My answers

Future private land development pressures are inevitable. What is your approach to updating or implementing Town or County planning initiatives? How do you plan to balance private land development with the conservation of our natural resources?

Any conversation about development here has to start with a fact that makes Teton County unlike almost anywhere else: roughly 97% of our land is federally protected public land. Much of the small remainder is already held in conservation easements or committed to deed-restricted affordable and workforce housing. So we're not really debating whether to develop the valley — geography settled that. We're deciding how to handle a very thin sliver of private land under enormous pressure. My approach starts from that reality. On that limited developable land, I support housing that does not harm our water, wetlands, or wildlife — full stop. Environmental guardrails aren't the obstacle to good planning; they're the point of it.

But I'd be doing you a disservice if I pretended there's a tidy solution. After serving on the council, I know there's no silver bullet for our housing crisis. In fact, as the years have gone on and I served on the council, I'm struggling to see a solution to that. What I do believe is that our current framework — our Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations — is quietly making things worse: deepening the wealth divide and, in some cases, cementing that inequality into the land itself for a century. That serves neither conservation nor fairness. So my objective is twofold, and I'd argue the two halves are aligned: protect our natural resources and protect the middle-class families who make this a community rather than a resort. Reforming the LDRs with both goals in mind — instead of treating them as a tradeoff — is the honest path forward. It's hard work, but I'd rather do it in the open than keep pretending the current rules serve either the land or the people.

We have been slow as a community to address water quality challenges. Where does water quality rank within your top ten priorities (with 1 being the highest priority)?

Water is life — it's hard to rank something everything else depends on. But I'll answer directly rather than dodge: water quality sits in my top three. I don't treat water quality as a standalone item on a list, because it isn't one. It's the direct downstream result of the decisions I care most about — how we handle land development and how we manage our budget. Every choice about density, wastewater, and what we permit on our recharge areas is a water-quality decision, whether we label it that way or not. So when I say land use is my top priority, protecting our water is built into that, not competing with it.

I'd also be honest about why we've been slow as a community: it's easy to rank water quality highly on a questionnaire and then let it slip behind louder issues once you're in the room. My commitment is to keep it in the top tier in practice — in the budget, in our Land Development Regulations, and in what actually gets funded and measured — not just on a survey.

Recent development trends in Jackson include multiple lot aggregations, large-scale hotels, high-end condominiums, and debates about mitigating impacts on traffic, parking, housing, and groundwater, among others. What, if any, changes do you think should be made to ensure a stable tourist economy, provide housing for our community, and improve traffic congestion, all while protecting our wildlife and natural resources?

The through-line in all of this — tourist economy, housing, traffic, groundwater, wildlife — is that they're symptoms of one cause: a planning framework that no longer fits the community we've become. So that's where I'd focus. At the neighborhood scale, I'd start by restoring our residential zones closer to their original character — walking back the high density we've layered into zones like NH-1, where current rules can allow something like sixteen units on two aggregated lots. I'd also make room for limited, thoughtful mixed-use in neighborhoods — a small market, a childcare space, a resident-serving business within walking distance, with affordable housing above. It's a nod to the shopkeeper's-quarters model of an earlier Jackson, and it does several things at once: it removes car trips for small errands, and it actually pencils as a way to build more affordable housing.

On large-scale hotels, luxury short-term rentals, and high-end condos, the community has been clear it doesn't want more projects in the mold of the Mogul gateway hotels or Cache and Pearl. I've pushed the council to take that seriously, and I'll keep pushing.

But the honest answer comes back to two documents: our Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Regulations that implement it. Our current Comp Plan dates to 2012 and carries forward a vision first drawn in 1994. Planning choices play out over ten to fifteen years, which means we're living with the consequences of assumptions made a generation ago — and the LDRs meant to carry the plan out have been neglected even longer. The plan is written to preserve and protect this ecosystem, yet the results speak for themselves: the traffic, the water problems, the housing crisis are what those rules produced. I don't know a single resident who'd say this is the community we set out to build.

I'm not a professional planner, and I don't think elected officials should pretend to be. The job is to identify the problem clearly and bring in people who genuinely have the expertise — organizations like Planners Network and others who do this for a living — to help us reassess and redesign for the next fifteen years, instead of quadrupling down on a plan built for a different era. Identifying problems and sourcing real solutions — that's the job.

What role should the Town or County budget play in addressing water quality and infrastructure issues in our community, such as outdated or failing wastewater systems? What funding mechanisms, if any, do you support to address these infrastructure needs? Do we need to raise more funds? If so, by what means?

Start with the role, because it isn't optional: providing for the health and safety of residents is a foundational, statutory duty of local government, and clean water and functioning wastewater infrastructure sit squarely inside it. The budget's job here isn't discretionary — it's core.

On mechanisms, day-to-day water and sewer operations are, and should be, funded through dedicated utility funds supported by user rates, so cost tracks actual use. For larger capital projects, we have better tools than simply reaching into residents' pockets. The Town contracts with Sustainable Strategies DC, a firm that specializes in helping communities win competitive federal grants — that relationship has returned millions of dollars on a modest investment, and I'd protect and expand it. We should also be aggressively using low-interest State Revolving Fund loans for wastewater work, and partnering with well-resourced groups like Protect Our Water Jackson Hole and other conservation nonprofits that bring both funding and expertise to specific projects. This work rewards collective action, not going it alone.

Do we need to raise more? My answer: not before we prove we're spending what we already have well. People here are already being taxed out of town, and I won't ask them for more on the assumption that our current spending is efficient — because I'm not convinced it is. That's why I'll continue to push hard to bring real municipal-finance expertise into Town operations, so a professional is actually reviewing our budgets for efficiency. That alone would likely free up savings. Where genuinely new revenue is needed, I favor mechanisms that don't land hardest on locals — the voter-approved SPET, which also captures spending from the millions of visitors who use our infrastructure — before anything resembling a property-tax increase on the people who live here. The people need to decide if they're willing to tax themselves before we do.

Grand Targhee Resort is proposing an expansion onto US Forest Service land in Teton County, WY. What role, if any, do you think the Town of Jackson and Teton County, WY should play to ensure this proposed expansion aligns with our Comprehensive Plan?

I'll be direct: I'm not sure "aligning with our Comp Plan as written" is the right test — not because I don't value the plan, but because I value what it was meant to do. Our Comp Plan is a beloved document, and its aims are right: preserving and protecting this ecosystem. But it's been failing us on results, not intentions. Its guiding framework traces back to the 1990s, and the 2012 update changed the language more than the outcomes. Worse, as written it's subjective enough to be cherry-picked — read to justify almost any decision someone wants to make, which is the opposite of how it was meant to work.

There was a real debate when Jackson set out to build this plan. Back in 1990, Luther Propst — now our County Commissioner, then a planning expert with the Conservation Foundation — warned that it's "unfortunate when so many plans consist principally of goals and policies that can be interpreted to support virtually any decision," and insisted a plan must be "specific enough that it provides some real guidance." At the same time, Planning Commissioner Kelly Lockhart cautioned that ours had become "too subjective" — "regulatory as opposed to planning-oriented," with goals that were "a wish list." Both were right. Thirty-five years later, we're the proof: the plan is still vague enough to be cherry-picked to bless or block almost anything we want.

So when we ask whether the Targhee expansion "aligns" with it, we have to be honest that the plan can be read to bless or block nearly anything. That's why my test is the plan's actual objective, not its loopholes: does this expansion harm the Town, its residents, their quality of life, and the wildlife and ecosystem that quality of life depends on? That's what I'd hold it to. I take these documents seriously — when I served, I kept hard copies of both the Comp Plan and its essential counterpart, the Integrated Transportation Plan, on my desk as a constant reminder of the goals we'd committed to. (When I left office, I gifted them to Councilman Schechter so I'll be making new copies for this next term!) I'd encourage every resident to read them; most never have.

Jurisdiction also matters: this is a U.S. Forest Service decision on federal land, and the Service has already moved toward approving a roughly 694-acre expansion. The Town of Jackson holds no formal authority over it, and the County's role is largely as a cooperating and commenting party. But limited formal power is no reason for silence. Both should participate fully — submitting substantive comments, coordinating with our neighbors in Teton County, Idaho, and insisting that the real impacts on traffic, water, and wildlife are studied and disclosed, not glossed over.

Whatever happens, there will be unintended consequences. My job is to identify as many as we can before the decision is final — whether we're measuring against today's flawed plan or the honest, revised one this community is long overdue for.

The Teton County Water Quality Management Plan identifies numerous recommendations to protect groundwater, surface water, and drinking water. Which recommendations do you believe should be the highest priorities, and how would you work to implement them?

Teton County's Water Quality Management Plan is a serious, well-built document, and my priority is seeing it implemented rather than shelved. If I had to rank, three areas stand out.

The first is addressing pollution at its source: wastewater and septic systems. Fish Creek and parts of Flat Creek have been on Wyoming's impaired-waters list for E. coli since 2020, and the underlying driver is development density combined with aging on-site wastewater systems reaching our surface and groundwater. The Plan's recommendations to modernize the county's small wastewater facility regulations and extend sewer service — Munger Mountain and the Highway 89 commercial corridor — are among the highest-leverage steps available, because so much else depends on what we keep out of the ground in the first place. This has been a long time coming: when Munger Mountain School was going in, Pete Jorgensen (yes, the mayor's father) and others, including me, said we needed that infrastructure in place before the school opened. I'd prioritize it now.

Second is protecting our drinking water at its source. We rely on the Snake River Sole Source Aquifer, which by definition has no alternative. I support adopting the Water Quality Protection overlay and incorporating source water assessments into our Land Development Regulations, so the most vulnerable recharge areas are safeguarded before development is permitted rather than after. Strengthening those regulations is work I've long believed we need to do.

Third is funding the plan consistently and tracking its results. This work is supported by the Water Quality SPET tax and county budget dollars, and residents deserve to see that money tied to measurable outcomes — improved creek conditions, lower nitrate levels, expanded monitoring — and reported back to them. Steady funding and honest measurement are what turn a good plan into cleaner water.

I'd approach all of this collaboratively, building on the strong work already done by the Teton Conservation District, Protect Our Water Jackson Hole, and county staff.

WYDOT and the Federal Highway Administration are evaluating options for the WYO22 corridor to address traffic congestion and safety concerns. Given that this corridor intersects critical wildlife habitat, rare wetlands, and conservation easements, what is your approach to balancing transportation infrastructure needs with environmental preservation?

I'll be a genuine advocate for protecting critical wildlife habitat, rare wetlands, and conservation easements — and for the people who share this landscape with them. We're all part of the same ecosystem, and on this corridor the interests of wildlife and commuters overlap far more than they compete.

That overlap is the part of this conversation I think gets missed: congestion itself is an environmental hazard. When the Teton Pass failure closed WYO 22 in 2024 and traffic was rerouted, we watched drivers grow reckless and aggressive — endangering each other and striking wildlife. Slow, frustrated traffic isn't neutral for the ecosystem; it's a threat to it. So easing congestion and improving safety, done right, is also a conservation goal.

My approach is to weigh every concern and look for solutions that serve both aims at once. Some already exist: wildlife crossings and safe-passage structures cut collisions while restoring habitat connectivity — a real win for animals and drivers alike. Thoughtful speed management, paired with genuine enforcement, protects both lives and wildlife. And any corridor work must account for water — stormwater and runoff from an expanded roadway can't be an afterthought, especially near wetlands.

There are tradeoffs. There is no perfect solution here, and I won't pretend otherwise. My commitment is to keep an open, evidence-based mind — I won't rule out any option, including added capacity, where the data genuinely show it reduces harm to both wildlife and people, rather than simply moving cars faster.

One governance note: any formal participation by the Town in the WYDOT and Federal Highway Administration process must come through a majority vote of the Council, in the open — not through side channels. That's how these decisions should be made: transparently, with every voice weighed.

Public lands, including our national parks, are seeing a number of new development proposals which may impact both local citizens and visitors. What is your strategy for involving local citizens in public land management decisions?

Most people here find out about a public-lands proposal after it's already a done deal. That's the real problem, and it's the one I'd actually fix. These are federal decisions — the Park Service and the Forest Service make the call, not the Town or County. We don't get the final say. But we're not powerless either, and there's a lot we could be doing that we don't.

The Town and County should sign on as cooperating agencies in these federal processes whenever we can. That gets us an actual seat and forces the agencies to look at the local impacts — traffic, water, wildlife, housing — instead of waving them off. And when there's a public comment period, local government should be the one getting the word out early and in plain English, not letting it sit buried in an agency notice nobody reads until it's closed.

We need to be about what real public involvement means, because we have a history of getting it wrong. In 1990 there were the "Successful Communities" workshops — 160 people, held up at the time as broad community input. It wasn't. Those meetings weren't built for working people who couldn't take a weekday off, so it ended up being mostly the same voices it always is. It's the same voices now. Back then, people like Kelly Lockhart were warning that the plan was too vague and that the working community wasn't being heard. Had we listened, we might be living in a different Jackson today. A diversity of voices ensures we see what we otherwise might not.

So when I talk about involving citizens, I don't mean another room full of the usual people. I mean reaching the folks who always get shut out — meeting them where they are, when they can actually show up. And it can't be a one-off for a single resort proposal. We need that same real, working-people-included conversation about the Comp Plan as a whole, because that's the document driving all of this.

I'm not interested in deciding things for people and announcing it later. I'm interested in who's actually in the room — and making sure it's finally the people who never get asked.