The Green River Chamber of Commerce shouldn’t have gotten involved in the special general purpose tax election and has overstepped its bounds.
The chamber paid for signs urging voters to support the 1% sales tax local governments wanted to use to fund ambulance subsidies, emergency services and economic development efforts.
The chamber is a organization that is independent of the Green River municipal government and Sweetwater County, yet it receives a substantial amount of funding from the city to continue its operations. In the 2021-2022 budget, the chamber was earmarked $90,000 towards its operations. Between this and the amounts paid by the Sweetwater County Travel and Tourism Board to operate the Green River Visitors Center, a significant amount of taxpayer dollars are paid to the chamber.
Additionally, the chamber would have potentially benefitted from the economic development portion of the tax as Green River City Administrator Reed Clevenger envisioned in an email he sent to leaders throughout the county.
Why is the chamber’s board comfortable with the organization taking a political stance?
We would like to know the answer to that and several other questions too, but so far both we and the Radio Network have only gotten silence from Lisa Herrera, the chamber’s CEO.
We placed several calls, sent an email with our questions and followed up with an in-person visit Wednesday morning seeking Herrera’s comments.
The situation and the lack of communication is disappointing.
The Rock Springs Chamber had the right idea when it came to the special election -- maintain a neutral stance, encourage voters to seek education and vote according to their opinions.
The Green River Chamber of Commerce should have taken a similar direction and left the issue to the voters.
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