile: Monday, January 8, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly 18 months.  

At about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 27, 2025, Sandy Crawford was relaxing and watching television in one of the rooms of the spacious home she and her husband Jack own in a rural neighborhood near Laramie, when Jack entered the room frantically.

“He came running in and said, ‘The house is filling up with smoke, call 911,'” Sandy told Cowboy State Daily.

Apparently, a fire had started somewhere in the massive stone chimney in their home’s living room.

Firefighters arrived quickly and battled the blaze for hours. 

At about 2:30 a.m. on Feb 28, a huge stone chimney chase in the living room collapsed, 

crushing Laramie firefighter Dylan Schilt

, who was left temporarily paralyzed. One of his colleagues also suffered a knee injury.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Living In A Hotel"}]

The Crawfords made it out unharmed, but say they haven’t been back home since. 

As they see it, the Laramie Fire Department and other agencies that responded could have had the fire out much sooner, with far less damage to their home.

A request for comment from the Laramie Fire Department wasn’t answered by publication time.

The Crawfords say they lived in a fifth-wheel camper trailer for a time.

Then Jack had to get double hip replacement surgery and was unable to climb the stairs to get into the camper. So, they started living in a hotel room in Laramie, dependent upon a living expenses payout from their State Farm Insurance.

The couple claims that State Farm has dragged its feet and made an offer that doesn’t nearly match the value of the damage to their home and lost possessions.

Meanwhile, their living expense account is running dry and Jack said a contractor recently told him that “the house is at least four to five months away from being livable again.”

State Farm responded to a request for comment with an email to Cowboy State Daily from the company’s corporate communications office.

“To respect our customer’s privacy, we can’t discuss specific claim details,” the company statement says. "Every claim is reviewed with care, based on the facts of the loss and the coverage in the policy. 

"We’re continuing to work with our customer and their representative to pay all benefits available under the policy. Customers with questions, concerns, or additional information are always encouraged to reach out."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Let Burn’ Order"}]

The Crawfords said that on the night of the fire, they were convinced that the blaze was inside the chimney, but firefighters took hoses into the house and sprayed water in several interior rooms, causing wall and floor damage.

After the chimney chase collapsed and Schilt was injured, firefighters cleared the house.

Sandy said several firefighters gathered on the back porch and when she approached to ask whether they could spray water down the chimney, one of the firefighters yelled that “we’re going to let your house burn.”

A sheriff’s deputy at the scene ordered them to leave, she and Jack both said.

Apparently, because of difficulties fighting the blaze and the injury suffered by a firefighter, a “let burn” order had been issued and the deputies were ordered to clear out non-essential personnel, in case the entire structure became engulfed, Jack said.

However, a ladder truck arrived about an hour later, he added.

“Luckily, the ladder truck poured enough water on the roof (that) the house didn’t become fully engulfed” and the fire was finally put out, Jack said.

The Crawfords claim they also had trouble with ServiceMaster restoration company after the fire.

They say they admonished the Cheyenne ServiceMaster franchise owner and his employees to let them monitor what was being taken out of the house. 

The also wanted to help assess what could or could not be salvaged because of smoke and water damage.

The Crawfords claim those requests were ignored, and ServiceMaster crews packed and removed things without their supervision or approval.

“I lost control of my house and all my possessions,” Jack said.

When a delivery of clothing was returned to their home, it included the wrong clothing, Sandy said.

“There was clothing for minors, kids’ clothes and what looked like go-go girl clothes,” she said. “I’m not a minor, I don’t have kids and I’m not a go-go dancer."

The couple claims that other items, including firearms, have gone missing and can’t seem to be located.

“A lot of stuff was broken or missing. They threw away things that they weren’t authorized to,” Sandy said.

The ServiceMaster franchise owner told Cowboy State Daily that he couldn’t comment because of possible litigation over the matter.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lowballed Paintings"}]

Jack said initial insurance payout estimates included roughly $800,000 for damage to the house, $500,000 for their possessions, plus roughly $200,000 in temporary housing expenses.

He said State Farm paid roughly $500,000 for the house, which still needs at least an additional $100,000 in repairs.

He added that the couple has received about $200,000 for possessions and roughly half of the initially agreed-upon living expenses.

Jack also is pushing back on the value of three 5-by-8-foot original oil paintings by famed artists Ralph Oberg and Taylor Blaylock.

The paintings came from the Riverbend mansion in Saratoga, and a professional art appraiser placed their value at about $233,000 each, Jack said.

State Farm has tried to place their value at about 10% of that, he added.

“State Farm has those appraisals (on the paintings), and they don’t want to pay on them. They’ve had those appraisals since Christmas,” Jack said.

Tyler Spalding is a desk public adjuster for the Panama City Beach, Florida-based Noble Public Adjusting Group.

The company specializes in advocacy for people with allegedly mishandled insurance claims, Spalding told Cowboy State Daily.

"We’re basically their voice when they have none,” he said.

Spalding recently reached out to alert Cowboy State Daily about the Crawfords’ situation.

Insurance companies and vendors sometimes try to take advantage of elderly people, such as the Crawfords, he said.

“It’s a cash grab for these vendors. They go out and charge a lot of money to the insurance companies,” Spalding said.

He said he’s had numerous elderly clients who have been underpaid by insurance companies, as he thinks the Crawfords have been.

“Essentially, they’re not wanting to properly pay them for what their loss is worth,” Spalding said. “They’ve paid some, but it isn’t enough for the clients to be brought back to pre-loss conditions. It’s the same story across the country.

“This guy (Jack Crawford) is upset. He feels that the whole thing was handled wrong from start to finish,” Spalding added. “I want people to be aware of this, because I’m so sick of this going on."

Crawfords inset 6 12 26

<title>Couple Says Insurance Company’s Mishandling Of Fire Claim Has Made Them Homeless | Cowboy State Daily</title>

An Albany County couple who lost most of their possessions in a fire that left their house unlivable say that their insurance company’s mishandling of the situation has left them essentially homeless for nearly a year and a half.  

Couple Says Insurance Company’s Mishandling Of Fire Claim Has Made Them Homeless

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center issued 

which could bring more of what Wyoming doesn’t need — warmer, drier conditions.

After monitoring above-average temperatures in the Pacific Ocean for the last month, the NWS believes that, “El Niño conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27,” according to the advisory.

“There is a 63% chance of a very strong El Niño during November-January … that would rank among the largest El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950,” the advisory reads. “Even very strong El Niño events do not lead to the expected impact everywhere, but stronger events can more significantly tilt the odds in favor of expected outcomes.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Weather watchers around the world noticed the NOAA predictions."}]

 discussed how El Niño can “supercharge” hurricanes in the Pacific and worsen drought from the Caribbean and southern Africa to Australia.

 referenced studies that concluded El Niño has a history of leading to European food insecurity, severe forest fires, and civil wars in the tropics.

, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described El Niño as an "urgent climate warning" and said that the anticipated impacts “will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world."

Yet even with high certainty of a strong El Niño, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what that means for Wyoming and the world over the next year.

Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day is calling for patience as this system develops.

“We're going to have an El Niño,” he said. “It's going to be a strong one, and it's going to impact global weather patterns, but what does it exactly mean for Mister Joe in DuBois, Wyoming? We’re going to have to wait and see how the pattern unfolds.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Advised Vs Favored"}]

The El Niño advisory is NOAA’s most direct acknowledgment that a strong El Niño has been developing. However, that doesn’t mean extrapolating predictions and long-range forecasts has become any easier.

“The advisory means that El Niño conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the winter,” said meteorologist Noah Myers with the NWS office in Riverton. “It's really hard to draw conclusions from that.”

Myers said the best thing meteorologists can do right now is compare current El Niño patterns with those of previous El Niño years. Then, they can determine what’s “favorable” in the months ahead in terms of temperatures and precipitation.

[{"type":"text","text":"However, determining what’s favorable is not the same as a guarantee."}]

“Whatever’s favored doesn’t mean we're going to absolutely be warmer, drier, colder, or wetter depending on where you are,” Myers said. “It’s what has happened, on average, in the past in these conditions.”

Day said he and his fellow meteorologists tend to be “our own worst enemies” in this respect. 

He’s particularly perturbed by the runaway narrative of the “super El Niño” that’s been circulating for months but kicked into overdrive with NOAA’s advisory.

“If you're going to tell people it's going to be the strongest El Niño of all time, it would be really good to also say something that's going to be six months from now is subject to change,” he said. “It's really hard to glob on to one particular outcome, especially this far in advance.”

Day said he could show people maps of the last 20 documented El Niños, and none of them would be exactly the same. Trying to pinpoint which of those years is most similar to what will manifest later this year would be an effort in futility.

“There are trends and similarities, but they're never exactly the same every time,” he said. “People need to be aware of that.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming’s Lack Of Favor"}]

Even with all the uncertainty, NOAA’s El Niño advisory is significant. Nobody’s denying that or its determination that it could be one of the strongest in the last 50 years.

“The safest bet is that there’s an El Niño coming, and it's going to be strong,” Day said. “How the impacts unfold really depends on what could happen five or six months from now.”

[{"type":"text","text":"But what is the most likely outcome? "}]

Myers had some insight on what tends to be favorable in Wyoming during El Niño years.

For one thing, El Niño tends to be more of a winter pattern than a summer one. NOAA might have issued its advisory this month, but the significant impacts won’t be felt until later this year.

“Winter is when these impacts are most pronounced,” Myers said. “We don't usually see as strong an impact during the summer.”

As tends to happen with all weather systems, El Niño won’t have an equitable impact on Wyoming. According to Myers, there are consistent trends that pop up from studying years past.

“Going into the winter, we usually see slightly warmer temperatures across northern and western Wyoming, and normal or slightly cooler temperatures across central and southern Wyoming,” he said.

When it comes to precipitation, Myers said El Niño tends to make Wyoming dry “across the board,” but that’s been especially true in northwest Wyoming.

“The Absarokas, Tetons, and Yellowstone National Park is where we’d see the driest conditions, but it’s drier pretty much everywhere in Wyoming,” he said.

That’s not a great El Niño outlook. It’s also very far from a guarantee of what Wyomingites should expect.

“We’ve observed El Niños when it’s been the exact opposite of what I just described,” Myers said. “There are clues that can tell us what might happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Months To Go"}]

Day is unmoved by most articles and forecasts about El Niño, 

, and “the strongest El Niño in half a century.” For him, those are bold statements to make this early.

“We're several months removed from when the biggest El Niño impacts happen in this part of the country, and here we are in June talking about a Super El Niño,” he said. “Every El Niño has its own personality and different sets of results. That’s why I'm a lot more cautious.”

Day’s caution stems from several months of long-range models collapsing in their seasonal predictions. 

in Wyoming until it turned out to be one of 

With that track record, one can see why Day’s reluctant to offer any predictions on what’ll happen when El Niño reaches Wyoming, let alone what its strongest impacts will be this winter.

For Day, “nothing’s changed” with NOAA’s El Niño advisory. He’s acknowledged that El Niño is coming, and the odds favor a strong El Niño, but that’s as far as he’s willing to go.

“NOAA’s going for it,” he said. “We've got El Niño, but we're not in an El Niño yet.”

Myers agreed that it’s best to stay cautious, even with the certainty of a coming El Niño.

“The conditions are present, and El Niño is favored,” he said. “El Niño does have a tendency for cooler-than-normal summers during El Niño years, so we might see that as we transition into it, but we don’t know what’s going to happen at this point.”

All the discussion on what is or isn’t favorable or likely as a strong El Niño develops can be frustrating for Wyomingites.

With an ongoing drought following an extremely disappointing winter, the prospect of another long-term weather pattern favoring warmer, drier conditions for another full season isn’t encouraging.

Day understands that frustration, which is why he’s not buying into or promoting the deluge of what he calls El Niño “clickbait” that’s emerged since NOAA issued its advisory.

“People read these things, and they want to know what's that going to mean for them,” he said. “That's a perfectly reasonable question, and the perfectly reasonable scientific answer is we need to see how it develops.”

One thing Day and Myers reiterated is that Wyoming won’t experience El Niño’s strongest impacts until winter. For the sake of sanity, it’s best not to anticipate what might or might not happen once those impacts arrive.

“There’s plenty of time between now and then,” Day said. “There will probably be a strong El Niño, but we need to see how it develops. Let’s see how things come together.”

El nino don day 3 24 26 v3

<title>NOAA Officially Declares El Niño Is Here, Don Day Still Ain't Buying It Yet | Cowboy State Daily</title>

NOAA and the National Weather Service have officially declared an El Niño has formed, which could mean more of what Wyoming doesn’t need — warmer, drier conditions. Wyoming meteorologist Don Day says he still ain’t buying it yet calling predictions "clickbait."

NOAA Officially Declares El Niño Is Here, Don Day Still Ain't Buying It Yet

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

Clair McFarland

Politics

Wyoming doesn’t charge sales taxes on large data center equipment purchases because lawmakers in 2010 wanted to compete with Texas to attract a major tech company’s project, legislative debates show. 

Eleven years and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized sales tax revenues later in 2021, a Republican state representative from Rock Springs, Clark Stith, tried to undo the state’s sales tax exemption.

Advocates of the energy, steel and tech industries opposed Stith. So did many of his Republican colleagues, Cheyenne-area local government leaders, and economic development groups.

[{"type":"text","text":"The exemption remains today. "}]

Many data center companies over the years have ignored the Wyoming Department of Revenue’s requests to report how much they’ve saved in sales taxes. The ones that have reported have logged more than $166 million in tax savings.

[{"type":"text","text":"But sales tax exemptions aren’t the whole revenue picture:"}]

Advocates of the exemption have argued for nearly two decades that the law incentivizes data centers to build in Wyoming; and those facilities then pay significant property and electricity taxes, generate jobs, and boost the economy. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Winners And Losers"}]

the Feb. 17, 2010, debate in the Wyoming House of Representatives have echoed into 2026.

Some lawmakers wanted to craft business incentives in state law to attract companies and jobs to Wyoming and compete with other states.

Others said it’s not right for the government to be selective about business and “pick the winners and losers.”

The economic development proponents won the data centers argument in 2010.

Then-Rep. Peter Illoway, R-Cheyenne, proposed House Bill 67 to exempt data centers that buy or rent more than $2 million in computing equipment in a year from paying sales taxes for that year. The centers hoping to qualify for that exemption were also required to:

[{"type":"text","text":"• Have a physical location in Wyoming."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"• Spend at least $5 million in capital costs on their facility."}]

• Receive certification from the Wyoming Business Council — which is the state’s economic development agency — that they’d create an “appropriate” number of jobs in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"• Keep adequate documentation of these proofs. "}]

Then-Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne, cosponsored the bill. He also proposed the “appropriate” jobs requirement as an amendment, and the House majority approved.

Byrd is now campaigning in the Democratic primary election to become a U.S. senator for Wyoming. His campaign team did not respond to a Thursday voicemail request for comment.

Illoway told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday phone interview that as he recalls it, Wyoming was only courting one data center at the time. The economic development group Cheyenne LEADS was pushing for the sales tax exemption law. The governor’s office was also involved, he recalled.

Illoway told his House colleagues during the Feb. 17, 2010, debate that Texas was vying for a data center, and “my understanding is, Wyoming and Texas are in competition,” according to 

Rep. Jack Landon, R-Sheridan, derided the bill as government intrusion and criticized its favor toward larger projects over smaller ones.

“I know I must be a minority voice in opposing these,” he said, “but I think it’s important that the people of Wyoming know that we all don’t think alike. And there is a way to have a government that is more even-handed, and that we don’t have to come down here and pick the winners and losers.”

Both Landon and Illoway had leadership status, as they were both committee chairs at that time.

Rep. Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, had cosponsored the bill. But he ultimately voted against it and voiced disappointment that the House wouldn’t put a sunset, or expiration date, on the exemption.

“You’re really making a stab in the dark,” said Madden. “The people that sponsor this say they don’t want a sunset date. Well I don’t like to have a gun held to my head.”

Illoway countered, saying businesses like to have stable policy environments.

“Generally the power rates are provided for over 20 years,” Illoway said, adding that the data center hoped to build an “enormous building, very expensive.”

He said he doubted whether the business would want to settle in Wyoming when facing a sunset date on the sales tax exemption.

Byrd agreed. He pointed to Wyoming’s reliable power sourcing and other data-center-friendly attributes.

Landon seized on the notion. He rattled off features like Wyoming’s low taxes, low crime rates, ready supply of electricity, livable communities and lack of income tax.

 “If we can’t attract businesses with those types of assets, I just can’t imagine why we’d want to add this to it,” he said.

Madden and Landon were part of a tiny minority. Only one more House lawmaker, Gillette-based Republican Rep. Sue Wallis, voted against the exemption.

On the Senate side, the bill garnered 23 aye-votes and seven all-Republican nay-votes.

Two of those nays remain in the chamber today: Sens. Cale Case, R-Lander, and Dan Dockstader, R-Afton.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed the bill into law March 5, 2010."}]

As the administration shifted from Freudenthal, a Democrat, to his Republican successor Gov. Matt Mead, the industry momentum continued. The Legislature in 2011 expanded the exemption to include uninterrupted power, heating, cooling, and air quality equipment as well.

[{"type":"text","text":"Mead signed that expansion into law Feb. 18, 2011."}]

By 2021, Stith and the rest of the Legislature faced looming budget cuts and the COVID-19 policy whirlwind.

Gov. Mark Gordon had proposed both likely and worst-case scenario budget cut choices to the Legislature. The latter category included a potential $2.7 million cut of the public funds marked to help pay for home care for elderly people, Stith noted.

By then, data centers had saved at least $124.3 million in sales taxes from the exemption, according to 

That figure appears significantly underreported: the Wyoming Department of Revenue requested tax savings numbers from 10 data centers in early 2021, and only heard back from three of those, the department’s report says.

Stith presented his bill to repeal the sales tax exemption 

He called it unfair that small businesses pay sales taxes when they replace their computers, but huge data centers don’t.

“I don’t see that there’s a reason, really, that we should discriminate against small businesses, in favor of large businesses,” he said. “The biggest beneficiaries of the sales tax exemption tend to be … very, very large companies.”

Roughly the same arguments legislators bandied in 2010 recurred in that committee meeting.

Independent Rep. Jim Roscoe, of Wilson, noted that data centers benefitted from Wyoming’s low-tax environment already. Rep. Tim Hallinan, R-Gillette, noted that by settling in Wyoming, they’re paying significant property taxes into local government coffers.

Stith rebutted the idea that the sales tax exemption incentivizes the companies to settle in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"California had several data centers but lacked that exemption, he noted."}]

 between friendly policy environments and data center establishment across states.

On the other hand, Wyoming’s cooler weather and ample energy product offer non-policy-related incentives to the centers, for which internal cooling and power available are vital.  

[{"type":"text","text":"Stith had few allies in that meeting."}]

Cheyenne’s new Mayor Patrick Collins opposed the repeal. So did Laramie County Commission Chair Gunnar Malm, economic development group Cheyenne LEADS, and the state’s economic development agency: the Wyoming Business Council.

[{"type":"text","text":"Energy, tech, and raw materials sector advocates also opposed Stith."}]

His one ally in the public comment segment of that meeting was an environmental group, the Powder River Basin Resource Council. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming hosted around four data centers at that time."}]

 31 data centers, including 27 in the Cheyenne area.

Cheyenne LEADS disputes the figure, listing 24 in the Cheyenne area, including those in construction and planning phases.

Wyoming Business Council CEO Josh Dorrell did not respond by publication to an email requesting the exact number of data centers in the state.

Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper, proposed an amendment at the 2021 meeting to shift any tax revenues from Stith’s exemption repeal into a safety net fund for shortfalls in K-12 education. His amendment failed.

Then, Gray and Hallinan voted with three other Republicans and the committee’s lone Democrat, Rep. Mike Yin of Jackson, to kill the bill and keep the sales tax exemption on the books.

Roscoe and two Republicans — Committee Chair Steve Harshman (Casper) and Rep. Mark Baker, (Rock Springs) — voted on the losing side in favor of Stith’s repeal.  

[{"type":"text","text":"But Then, Artificial Intelligence"}]

Gray, who later became Secretary of State and is now campaigning for U.S. House, now vocally opposes data centers.

But, he said in a Thursday text message, “In 2021, no one had any idea where the AI (artificial intelligence) revolution was heading or the massive demands it would place on our power grid and water resources.”

Wyoming families are “right to be concerned about the real impacts on our infrastructure, our way of life, and our rural communities,” he said.

Gray also criticized one of his nine opponents in the race for the Republican nomination, Reid Rasner, for Rasner’s pro-data center stance, which he called "totally reckless." 

 that he’s “100% pro-business” and believes local governments, not federal decisionmakers, should decide whether to accept data centers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Data center policy is a wedge in the Republican party."}]

President Donald Trump is calling for data center construction to help feed AI development and beat China in the technology race. 

Pro-economic development legislators pushed through a popular tax break for huge data centers in 2010. A rogue Republican tried to undo it in 2021, but his GOP colleagues, industry advocates, and economic development agencies opposed him.

Daily Smile: Monday, January 8, 2024

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