Wyoming News Exchange editorial roundup, week of May 30

Judge's ruling on corner crossing suit a victory for public access in Wyoming

From the June 4 Casper Star-Tribune:

If there's one issue that unites Wyomingites, it's access to public land. We might have different motivations for wanting that access — hunting and fishing, for some, bird-watching and conservation, for others. But we’ll put up with the wind and the cold if it means we can enjoy open, unblemished landscapes.

Those open spaces are attractive not only to the average Wyomingite, but also people who have the means to purchase large tracts of lands and put up fences around them. Fair enough. Wyoming is a state that values private property rights, and people should be able to do with their land what they choose, as long as it's not causing harm.

But private and public lands aren't always neatly separated, where one side is yours and one side is all of ours. Sometimes, these lands are arranged in a way that makes it difficult for the public to access public lands.

Which brings us to corner crossing. In Wyoming, there are places where public and private lands are arranged like a checkerboard. Two pieces of private land might share a corner, but on either side of that corner, there is public land. And so, in theory, you can step over that corner to access public parcels without ever touching private land.

The reality, as detailed by the coverage of WyoFile reporter Angus M. Thuermer Jr., is more complicated. Elk Mountain Ranch sits south of Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming, 34 square miles of private land owned by Fred Eshelman, a wealthy businessman from back east. About two years ago, four men from Missouri corner crossed in order to hunt on public lands. Prosecutors in Carbon County charged them with trespassing, arguing that even if they never stepped onto the property, the act of corner crossing would have required them to move, even for only a brief time, through the air above private property.

It took a jury less than two hours last year to reject this argument, finding all four men not guilty. Eschelman then sued the four for millions of dollars in federal court, contending corner crossing, if allowed, would devalue his property by huge sums of money. Last week, a federal judge dismissed most of the lawsuit, ruling the four hunters did not trespass, Thuermer reported.

That victory is about more than Elk Mountain Ranch, or hunting or property values. At its core, it protects one of the most fundamental parts of Wyoming life — enjoying the vast tracts of unvarnished public land that comprise so much of our state. The reality of how that land is sometimes arranged means accessing it can be complicated. But if people are trying to use it in good faith without trespassing, they shouldn't have to worry about criminal prosecution or a massive lawsuit.

The opposite would result in more than prosecutions and lawsuits. It would undoubtedly have a chilling effect on public access to public lands. If people worry they might face costly lawsuits or be hit with criminal charges, they’re more likely to err on the side of caution and avoid an area altogether, even if they have a right to it. Court proceedings can be expensive and time consuming, and many folks might not want to risk it.

Still, there is more work to be done. State lawmakers should take action to ensure that Wyomingites’ access to public lands isn't chilled by threats of prosecution or civil action. There are so many divisive issues in the statehouse, and here's an opportunity to address a concern that many residents share, regardless of their political beliefs. We can all agree: The public's access to public lands is deserving of protection.

Reducing YNP animal encounters

From the June 5 Cody Enterprise:

After an unconventional 2022 defined by unprecedented flooding, the 2023 Yellowstone tourist season has officially begun.

And per tradition, news broke — within weeks of the park's reopening — of an unfortunate encounter between visitors and the park's wildlife.

When a Hawaiian man helped a bison calf up from the Lamar River bank on May 20, this supposed act of kindness resulted in the calf's being rejected by its herd. The calf was eventually euthanized by park staff because it was threatening public safety.

This is a tragic story, but far from an unusual one. In 2021, a tourist was sentenced to jail after refusing to move away from a mother grizzly bear and her cubs. In 2019, a nine-year-old girl was tossed into the air by a charging bison. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to human-animal encounters in the park.

This seems as good a time as any to reiterate the park's official safety guidance: "The animals in Yellowstone are wild and unpredictable, no matter how calm they appear to be."

The best way to view wildlife is inside your vehicle, according to the park. Tourists must stay at least 100 yards away from bears and wolves, and 25 yards from other animals including bison and elk — both for their own safety and the safety of the animals.

Give the park's wildlife the respect and space they deserve. If need be, turn around and go the other way to avoid interacting with a wild animal in close proximity. 

For those of us who call Cody home, this advice is common knowledge. It can be easy for us to read stories of tourist/wildlife encounters with an exasperated eyeroll and then look the other way.

But keep in mind that many visitors to our beautiful corner of Wyoming have never seen anything like Yellowstone before. And, as Wyomingites, it's our duty to point tourists in the right direction and pass on these park safety tips. Doing so might just save a life.

— Stephen Dow

New land use rules need input from residents

From the May 31 Cody Enterprise:

We appreciate the need for new land use rules and regulations in Park County.

However, we believe the citizens who will be directly impacted by these rules need to be the ones involved in making the decisions.

The manner in which the rules and regulations will be developed will be set by whichever consultant is hired to develop the plan.

There are multiple opinions on how this consultant should proceed once hired. County Planner Joy Hill suggested some sort of advisory group similar to the Land Use Plan Advisory Committee that oversaw work on the land use plan.

Meanwhile, many of the Park County commissioners, including Dossie Overfield, are pushing to put the decision-making in the hands of the individual planning areas and the residents living in them.

Overfield said, "Residents in the planning areas would just sit and work through their own issues." The consultants and the P&Z staff would be in attendance at those meetings, she said.

We agree with this general approach and urge the hiring committee to seek out a consultant who puts emphasis on input from the residents who will be impacted by the new rules and regulations.

Elected officials have a critical role to play in this process as well.

The final decision on the new land use plan will be reviewed by both the county planning and zoning commission and the county commissioners. Their final decision is critical to the success of this project, as is their participation throughout the planning process.

Only elected officials are held to the level of accountability required for such an important decision on the development of the land use rules and regulations.

It's simple. If county officials want acceptance of these new rules, the people who must live by these guidelines must be the ones involved in making them.

— John Malmberg

Save the ski bums

From the May 31 Jackson Hole News&Guide:

When the Aerial Tram opened in August 1966 at Jackson Hole Ski Area, the Jackson Hole Guide trumpeted that "bona fide residents" of Teton County would receive a free ticket for a scenic ride on the engineering marvel. The tram opened up 4,139 vertical feet of skiing and sent the fledgling Jackson Hole Ski Area on its way to becoming an international destination.

Word of mouth from local residents is an indispensable form of marketing and community support in a ski town.

That spirit of catering to locals is something that may have been taken for granted for decades. Generations of ski bums have worked random night jobs to be able to lap the mountain all day.

The news last week that Jackson Hole Mountain Resort had sold out of its most popular full season passes, six months before the lifts begin spinning, was a shock for many locals, some of whom were likely to have been waiting for their bank balance to permit the big purchase.

Longtime passholders who were locked out are understandably upset that the passes sold out faster than ever.

Resort officials point to the many ways they alerted people of the sellout risk. Locals have applauded the limiting of ticket and pass sales to reduce lift lines and improve the skier experience, but once the red "SOLD OUT" button appeared online, the proletariat angst has been palpable.

As of this writing there are still weekday pass and 10-day pass options available, but the pickings are slimming.

Season passes are available at the other two resorts, and it's likely some hard-core Village skiers will choose those options or touring in the backcountry instead.

If there's any way that Jackson Hole Mountain Resort officials can create a layaway plan, back door pass access for true locals, or a workaround for multiyear pass holders, it would go miles toward creating goodwill. All while ensuring that despite its increasingly visible influx of wealthy skiers paying over $200 for single-day tickets, the Hole hasn't lost its soul for loyal valley skiers and snowboarders.

Baseball memories with my dad

From the June 1 Northern Wyoming News:

It's funny how certain things at certain times can bring memories flooding back.

The other night after I got dishes done I went and sat down on the couch and my husband had on a baseball game. It was the Los Angeles Dodgers. Every time I see a Dodgers game I think of my dad. He was a huge Dodgers fan, but this game memories came flooding back for me. Perhaps because his birthday was just over a week ago and he has been on my mind a lot.

Growing up I never played baseball, never really watched baseball until my senior year in high school. OK there was one year in junior high some friends and I got together and played a pickup game, if you will, more like practice as we didn't have a full team.

I realized I was not good at baseball. I went home and did the traditional, toss the ball up and try to hit it as it came down. Well, I was like the kid in the Kenny Rogers song, I was such a good pitcher I struck myself out. My brother felt sorry for me and tried to pitch me a few balls. It was to no avail, so my baseball career ended before it started.

My senior year in high school, being the youngest, I was home alone with my folks. My mom and I had a lot in common and we would visit but spending time with my dad was either spent working on one of our cars, or I decided I needed to watch baseball with him.

So, I became a Dodgers fan too and he taught me about the game. I can remember many names from the time my dad and I watched the Dodgers together or talked about them, not just my senior year but for several years after. But don't ask me to start listing rosters or stats. That's just not me.

And, I remember when my dad was disappointed that I became a Colorado Rockies fan. They were the closer team, easier to follow and, what can I say, I like Rockies purple more than Dodger blue.

I also remember getting frustrated during a strike year with the Dodgers when "scabs or replacement players" played during the strike and they got the Dodgers into the playoffs. Lo and behold, miracles of miracles, the strike ended just about the time for the playoffs and the scabs that got them there were tossed aside.

I even wrote to the Dodgers organization to express my frustration and they wrote back about how they were taking care of those players.

Unbeknownst to me and my baseball naivete I did not realize that the regular players would not have wanted them in the dugout anyway.

But, it was a good excuse for me to turn my baseball attention to the Rockies.

I have been lucky as a Rockies fan to attend many games, including playoff and World Series games. Sadly, I never did get to take my dad to a game, but I will cherish the memories of watching the games with him at home.

— Karla Pomeroy

Hats off to Powell American Legion

From the June 1 Powell Tribune:

On Monday morning, a group of people from Powell and the surrounding area (as well as an American Legion member from Elko, Nevada) gathered at Crown Hill Cemetery to honor the men and women who served who are buried on the grounds, as well as those who gave "their last full measure of devotion" in service to America in the U.S. Armed Forces.

It was a pleasure to witness the event alongside a couple dozen others, who watched the American Legion honor guard perform a brief, yet powerful, service.

These American Legion members ought to be commended in what they do. A couple of hours later, while I was driving through town once again, this time with my son, on an errand, we saw part of the wreath laying service at the memorial wall outside of the American Legion. Once again, these volunteers were taking time out of their day to honor those who died defending our freedom to do whatever we wanted with our day.

Over the years, having covered many Memorial Day services, I am struck by the dedication of those who attend and those who put on these services, year after year. Since my father-in-law died and was given a funeral with full military honors, the 21-gun salute I hear each year at a memorial service, whether in Cody or Powell, has struck me more personally, as I remember his flag-draped coffin, the flag being folded, and the three rounds of firing.

But I don't know exactly how veterans who lost friends overseas feel when they participate in such a service. I can only imagine the pain they must feel in remembering. So, while I spend my Memorial Days taking some small time out of my day to remember those who gave all, I also think of those who sacrifice their time to remember those we’ve lost.

— By Zac Taylor

School's out for summer

From the June 1 Thermopolis Independent Record:

Some of you may remember jamming out to School's Out by Alice Cooper to celebrate the end of a school year and the long anticipated start of summer break.

Most students, of any age, look forward to summer break like adults look forward to retirement.

As community members, it is important we remember children will be out and about more often now than they have been, at all hours of the day. Be sure to watch for them playing, riding their bikes and walking/running to and fro.

It is a great time for parents to give their children a reminder course in bike rules, street crossing safety and paying close attention to their surroundings.

We hope many of our local children will take advantage of the opportunity to play outside in the fresh air. Encourage them to put away their video games and phones, at least for a few hours each day, to interact face to face with their friends and let their creativity flourish.

WTE offers thumbs up and down 6-3-23

From the June 3 Wyoming Tribune Eagle:

City Council wise to set aside contingency funds for ward-specific projects

UP to the Cheyenne City Council for considering allocating about $60,000 for each of the city's three wards as contingency funds for ward-specific projects.

We could make cogent arguments both in favor of these dedicated funds and opposed to them. On the one hand, if the council is working together for the good of the entire city, having dedicated ward funds shouldn't be necessary, because proposals would be approved or rejected based on their merits, not which part of town they benefit. Since the current council members seem to get along well, this may negate the need for ward-specific funds.

However, we’ve seen this money be put to good use in the past, for such neighborhood amenities as playground equipment and more time-sensitive projects that are brought to the attention of specific council members from residents in their part of the city.

The main benefit to making these funds available in this way is if they can be spent in a more timely manner, without multiple, cumbersome layers of approval to go through. There needs to be some guardrails in place, though, to ensure the money isn't wasted and can't be spent by a single council member.

As part of a more than $66 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2024, this $184,445 is a drop in the bucket. If the money's not spent wisely — or at all — the idea doesn't have to be renewed.

K-12 strategic plan should be more than campaign talking points

DOWN to Wyoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder for creating a strategic plan for the state Department of Education without consulting with the key groups that will need to help her implement it.

Although she said the new plan for education reform was based on "voices of thousands of education stakeholders across the state," the directors of the Wyoming School Boards Association and the Wyoming Education Association said they weren't consulted, nor was the Wyoming Association of School Administrators.

Since Ms. Degenfelder's goals for the next four years include parental empowerment, job preparation and developing student citizenship, she's going to need buy-in from teachers, administrators and board members statewide to realize them. And since Wyoming strongly believes in local control, advice from the state will fall on deaf ears unless the state's top K-12 leader sells those in charge of making it happen on its importance.

Of course, parental empowerment has been a top priority for conservatives for several years now, so it won't be a tough sell in many of the state's more red counties. With pushback growing against book bans and limits on which titles are available to students, it may be more of an uphill climb than Ms. Degenfelder expects.

The bottom line is that a strategic plan for the Wyoming Department of Education shouldn't just be a regurgitation of the campaign platform of the newly elected state superintendent. Unfortunately, based on what we’re hearing, that's exactly what this is.

(Editor's note: Wyoming Tribune Eagle Editorial Board member Lindsey Hanlon is a member of Pride Cheyenne and helped plan the events mentioned below.)

Thanks to community generosity, South High students make trip to D.C.

UP to everyone who made it possible for a group of students from Cheyenne's South High School to travel to Washington, D.C., to compete in the "We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution" national competition.

The team finished 34th overall, which is an impressive accomplishment, especially considering that many of the top teams had personal attorneys or private-school funding to support them. More impressive, though, is that South High students and their coaches were able to raise $100,000 in just two months in order to have the opportunity to participate.

Thanks to community support of raffles and other fundraising efforts, 44 students were able to make the trip to our nation's capital. Once they got there, not only did they get to showcase their knowledge of the way our government operates and the history behind it, they got to see it first-hand. Meeting with Wyoming's congressional delegation on Capitol Hill, visiting a museum dedicated to African American culture and spending special moments paying respect to fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery are experiences that will last a lifetime.

Our sincere gratitude to those who made this trip possible, once again proving why Cheyenne is such an amazing place to grow up and call home.

Kudos to local group for boosting LGBTQ+ support in the Capital City

UP to Stuart Campbell and fellow members of the Pride Cheyenne group for planning events to celebrate the diversity of the Capital City and surrounding area.

Today, from noon until 6 p.m., the group will sponsor a street fair on West 15th Street between Thomes and O’Neil avenues. There will be live music, community art, games and drink discounts from both Freedom's Edge and Chronicles Distilling. An after-party will be held at Railspur, 707 W. Lincolnway, from 7 p.m.-2 a.m.

On June 10, there will be a Pride Cheyenne Pub Crawl downtown, as well as a Drag Game Night at the Atlas Theatre.

These activities are designed to provide a supportive community atmosphere for LGBTQ+ residents in Wyoming's largest city, similar to what's been offered in Laramie and Casper for several years. But Mr. Campbell, Pride Cheyenne's co-founder, isn't looking to usurp the mission of Wyoming Equality, which has focused its efforts on lobbying against anti-trans legislation at the state level and in favor of nondiscrimination ordinances at the local level.

"I think a lot of people do get wrapped up on the emotional level of the national dialogue, but I feel like my vision of what we have going on here is that I can make a bigger difference in my community and not try to change the world," Campbell told the WTE.

It's encouraging to see so many downtown businesses support this effort. We hope the community, as a whole, will do the same.

David Adler: How do we rein in Supreme Court justices?

A reader recently wrote to ask a question on the minds of many Americans: "If the courts check the other branches of government, who checks the courts?" The reader continued: "Since the Supreme Court enforces constitutional limits on the presidency and Congress through the exercise of judicial review, who can restrain the Court, particularly at a time when public opinion registers strong opposition to the Court's interpretation of the Constitution?"

This good question has been raised at other junctures in American history when the citizenry was dismayed by the performance of the Supreme Court. Thomas Jefferson believed that if the Constitution were ever destroyed, that it would be destroyed by interpretation, most likely by the federal judiciary. He warned of the danger in converting the Constitution "into a thing of wax."

In the 1930s, the Court rendered multiple decisions that blocked the efforts of the Roosevelt Administration to lift the country from the depths of the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt effectively campaigned against the Court in 1936, attacking the Four Horseman for their "Horse and Buggy jurisprudence."

There is no justification for judicial usurpation of power, what Alexander Hamilton criticized as encroachments on the legislative function, whether undertaken for conservative or liberal causes. Judicial policymaking without foundation, an exercise in the discredited doctrine that the ends justify the means, recalls John Stuart Mills’ warning about the disposition to "impose our own opinions as a rule of conduct for others."

Is it true, as Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote in 1936, that "the only check upon our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint." If Stone's dictum applies to the behavior of Supreme Court justices, then we are right to worry, since the fundamental premise of our constitutional system is that unchecked power in any hands is intolerable.

Fortunately, that is not the case. "Unchecked power," Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 81, was not granted to the judiciary, which is why the framers of the Constitution provided for the impeachment of justices. President William Howard Taft, a staunch conservative and the only president in our history to serve as Chief Justice, complained in 1911 about the conduct of the judiciary He observed: "Make your judges responsible. Impeach them. Impeachment of a judge would be a very healthful thing in these times."

Taft may have been correct in his assumption about the "healthful" nature of the impeachment power, but our nation, across a vista of two centuries, has impeached just one Justice — Samuel Chase in 1805 — and the Senate trial failed to remove him from the high bench. If the remedy of impeachment is largely unavailing, what else, if anything, might be done to restrain judges?

There is much to be said about an aroused public opinion, which is a powerful engine for change, as President Richard Nixon learned, after the Saturday Night Massacre in October of 1973. A sustained public repudiation of Supreme Court rulings and its legitimacy is impossible to ignore. justices have said as much.

Scholarship heightens public awareness that the Court is leaping its boundaries. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote, "Scholarly exposure of the Court's abuse of its powers would bring about a shift in the Court's viewpoint." Frankfurter could say that because he, like other members of the Court, had been academics prior to judicial appointment and enjoyed revealing insider conversations with justices about their work.

Frankfurter, an intimate of Justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, understood the impact of scholarly criticism on Holmes's free speech jurisprudence. Indeed, scholarly criticism, principally from Harvard Law Professor, Zechariah Chaffee, persuaded Justice Holmes to reformulate his conception of the Clear and Present Danger Test, which shaped the law governing free speech for the next half century.

Scholarly commentary can open lines of inquiry and criticism for editorial writers and other citizens who will speak publicly and write letters to the editor. In 1952, then Supreme Court law clerk William Rehnquist, later Chief Justice Rehnquist, observed first-hand the influence of newspaper editorials on the Court's ruling that President Harry Truman had unconstitutionally seized the steel mills to end a nationwide steel strike.

Criticism of judicial decisions, moreover, will draw attention to the presidents and senators responsible for judicial appointments, and further inform public opinion. Governmental accountability, James Madison explained, is the linchpin of American Constitutionalism.

The importance of calling the Court to account for inadequate reasoning or failure to answer persuasive counter arguments cannot be overestimated. Justice Robert H. Jackson, on more than one occasion, urged the public to shine a light on the Court's shortcomings. To the extent that the work of the Court is an intellectual enterprise, in which authors take pride in the quality and craftsmanship of their opinions, and the ability to draw logical conclusions from the premises of their argument, reasonable criticism should always find traction.

American citizens, including judges and justices should not countenance a gulf between constitutional principle and governmental practice. Certainly, we should not tolerate the spectacle of a Court that that pretends to lay down constitutional principles while in fact rewriting them in a manner that reflects their own political views.

David Adler, Ph.D., is a noted author who lectures nationally and internationally on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and Presidential power. His scholarly writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Adler's column is supported in part through a grant from Wyoming Humanities funded by the "Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation" initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Adler can be reached at [email protected].

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