One More For The Road

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<title>One More For The Road: Monday, February 10, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Monday, February 10, 2025

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Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business

It was yet another data-center dominated night for the Cheyenne City Council at its regular session Monday night, with intense, sometimes emotional public testimony on a proposed, roughly 3,460-acre annexation south of the Sweetgrass subdivision and east of South Greeley Highway. 

City staff and Microsoft representatives who were present confirmed the annexation is being advanced to support future expansion of data centers.

No annexation vote was taken. The routine item, which was initially part of a consent agenda, was a referral to the Public Service Committee.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Out-Of-Date Plan"}]

Ward 1 Councilman Larry Wolfe requested the council take the proposed annexation off the consent agenda so it could be discussed separately. 

The area, Wolfe contended, should not be treated the same as a 2-acre parcel of land. He questioned annexing so much territory into the city at once when there are no specific plans yet attached to it, even as the city is getting ready to update its long-range planning, which Wolfe suggested is 12 years out of date.

“As you look at this giant annexation, and as you look at all of the hullabaloo about it that we have faced as a city council, and your office has faced, did it occur to you all to think maybe this annexation could proceed in a couple of steps?” Wolfe asked Cheyenne Planning and Development Department Director Charles Bloom. “Maybe it might even be better off to just be considered in the future, two, three years from now, when you, in fact, have updated Plan Cheyenne?”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Staff’s Job"}]

Mayor Patrick Collins interceded, saying it’s not appropriate for staff to dictate the timing of an annexation. 

“The state law says that if they bring a petition to us, we must look at that petition,” Collins said. “And if it meets the criteria, shall by ordinance annex that property. And so I don’t know that it’s staff’s position to censor applications. That’s our job.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"On that point, Wolfe agreed."}]

“It’s your job to take a look at something of this magnitude and make a judgment about whether or not it ought to proceed through our regular processes,” Wolfe said. “Or, in fact, we might think hard about an annexation of this size for a topic of this controversy, and treat it in some different kind of manner. That’s my point.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Collins, on that point, demurred. "}]

“I think if you were to poll your colleagues here and say that I have the authority to decide what comes before this governing body, I think you’d lose probably eight to one in that vote,” he said. “I think the job is we’re separate but equal, and when those applications come, we’re part of — all of us together, are the legislative body, the governing body. It should be done as a joint decision.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Just Map Color Is Changing"}]

Collins also said he felt the discussion itself is conflating annexation with the development action, which are two separate items.

“Annexation doesn’t do anything but change the color of the map,” Collins said. “What you’re concerned about is what happens once it’s annexed, and that is another process the governing body goes through. That is when we do the zoning for it, when we do the final plat for it, when we do those types of actions. If we were to just annex this property and it sits there for a decade or so, it doesn’t really change anything does it?”

“In 10 years, a couple of things may change,” Wolfe replied. “And I take some guidance from what our good governor just said to us last week in his executive order on data centers. You know, he says local authority and community investment, we’re keeping power close to —”

“Point of order,” another council member interjected. “Are we on annexation? Or are we on data centers?”

“Madam Councilwoman,” Wolfe replied. “You cannot possibly separate them today.”

And so the conversation would roll throughout the public debate, with citizens and officials wrestling over points and points of order all along the way.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Sounds Like “Extortion”"}]

Wolfe said he wants to see developers like Microsoft invest in local housing, charity and infrastructure, and believes annexation is the beginning of the right time to start talking about that.

“We shouldn’t kid ourselves that we are in fact looking at just the annexation,” he said. “This is the time for this council, for this government, for Mr. Bloom to actually take ahold of these issues and make them reality.”

A community benefit requirement, Collins replied, is “too much like extortion.”

“I just don’t agree,” he added. “At this point in time, what we’re doing is annexing a piece of property. If, in fact, the companies want to do some things like we have later on in our agenda, I think that’s well-welcomed, but to condition annexation on that, I think is a slippery slope, sir.”

“Mr. Mayor, it’s not a slippery slope, it’s in fact the slope that we are on right now,” Wolfe replied. “It’s not extortion. I’m talking about something that I’m going to call a mutually beneficial partnership agreement with Microsoft.”

“You can be annexed if you give us what, a rec center or something like that?” Collins said.

“No, no, my proposal is going to be 3% of the total cost of the project,” Wolfe replied.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“So two rec centers,” Collins said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Questions About Scale, Benefits"}]

Members of the public also came to the podium, both for and against, to discuss their own points and their own frustrations with city processes. 

Harmony Meadows resident Heather Madrid questioned the council’s use of an outdated land-use map.

“How is this protecting the health, safety, and welfare of people?” she asked. “If people don’t live there yet, it’s not really protecting anybody. In fact, I would argue that it’s harmful to that area.”

Such a large annexation, meanwhile, is going to affect the entire city, Madrid said, not just people who may live within 300 feet of the facility. 

“If there’s no plan of what’s going to happen over the next 10 years, how is it even possible that the criteria in Wyoming statute … has been met?” she asked. “At the Planning Commission, Microsoft was asked how many buildings and they didn’t know. 

“So how is it even possible to say that that statute has been met if there is no plan?”

The city should update everything before proceeding, Madrid added, and consider “not only what benefits global corporate billionaires who are trying to land grab in rural America.”

Speaking for the annexation was Brian Napier, a Cheyenne resident who has worked for Microsoft since 2016.

“I’ve been with Microsoft for 10 years and everything I’ve ever seen with the company has been positive, working with the community and trying to be a good neighbor,” he said. “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you here, on their behalf, today.”

Napier said the company has hired 100 people in the past three years, jobs that he characterized as “good” with “great benefits.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Largest Annexation In City History"}]

The annexation which drew so many comments is the largest Cheyenne has ever seen at 3,459 acres land, 46% of which is contiguous to city limits. 

The only annexation to rival it in size, according to city officials during the meeting, was the Sweetgrass annexation. Records show that was a 2,269-acre project, brought into the city in 2018 near the intersection of East College Drive and Avenue C, south of Laramie County Community College.

It took another 1,000 acres to get to the project to annex it, Cheyenne planner Connor White said during the council meeting, making the two comparable in size.

The plan for that was a buildout over 50 years, White added.

“The main reason they did it all at once is because they wanted a unified development program for the Sweetgrass development,” he said. “The PUD (Planned Unit Development) has changed a few times. You’ve changed it probably within the last few months. So it changes, yes.”

At the time, it represented a major growth spurt for Cheyenne at one-sixth the city’s size, one that was going to require more staff members for various city departments to take care of the land. 

“That was … a higher impact on city services, fully built out,” he said. “But we had a greater standard of review on that larger annexation than we did with say someone annexing single-family homes to connect to sewer. So I just wanted to shed light on what’s happened in the past.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Microsoft’s Turn"}]

Microsoft officials said it has identified the annexation area as a logical future expansion for the Bison Business Park, and decided it’s best to pursue that with Cheyenne.

For long-range planning, it’s important the company knows the zoning for the area.

After that, it can begin transportation, cultural, environmental, noise, and other studies.

An open house was held for the project with neighboring landowners, which was attended by three people. 

A more general community forum was also held during that general timeframe, which drew around 150 people to learn more about Microsoft’s plans in Cheyenne.

Rachel Irwing, land development and permitting manager for Microsoft, said the size of the Highlands project represents a long-term commitment from the company to plan and grow responsibly in Cheyenne. 

“Large contiguous parcels with the infrastructure characteristics needed for future development are increasingly rare,” she said. “Planning comprehensively now allows us to have growth occur thoughtfully and with the city’s input and with the public’s input over time, rather than incrementally and reactively, parcel by parcel.”

That doesn’t mean that all of the 3,050 acres Microsoft will own is being developed all at once. 

“Complete and full build-out of the site would likely be a 10- to 20-year phased development,” she said. “The larger planning area provides flexibility to responsibly coordinate infrastructure, transportation, utilities, buffering, environmental concessions, and future community needs over many years, and in alignment with market demand and infrastructure readiness.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Long-Term Commitment To Cheyenne"}]

These efforts further reflect a long-term commitment by Microsoft to Cheyenne, Microsoft Community Affairs Senior Manager Lucas Downey said.

“Microsoft is not new to Cheyenne,” he said. “We’ve called Cheyenne home since 2012 and from the start we’ve tried to be good neighbors, not just a company with a footprint here, but a partner in the community’s future.”

Downey said more community forums are planned in the future, so collect feedback from the public about what matters to them, and to ensure that those concerns are appropriately addressed.

“We want to keep listening, keep showing up, and keep addressing your feedback directly,” he said. “We’ve also tried to back up our words with investment. Since 2018, Microsoft has supported 56 community projects across 28 local organizations, and we’ve donated $4.7 million to local nonprofits and organizations across Wyoming.”

Those groups range from Boys and Girls Club Cheyenne and Laramie County Community College to Habitat for Humanity, Climb Wyoming, Cheyenne Frontier Days and many more.

Microsoft is committed to paying the full cost of its electricity bill so that residential rates are not affected and to minimizing water use and being good stewards of the water shed. 

The company’s commitment to Cheyenne also includes creating jobs, investing in local training and nonprofits, and contributing to local taxes that support public services.

“In 2025, Microsoft was the No. 1 taxpayer in the city of Cheyenne,” Downey said. “We know trust is earned, not announced. 

"We’re committed to earning it this summer and for years to come,” he added. "We’re not just proud of the 14 years we’ve been a part of the community, we’re genuinely excited for the decades that are still to come. Cheyenne isn’t just where we operate, it’s where we intend to keep growing, contributing, and building in partnership with the community.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Just Changing Map Colors"}]

“We don’t make decisions like this, haven’t before, and certainly not in such a politically charged atmosphere, with so many nearby aspects,” Councilman Pete Laybourn said toward the end of the discussion. “And I don’t think we can look at this in that narrow view that’s been suggesting tonight that we’re changing the color on the map, Mr. Mayor. 

We’re not changing the color on the map,” he continued. “We are adopting the rules and regulations of the city. That’s a really serious thing.”

The needs of South Cheyenne, which is immediately adjacent to the proposed land that’s being annexed, need to be fully considered in context with the annexation, Laybourn suggested. 

“I believe there’s contributions that should be considered to help that neighborhood,” he said. As well as other issues here in the city.”

Given the public interest and concerns surrounding data centers right now — and Microsoft’s expansion plans in particular — Laybourn suggested it’s actually a huge problem that the most recent minutes from the Planning Commission, which dealt with recommendations related to the annexation, are unavailable to the council, even in draft form.

“When we don’t have the minutes, we don’t have a real chance to discuss the action they took,” he said. “And they took several votes. I personally don’t want to call on my recollection.

"I think we need to go to the record. I think that’s a very important part of this. And certainly 

those minutes can be dispersed as draft minutes,” Laybourn added. "We (shouldn’t) have to wait a month for them to be approved by the next meeting of the commission. There’s got to be some middle ground on this.”

Larry wolfe city council 6 9 26

<title>In Emotional City Council Meeting, Cheyenne Weighs Record Microsoft Annexation | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It was yet another data-center dominated night for the Cheyenne City Council on Monday, with intense, sometimes emotional public testimony on what would be the largest annexation in Cheyenne history. The annexation will support expansion of data centers.

In Emotional City Council Meeting, Cheyenne Weighs Record Microsoft Annexation

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Crime & Courts

Public Safety

BAGGS — Waking up in this usually sleepy town of 411 people Tuesday morning, you wouldn’t know that only eight hours earlier it was the scene of a major multi-state response to an active shooter that ended with a Carbon County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot multiple times and a dead suspect.

As late as 10 p.m. Monday, the initial crime scene ­— a nondescript off-yellow, two-story apartment building — was surrounded by dozens of law enforcement vehicles and crime-scene tape a stone’s throw from southbound Wyoming Highway 789.

Along with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, the Wyoming Highway Patrol, Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, Rawlins Police Department and at least a half-dozen other agencies from Wyoming and northern Colorado had responded.

[{"type":"text","text":"By 6 a.m. Tuesday, it was business as usual around Baggs — almost."}]

Folks were up early and in their heavy-duty trucks on their way to job sites, the pickups dusty in a way that says they work as hard as their drivers.

They did their usual rounds, stopping for breakfast, coffee, and a little gossip to start the day.

On Tuesday, there was little gossip as conversations were dominated by Monday’s deadly incident.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘It’s Just What We Do’"}]

Now in her 80s, Linda Fleming grew up in Baggs and has lived her life teaching generations of local kids, along with serving a stint as the town’s mayor in the 1980s.

She called Monday’s deadly shootout “something tragic” that also highlights the hero spirit of first responders, along with the neighbors who helped the deputy after being shot multiple times until an ambulance could arrive.

“The most immediate (heroes) were the neighbors who rallied for that deputy,” she told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday morning.

Inquiries to the Carbon County Sheriff’s and coroner’s offices for more information about Monday’s shooting were not returned by the time this story was published. That includes the condition of the deputy and the identification and cause of death of the suspected shooter.

Fleming said she’s not surprised regular people reportedly sprang into action to help the deputy, along with local EMS that was at the scene quickly.

“It’s just what we do,” she said. “We don’t have any local police, so people help and don’t give it a second thought.”

She also said that while violent episodes like Monday’s have become rare for Baggs, that wasn’t always the case.

“I was mayor in the ’80s when we had a pretty serious drug problem at that time,” Fleming said. “But we didn’t have anything like the shooting of a police officer.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Usual Suspects"}]

At the Stage Stop General Store, the usual suspects were in their usual places, sipping coffee from the four stools at the front of the store by the checkout counter.

Like clockwork, as one of the “old geezers” — as one described the group — got up and left, another filtered in to take the empty stool.

The usual gossip was replaced Tuesday with talk about the shooting, the manhunt for the suspect, and then the ultimate ending with a deputy flown to a Colorado hospital with multiple gunshot wounds and a dead suspect.

“I’m reading about it right now on Cowboy State Daily,” said the local on the far end, holding up his phone.

They’re all talkers, until asked their names. “Oh, gee, I guess I forgot it,” one silver-haired coffee drinker quipped, making them all laugh.

What they weren’t vague about was their shock over what happened, and the resulting hourslong shelter-in-place order that shut down the town.

It was the same at the Cowboy Inn Restaurant, where server Brett Ferrier said a full dining room of customers was not allowed to leave.

She also echoed Fleming’s sentiment that she’s not surprised the deputy may owe his life to those fast-acting neighbors.

“This is the best place I’ve lived,” said Ferrier, adding that she moved to the area just last September. “These are real neighbors, they have your back and they’re so welcoming.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Little We Know"}]

Nearly 24 hours after local residents were notified via text message of an “active assailant in Baggs area. Please shelter in place,” there’s still little information about a possible motive for the shooting and the condition of the deputy.

In a late-night report Monday, Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken confirmed that “the suspect opened fire on the initial responding deputy, striking him several times.”

The suspect then “fled the scene in a small truck,” the report says. “Additional responding deputies and troopers with the Wyoming Highway Patrol engaged in a pursuit with the suspect vehicle on Highway 789 north of Baggs.”

During the pursuit, the suspect again “opened fire on law enforcement … before driving off the highway and coming to a stop.”

The report then says that the suspect “was declared deceased at the scene,” but it’s not clear how the suspect died or if anything happened between the time the vehicle came to a stop and the suspect was declared dead.

“Please keep our injured deputy and their family in your thoughts and prayers,” the report ends.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Blue Wall"}]

Law enforcement agencies around Wyoming are doing just that, posting messages of support and sympathy for the injured Carbon County deputy and the sheriff’s office. A sampling of those:

 “Please keep all the first responders in Carbon County in your prayers and specifically for the deputy who was shot yesterday in Baggs.”

 “The Wyoming law enforcement community is a small one and today our hearts are with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office.”

 “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the injured deputy, they’re loved ones, and the entire Carbon County Sheriff’s Office following yesterday’s tragic incident.

“Moments like these are a stark reminder of the dangers law enforcement officers face in service to their communities. We ask everyone to keep the deputy, their family, and all those affected in their thoughts during this incredibly difficult time.”

Closer to home, Baggs residents like Fleming and Ferrier are shocked, but not disheartened by Monday’s violence.

“Our little community of Little Snake River was put into lockdown cause of an active shooter,” posted Stacy Overton to Facebook. “Our community is shaken (by) the recent events of today.”

Meanwhile, what looked like a scene from an action movie set most of the day and night Monday appeared virtually normal by Tuesday morning.

Gone was the small fleet of law enforcement vehicles representing multiple jurisdictions, along with the fire engines and crime scene tape.

At least most of it, with one string of yellow tape still visible at the property. The small army that had responded the day before was reduced to one Carbon County deputy standing at the perimeter of the scene.

At the Cowboy Inn, Ferrier was too busy Tuesday to think much about the previous day’s excitement. The lunch rush was coming.

This is a developing story that will be updated as more information on Monday’s active shooter incident is available from authorities.

Baggs green sign inset

<title>Deadly Shootout In Baggs, Wyoming: Neighbors Helped Deputy After Shot By Suspect | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The day after a gunfight that left a deputy shot and the suspect dead in Baggs, Wyoming, former mayor Linda Fleming said it's no surprise neighbors rushed to help the fallen deputy. “It's just what we do. People don’t give it a second thought," she said.

Deadly Shootout In Baggs, Wyoming: Neighbors Helped Deputy After Shot By Suspect

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

After a string of 90-plus-degree days in early June, the last thing you’d expect to see in Wyoming’s forecast is a chance of snow.

Nevertheless, there’s a good chance of rain and snow showers in Yellowstone National Park between Tuesday night and Wednesday. Daytime highs on Wednesday will be in the high 40s at Old Faithful.

“The peaks will get glistened up with a little bit of white when the heaviest part of the storm comes through over the next 24 hours,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.

Over the next two weeks, temperatures could drop between 15 and 20 degrees below average, or even lower. Day called it "an interesting pattern" that’ll put a dent in the sunny start of summer.

“This is just the continued weirdness that we've had since November,” he said. “It's summer's trying to start, but it just can't get going yet.”

The source of this unseasonable summer weather is what Day and other meteorologists are calling “a cold trough.” It’s part of the natural ebb and flow of ongoing weather systems.

“We had an upper-level ridge and high pressure overhead last weekend, which helped have those hot 90-degree temperatures,” said meteorologist Molly Gerhardt with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Riverton. “This kind of pattern shift will have a trough, generally the opposite of a ridge, that will help keep temperatures on the cooler side.”

The cold trough will move from west to east over the next few days. Gerhardt anticipates the system will bring cooler temperatures and “some helpful moisture,” but not a lot of it.

“There isn’t an impressive amount of moisture with this system, but it is going to drop some rain, and perhaps some snow in those higher elevations of the Tetons and Wind River Mountains.”

Day agreed that there won’t be much moisture in his system, but the shift is significant. In his words, “the cool is coming.”

“This system is blowing up every seasonal forecast for June,” he said. “Whatever you’ve heard or seen about what’s happening in June, just scratch it.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Unseasonable Start To Summer"}]

Wyoming’s temperature will be on a bit of a roller coaster for the next week.

After Wednesday’s high-elevation snow, Wyoming will jump back into more summer-like temperatures.

“This cold front will drop temperatures 5 to 10 degrees below normal, but that won't last too long,” Gerhardt said. “We'll get back near to even above normal temperatures, 5 to 10 degrees above normal, by Friday.

By the end of the weekend, temperatures will dramatically shift again in the opposite direction. Day called them “remarkably cool” for mid-June.

“I'm looking at temperature anomalies as much as 20 degrees or more by Sunday and Monday,” he said. “That means take 20 degrees off what the average high is, so you could have daytime temperatures in the 40s and low 50s in Yellowstone.”

The NWS anticipates daytime highs in the 70s for the rest of Wyoming on Sunday and Monday.

That pattern could continue through the week. Gerhardt said the guidance being monitored by the NWS indicates “a pattern shift” toward cooler temperatures.

“Some outlooks are trending toward below normal temperatures, especially for the eastern half of the state, with maybe a slight uptick in precipitation,” she said. “That would be anywhere from the 60s to low 70s, which is generally below normal for this time of year.”

Day wanted Wyomingites to understand how baffling the next week will be across the state. It’ll be a constant back-and-forth that’s decidedly not summerlike.

We have this cool front coming through the next couple of days,” Day said. “There’s going to be a brief warm-up Friday and Saturday, then temperatures reverse and go right back down again starting Saturday night into Sunday, and then the coolness persists for most of next week. It’s blowing up the long-range forecast.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Delayed Reaction"}]

What stood out to Day about the short-range forecast was how it didn’t look like June. If anything, it looks like what May should have been.

While May brought much-needed precipitation to portions of Wyoming, the entire month was 

 for most of the state. The next week’s weather looks more like May than May did.

“Our weather’s behaving like it’s three or four weeks out of sync,” he said. “What we saw in parts of May was really what we should have but didn’t get in March and April, and now June is showing signs of what sometimes happens in May.”

The real question is whether that pattern will persist. Will July be more June-like?

Both Day and Gerhardt said it’s too early to say. Extended forecasts indicate a return to form with hotter, drier days by the end of June, but those same extended forecasts have been consistently wrong since November.

“From the NWS’s Weather and Climate Prediction Center, it looks like things will be trending back into those near-summer temperatures that we typically feel, if not above normal, by the end of June into early July,” Gerhardt said. “We’ll see how things pan out over the next couple of weeks.”

Day cautioned outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes to prepare themselves. Most people are prepared for overnight chills or a day of below-average temperatures, but the next two weeks will be beyond that.

“What's striking is that this will be multiple days of cooler weather,” he said. “We'll rebound by the end of the month, but we're definitely hitting a cool patch. If you're doing outdoor stuff, you need to be prepared for cool, wet weather in the middle of June.”

Snow yellowstone 6 9 26

<title>Merry Christmas! Yellowstone To Get June Snowstorm As Cold Front Dips Into Wyoming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After a string of 90+ degree days, snow is heading for Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday. Meteorologist Don Day says all of Wyoming should expect cooler than usual weather in the next two weeks. “This is just continued weirdness,” Day said.

Merry Christmas! Yellowstone To Get June Snowstorm As Cold Front Dips Into Wyoming

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, June 9th.  I’m Mac Watson

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

Before the Carbon County emergency services scanner went dark on Monday afternoon, law enforcement personnel described an active shooter incident and manhunt in Baggs. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports at least one law enforcement officer was injured and a trooper’s car was “shot up.”

“The man had emerged from a home in Baggs had fired a shot, and was trying to get into another apartment room in an apartment complex, and then he left that scene in a black truck. A trooper, a deputy, other law enforcement potentially started to converge. One officer reported that he was doing a traffic stop on the truck, and then we hear ‘Shots fired, shots fired!’ One deputy was taken to care after residents performed first aid, and then Trooper 132 as he was called on scanner traffic, said that his truck had been shot up.”

The public learned of the incident when Carbon County emergency services called for a shelter in place due to an active shooter situation.  As of Monday night, the status of the shooter was unconfirmed.

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

A downed power line is believed responsible for the Raven Creek Fire which has burned 3,900 acres of land in northeast Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that Weston County Fire Warden Daniel Tysdal said they're experiencing “late-summer fire weather conditions and fire behavior.”

“Fire Warden Tisdale said that the fire itself is not a major concern, it's just a warning for what's to come. They're dealing with severe drought conditions, and they're seeing late summer fire patterns, and it's just the beginning of June. As of Monday afternoon, the fire is 100% contained. It burned about 3800 acres. I did talk to a local rancher family, and I could just say that their ranch family was hit by it. No livestock were injured, just a lot of fence was burned, and they are praying for rain.”

The blaze was started just days after the nearby Shipwheel Fire was started by lightning and burned 456 acres in the same corner of the county.

At a panel discussion on Saturday, Cheyenne leaders and industry officials said data centers are already helping stabilize electric rates and are opening new land for housing. But Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that skeptics still aren’t buying it.

“This has actually happened here in Cheyenne. Meta paid like a million bucks to run three miles of water and sewer lines to its center, so that they can, you know, provide the domestic water. They're on a closed loop system, but they still have restrooms for the employees and water for the break rooms and that kind of thing, and so they spent a million bucks to bring that three miles to their data center. Well, where housing developments in that area were economically unfeasible. So, you've kind of opened up this whole new place where development can come in, like housing or shopping, whatever, retail businesses, and that kind of thing.”

Cheyenne LEADS Executive Director Betsey Hale tells Cowboy State Daily that Cheyenne has 10 data centers already operating, five under construction, and nine more announced or in planning stages. Another 36 data center companies or site selectors have expressed some level of interest in Cheyenne or Laramie County,

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–  "}]

One More For The Road: Monday, February 10, 2025

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