It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, April 7th. I’m Mac Watson.
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A Teton County family promises to price-cap 70% of the homes in a new 553-house neighborhood south of Jackson. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports the subdivision would be the first major non-luxury development of 100 or more homes in the nation’s wealthiest county in 30 years.
“Speaking with Nikki Gill on Monday, she said, ‘Yeah, It just matters a lot to me to help these people that are commuting, that are living in unfavorable circumstances,’ and her dad, Robert Gill had said in the press release, ‘We're making room for kids, because a lot of those you know, it's harder to raise a family in in a more cramped apartment complex area.’ They're giving more than half of the land to the affordable housing project, according to their press release.”
The Gill family, a sixth-generation Teton County ranch family, submitted its development plan application to the county on Thursday.
Read the full story HERE.
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A record $4 million University of Wyoming jersey patch deal hit days after President Trump signed an executive order tying federal funding to compliance with college sports rules. Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that UW Athletics says it needs $8 million in revenue sharing to compete.
You have this unique executive order coming from the White House. The University of Wyoming lands a record deal with Tall Grass Energy and a sponsorship partnership that's going to be worth $4 or $5 million somewhere in there. There seems to be a lot of alignment between what trustees have been saying all along. ‘We need to do something about this. This is a little too wild west, even for Wyoming.’
Rob DeSoto, general manager of Wyoming Sports Properties, tells Cowboy State Daily “This is the largest corporate investment in Wyoming athletics history.”
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming lawmakers have set aside $3 million to buy the Star Plunge and Hot Springs Hotel. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that could end decades of disputes, as well as an ongoing lawsuit, clearing the way for the Star Plunge to reopen after closing abruptly more than a year ago.
“This buyout would kind of put all that to bed and allow the state to move forward with its selected vendor, Wyoming Hot Springs LLC. They put $3 million in the budget, and it was money that had been earmarked prior to this year to buy out those properties, the Star Plunge and the Hot Springs Hotel. They're two different businesses, two different amenities in the park, but both of them need a buyout, and each of those owners had given the state a firm offer.”
Hot Springs State Park is among Wyoming’s most popular and heavily visited state parks, renowned for having the world’s largest mineral hot springs, as well as a free bathhouse and a resident bison herd.
Read the full story HERE.
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An ethics complaint has been filed against Rock Springs City Councilman Rick Milonas by a city employee, who says Milonas falsely accused him of “advancing a ‘gay agenda.’” Cowboy State Daily’s Kate Meadows reports the complaint, filed by city Urban Renewal Agency (URA) Director Chad Banks, alleges that Milonas has created a hostile work environment for city employees.
“In a video that Milonas posted to social media on April 3. He talks about the city's logo being different colors now the logo used to be earth tones and promoted tourism and economic development. Now, he says the downtown colors have changed to red, green, yellow and blue, which he calls the colors of the rainbow. Then in the video, he says, ‘These are the same colors of the city's urban renewal agency.’ And he says, quote, ‘Everybody knows the head of the URA is gay.’ He said, ‘It's no secret, and I have no problem with it.’”
Milonas has 20 days to respond to this complaint. Once the City Council receives that response, then they will schedule a public hearing to determine what if any action they will take with Milonas. The City Council cannot remove Milonas from his position, because he’s an elected official.
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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Police say a Gillette landlord admitted taking about $100,000 worth of tools from his tenants while they were on vacation. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that Joseph Kraemer also took guns and cash, claiming the tenants abandoned the property and their stuff was “his to do with as he saw fit.”
“There was a cleaning woman in there who told them they were cleaning it out because the owner said, there's, you know, it was abandoned. When they did double check, they went out and the guy went out into the shed, discovered a whole bunch of Snap-On-Tools, a lot of them for the oil field, but about $100,000 worth of tools were taken. Then when the couple came back and they did an inventory, they found other things that they said was missing, like: several firearms, a bow, a personal safe that had cash in it.”
46-year-old Joseph Kraemer has been charged with felony burglary, which could be escalated to aggravated burglary because the allegations include taking firearms, according to the Gillette Police Department.
Read the full story HERE.
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Opponents of a proposed Pinedale-area bike trail say they fear it will cut off a migration route for the area’s prized mule deer herd. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that supporters say it will open more outdoor recreation opportunities.
“There's a proposal on the table to build a new multi-use, non-motorized trail. Some folks are saying they're concerned that it is going to disrupt, it's going to cut through that mule deer migration route, and put more stress on the deer. And that deer here herd is already down. Numbers down from about 30,000 in the early 2000s down now to 20,000 so there's that concern.”
Each spring and fall, one of Wyoming’s most prized mule deer herds, the 20,000-strong Sublette herd, passes through what locals call “the bottleneck.” That’s a narrow strip between the southern end of Fremont Lake and the town of Pinedale.
Read the full story HERE.
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The first week of April has so far brought a dump of heavy, wet snow across Wyoming’s high country. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that meteorologists say it’s too little, too late.
“It's hard to imagine a situation that's much worse than the one that we're in right now. Most of the state's basins are at or below their lowest recorded snow pack in recorded history, and some of these records go back 90 years. The moisture we had last week in the form of rain and snow was good, but it wasn't enough. So it's too little, too late for the snow pack. We still could get a lot of moisture that'll help with spring conditions.”
Tony Bergantino, the director of the Water Resources Data System and the Wyoming State Climate Office, finally said the word that describes this past winter’s miserable snowpack – “Unprecedented.”
Read the full story HERE.
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And now a Wyoming history story from Dale Killingbeck…
In March 1895, a 13-year-old coal miner in Almy, Wyoming, was almost finished with his shift when he heard a “voice” tell him to “go home.” Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the boy did, then an explosion killed 62 of his coworkers.
“He had just walked out of the mine shaft about 200 feet, according to what he wrote later in life, and his dad had broke off from him and gone to a blacksmith shop. When he said, all the ground below him started quaking, and out of the mine shaft came this huge explosion that took out a power plant and other buildings. Killed five men on the outside of the mine, decapitated one of them. And so after you know, they get all the men out, the funerals take place. This young boy, 13, and his dad have to go back to work. They go back to a mine shaft that's in their community. And before they do that, they have to go back into that mind that exploded, go back to the room where they were mining and where he heard the voice, and get their equipment.”
William Moroni Purdy wrote later in life about surviving one of the deadliest coal mine disasters in Wyoming history. In all, the blast killed 62 people. There were fathers and sons, brothers, and in-laws — all gone.
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.
