Putting an employee housing complex on top of a morgue makes sense because of how dire Teton County’s housing shortage is, some commissioners say.
The Teton County Commission voted last week to incorporate employee housing units into the build plan of the new coroner’s facility. That advances, but doesn’t finalize the move, Commissioner Luther Propst told Cowboy State Daily.
Coroner Brent Blue, who’s running against five other Democrats for the party’s nomination in three open Commission seats, spoke against the plan.
“I vehemently opposed it,” Blue said in a Tuesday phone interview with Cowboy State Daily. “Who wants to live in an apartment above a morgue in an industrial area? That’s just a pipe dream.”
Noting that the measure passed, Blue said the complex might work better as a bunkhouse or dorm for summertime or part-time workers who aren’t planning on settling above the morgue.
The morgue maneuver reflects that “certainly housing is one of our critical problems for employees,” Blue said.
Chief Deputy Coroner Russell Nelson, who’s running to lead the office, was less subtle.
Blue sent Cowboy State Daily a letter that Nelson had sent the local newspaper after the vote in which Nelson referenced his past work for the Arizona State Museum’s Human Identification Laboratory.
There, he said, he’d encountered undocumented migrants who’d died in the heat while trying to cross the Southern border, many amid a “brisk drug trade.”
“The bodies that came through our laboratory had been beaten with a variety of tools, shot, burned, dismembered or just left out on the desert floor,” wrote Nelson.
He said lab workers used an enzymatic detergent solution to loosen soft tissue for examining bone features, wrote Nelson.
“All this cooking — even under a fume hood — produced a significant aroma of decomposition in the surrounding areas,” the letter says.
Nelson compared it to being “downwind of the carcass disposal pit at the Transfer Station.”
Nelson referenced “several” process-heavy cases, and “one rather high-profile, complete with paparazzi.”
Travel vlogger Gabby Petito was killed by her boyfriend in Teton County in the summer of 2021.
Sure, But...
Propst presented the motion at last week's commission meeting to include the housing plans in the new morgue construction. The aye votes sounded, and no nay votes were audible on the meeting video stream.
Propst told Cowboy State Daily in a phone interview Tuesday that the vote was unanimous.
He also believes Blue softened to the idea of temporary rather than “executive” housing during that meeting.
Blue said that he conceded the temporary housing idea as a compromise “if (they’re) going to force the issue.”
Propst noted, as Deputy County Attorney Keith Gingery did during the meeting, that housing has occupied that neighborhood. Blue had protested, however, that it’s an industrial area.
Commission Vice-Chair Wes Gardner told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that he voted for the addition.
The county’s dire need, the thrift of building housing on an already-planned building, and the potential to mitigate some of the coroner’s concerns factored into his aye vote, he said.
The cost estimate for the potential two housing units is roughly $1 million of the approximately $ 5 million project, the county staff report says.
Paying $1 million for two housing units is nearly unheard-of in Teton County, said Gardner.
Teton regularly ranks as the nation’s wealthiest county. Wealthy people drive up home values and with them, property taxes and other costs of living.
Many of the local workers commute from other towns, and workforce housing shortage problems have recurred for years.
County and Jackson city governments have tried over the years to handle those pressures by subsidizing housing, charging mitigation fees of homebuilders, price-capping homes, among other strategies.
“I completely understand and appreciate where the coroner’s coming from,” said Gardner. “I wish I weren’t in a position where I feel the need to put housing on top of the morgue. Unfortunately, I am in that position.”
Gardner said that on the one hand, he’s faced with an “awkward” living situation and the potential for people to feel uncomfortable.
“On the other hand, I’m looking at the stark reality facing Teton County and our housing shortage,” he said.
The plan is for the employees to pay a low rent to stay in county housing, he said.
Gardner said the county government is short by fewer than a dozen employees right now — which is “pretty good” for it. But it has around 26 employee units and nearly 340 employees, he said.
Commission Chair Mark Newcomb told the board last Tuesday that “we also thought” that adding the homes to the new morgue could make the project eligible for a special purpose excise tax, which is slated in part for employee housing.
“(That) might give a little boost to helping with the whole project cost,” said Newcomb in the meeting, adding that he recognized the coroner’s concern.
Propst said he agrees with Blue about making it temporary housing. He called the plot “not where someone might want to live for their career,” but a “great opportunity to provide housing.”
Newcomb did not return a voicemail request for comment by publication.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
