CHEYENNE — “Too Much Too Soon” was the name of an old movie.
The film was a biography of Diana Barrymore, the daughter of famed actor and alcoholic John Barrymore, and niece of actors Ethyl and Lionel.Barrymore.
The story detailed how the Barrymore name won her acting jobs and easy recognition, and how she followed her father’s self-destructive path.
She had a lot of money and fame at an early age. She could not handle it. It was too much, too soon.
Although the analogy is a bit thin, the growing public concern over the crush of data projects, the huge man camps and gambling parlors show that the influx is too much to absorb, and needs to slow down.
Because of its roller coaster economy, Wyoming has been through this before.
I am thinking of Rock Springs in the 1970s and, to a degree, Wheatland.
Rock Springs, in particular, was hard hit. The town was in an economic funk at the time, with decreasing population, triggered by closure of coal mines.
During the eight years I lived there, it was a rather rough, dying town of residents with mixed ethnic backgrounds, who were great cooks and very friendly. It was a nice place to raise a family.
That ended with the boom from the trona mines and the construction of the Jim Bridger power plant, among other developments.
During a visit there during the boom years, my former neighbors told me how they hated what their town had become.
It was essentially overrun without adequate police protection or housing. It had Las Vegas vibes.
Cheyenne and Casper aren’t Rock Springs. They are in better shape to deal with this recent growth and the challenges that brings.
But the question I have is whether the city governments have the tools they need to deal with the needs of the new dwellers, or to handle the demands of the opponents for a pause or moratorium.
That brings us to the power of municipalities to govern.
The Home Rule issue was big in the 1970s because local governments had so little power.
They were supposed to get that power through a constitutional amendment approved by Wyoming voters in 1972.
But from everything I have read online, the scope of those powers is very murky. The Wyoming Supreme Court has never been clear what the towns and cities can do legally within the confines of the Home Rule Amendment.
You can read all about this in a report on Home Rule available on the Wyoming Association of Municipalities’ web page.
The report leads with the following quote from Horace E. Deming in the 1909 publication, “The Government of American Cities.”
“A local government needs from the central government, the state,
nothing but adequate power to exercise the functions of local government.”
And a political scientist, Rodney Mott, writes that Home Rule serves three objectives;
—It grants local governments the power and flexibility to satisfy increasing demands for local services;
—It permits local governments to determine the kind of government best suited to their needs; and
—It usually protects local governments from state intervention, while protecting the state from the constant pressures of local governments for additional power to respond to new challenges.
Simply put, Home Rule is the delegation of power from the state
to its sub-units of government.
The intended purpose of the Home Rule Amendment was to permit cities and towns to govern their own local affairs without the necessity of approaching the Legislature for permission to act or soliciting funds to pay for services they need.
This situation could be labeled as a constitutional amendment gone astray.
Contact Joan Barron at 307-632-2534 or jmbarron@bresnan.net
