After last year’s proposed 1% general purpose tax was voted down in a special election, Sweetwater County’s Board of County Commissioners wants to handle things differently when it comes to this year’s proposed specific purpose tax initiative. In order to do this, the commissioners voted to retain professional services to help present the tax initiative to the public.
“In the last tax initiative, the public didn’t feel like they were heard beforehand,” Commissioner Lauren Schoenfeld said during Tuesday’s meeting. She said working with another group will “allow us to get the public’s input prior to making any ballot decisions.”
The group Schoenfeld has been working with for several months in Turn Corps, a Colorado-based company founded five years ago by Sara O’Keefe and Bryan Blakely. Schoenfeld said a Sweetwater County committee with local municipality representatives recently recommended moving forward with engaging Turn Corps to help with the tax initiative. O’Keefe and Blakely spoke to the commissioners via Zoom to explain their company’s work and how they hope to help with the specific purpose tax.
Turn Corps’s main goal is to help clients “navigate complex policies and projects with their constituents,” O’Keefe said. She explained the company focuses on “bringing constituents together to have a dialogue and create transparent processes around some of these more complex ballot initiatives” so people feel informed when they get their ballots.
O’Keefe said she has heard about the failed tax initiative in 2021 and the goal with the specific purpose ballot initiative is to help people understand how this tax will be different and how people can be engaged. Turn Corps’s approach involves working in phases. Phase one would focus on “restarting the conversation with the community,” O’Keefe said.
The main factors in Turn Corps’s phase one plan are a community survey and paid promotion, O’Keefe explained. Two community survey options were presented — a more complex and scientifically-validated survey with about 300 controlled respondents to represent the whole community or a simpler poll open to anyone to provide quantitative insight. The scientifically-validated survey would cost $13,500 while the simpler survey would cost $7,500.
The paid promotion recommended by Turn Corps involves paid ads in local newspapers and on news websites and paid boosted social media posts, which could cost up to $2,500. Turn Corps also estimated a $10,000 budget for communication and content fees “for developing messaging, writing press releases and ad/promotional content for news outlets and social media, website content, and participating in meetings.”
Schoenfeld said she believed the county should cover the cost of at least phase one of Turn Corps’s plan in order to take the lead of moving through the ballot initiative process.
Schoenfeld made a motion to approve Turn Corps’s proposal and move forward with phase one at not more than $20,000, which would mean using the simpler and less expensive community survey. Commissioner Randy Wendling seconded the motion, and Commissioner Mary Thoman and Chairman Jeff Smith voted to approve it. Commissioner Roy Lloyd voted against the motion. Lloyd said he believes the process is good, but also expressed concern over passing the ballot initiative.
“I think the level that we lost voter confidence was pretty strong,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd said he worries about spending money to find out people don’t want to pass the specific purpose tax.
“We want this to be successful,” Schoenfeld said of the tax. “We don’t want to do another ballot initiative that’s not going to be successful. That’s a waste of all of our time and our energy, plus it makes it so in the future it’s even less likely to pass, and we know how important these projects are. All of our communities feel very passionately about moving forward and we want to make sure that we are getting the public’s input before moving forward with anything at all.”
Other Business:
The commissioners and Public Works Director Gene Legerski rejected a request from the Boy Scouts of America to use Pioneer Trails Park for an overnight camping activity lasting several days. Legerski explained all of Green River’s parks have a no overnight camping rule and the park isn’t currently set up to accommodate overnight camping, especially for large groups of people over multiple days. The commissioners agreed it would be nice if Pioneer Trails Park can be set up for overnight camping in the future, but because it is not currently set up for it, they did not approve the BSA’s request.
The commissioners approved requests to restaff a vacant position in the county’s Engineering Department and to hire seasonal employees for both the Parks and Recreation and Road and Bridge departments. Wendling voted “no” on the requests for the Engineering and Parks and Recreation departments, expressing during both discussions his hesitation to fill more positions without further discussion when the board has recently had multiple conversations about reevaluating positions and making county departments more efficient. Lloyd also voted “no” to the request to hire seasonal positions for Parks and Recreation. All five commissioners voted to approve the request to hire seasonal workers for the Road and Bridge Department since usually the department partners with Climb Wyoming to hire drivers, but Climb Wyoming was unable to train drivers this year.
The Sweetwater County Historical Museum requested to use the county courthouse’s community room for an upcoming quilts exhibit, which was approved by the commissioners. The museum previously used the community room in December for a holiday exhibit and would like to use the room again since it provides more space for displaying quilts than is available at the museum. This is the fifth year the museum has partnered with the Sweetwater County Quilt Guild for an annual quilt display. This year’s display will feature table toppers, which is part of the reason the museum needs more space than usual for the display and wanted to use the community room. The exhibit will be displayed during March and April.
Kandi Pendleton, the executive director at the Sweetwater Events Complex, shared the Sweetwater Events Complex Foundation’s plans to build a pavilion at the Events Complex since the Events Complex has a Memorandum of Understanding with the commissioners to be aware of projects on the facility. The pavilion project has been in the works, but the foundation recently received a donation from the Spicer Family Foundation which will provide the funding for the project to go forward with infrastructure, timber structure, landscaping, hard surfacing and signage. Pendleton showed illustrations of what the pavilion will look like and where it will be located.
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