It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, February 25th. I’m Mac Watson.
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A Thermopolis couple who rent a vacation home in Puerto Vallarta is doing fine after violence rocked the city after the killing of a cartel leader. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Matthew and Lindy Be Hughes even helped college kids who were stranded.
“They ended up doing a really cool thing is, kind of through the social network there, they found out that somebody, a Canadian citizen, had what she initially thought were, were two, she said, two teenage daughters stuck in an Airbnb there that was nearby. So they risked it. They went ahead and kind of drove to that location with some food. She said, ‘We just turned off the headlights and drove to get there, and they got there, and there weren't two college kids – there were seven, all holed up in this Airbnb with, like, almost no food.’”
Despite the violence, the couple says they have no plans to come back to Wyoming anytime soon.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Wyoming House of Representatives on Monday handed the Senate a two-year budget draft totaling $9.96 billion, while the Senate sent the House a $10.13 billion draft budget of its own. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that even though that’s a difference of $170 million, the governor remains upbeat.
“So, Governor Gordon had a roundtable style press conference on Tuesday with reporters. He was actually cautiously optimistic. Because even though it was fraught and there were these bare-knuckle debates over the function of government and political philosophy, the House did come again within a narrow range of the Senate and the governor's draft budgets, each side adopted 37 amendments, the same exact amount, despite more than 200 being proposed on the House side. And so he was cautiously optimistic, saying, ‘Yeah, it got wild and wooly, but we can see the light.’”
Now the attention in the Capitol shifts to the two men tasked with appointing 10 negotiators to haggle over the differences: House Speaker Chip Neiman, of Hulett, and Senate President Bo Biteman, of Ranchester.
Read the full story HERE.
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After a Senate bill to reform the Wyoming Business Council stalled on Tuesday, the agency continues to remain alive in both chambers. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports despite the bill’s struggle, the business council itself remains alive in both chambers’ draft budgets.
“There's concern among some lawmakers that this is a venture capital firm that the state funds and then picks winners and losers out there in the Wyoming economy. And there was more debate on that today about the constitutionality of the Business Council itself. There was an amendment offered by Senator Steinmetz that actually got a lot of support. Her amendment failed by one vote, and it was an amendment to a bill Senate file 125, which is dead. but the debate over the Wyoming Business Council continues.”
On Feb. 9, only 10 senators voted to dismantle the Business Council outright, losing 21-10. Two weeks later on Tuesday morning, 15 senators voted for Steinmetz’s amendment to Senate File 125 — falling just one vote short of passing.
Read the full story HERE.
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With less than a month left in the winter season, Wyoming is getting some much-needed snow in the mountains. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that meteorologists believe there are encouraging signs for continued snowfall.
“This has been an unorthodoxly warm, dry winter by all accounts, in Wyoming. But as Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day says repeatedly: December, January and February are the driest months of Wyoming's year, which means that March, April, May, and June are the wettest months of the year. That's when we get most of our precipitation, including snow. But there's no denying, even Don says that the next six to eight weeks are critical, because that's when Wyoming's supposed to get most of its moisture. You can recover from a bad December, January and February, and hopefully we will. You can't recover from a bad March, April, May and June.”
Many meteorologists across the western states will mark this winter season as one of “the worst” in recorded history. More snow has fallen in eastern cities like New York and Boston in a single week than Salt Lake City and Denver have gotten all season.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
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A Fremont County man accused of helping ambush a man on the Wind River Reservation has been charged with first-degree murder and bound over for trial on Friday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that according to affidavits, DNA evidence puts Jose A. Gonzalez in the victim’s truck.
“They found DNA, his DNA, on the steering wheel of the guy's truck. He even told agents that he was riding in the truck with the guy. And then also, there are allegations that the victim was robbed. They found his pants with the pockets out-turned, and this guy's DNA was also found on the pants. That's some concrete evidence putting him in the guy's truck, whether he actually killed him or not. That's the $64,000 question.”
If convicted of first-degree murder, Gonzalez faces life in prison.
Read the full story HERE.
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Things got heated at the Cheyenne city council meeting Monday over whether the city would annex a popular farm business. Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports that when the owner didn't accept being called out of order, the mayor reprimanded him.
“So the councilman brought up a question about leashed barn cats that the owners of white fresh farms had brought to the council. And David Kniseley, who's one of the owners, took issue with that, saying that this council member seems to be suggesting that their questions were ridiculous, and he did, Kniseley, demanded an apology from this council member. Mayor Patrick Collins, called this demand for an apology out of order and unreasonable, and asked Kniseley to be done. Kniseley said he will not accept being called out of order, and that's when Mayor Collins said, basically, ‘I don't care. You don't have to accept it, but please sit down.’”
The council ultimately voted to pass this ordinance on the second reading. They will take up a third reading in two weeks, on March 9.
Read the full story HERE.
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It’s commonly argued that wolves are worth millions to the economies of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, because they’re such tourist magnets. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that others, like outdoorsman Trinity Vandenacre, say wolves ultimately drain more from the states’ economies than they bring in.
“Wolf advocates will frequently cite that wolves bring in millions and millions of dollars through tourism. I talked to a guy. He's up in Montana. He kind of questions that. He says, do they really measure it against the loss they might cause, like the cattle industry or big game hunting, which is also in in, you know, not just in Montana, but Wyoming and Idaho, all the western states make a lot of money off of not only resident hunters, but people who will come from out of state and pay some pretty big bucks for elk hunting tax.”
Trinity tells Cowboy State Daily that the biggest hidden costs of wolves are the legal fees that states rack up, fighting lawsuits filed by animal welfare groups, and others wanting to maintain or expand Endangered Species Act protection for wolves and grizzly bears.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming's new tourism chief Dominic Bravo on Monday said the very idea that tourism is a “soft industry” doesn't work for him. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Bravo wants to innovate, not do the same old things to attract people to the Cowboy State.
“One of the things he says you always fight with is it's a fight for relevancy. though we have technologies changing at light speed. It's the AI elephant in the room. People are using this to plan their vacations, to plan their road trip itineraries. So I think we're going to see him take some risks and do some things that maybe we haven't seen before.”
Bravo says he’s acutely aware that the Wyoming Office of Tourism is already performing at gold medal standards, thanks to his predecessor, Diane Shober, whom he described as a “legacy director.”
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
