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Teton County: Compassion for Seniors?

Having been born and raised in Teton County and staying to work here as a mountaineering professional, I’ve always known that our Teton County community is compassionate. Whether it’s donating to non-profits through Old Bill’s, pulling together in times of crisis like the Budge Slide, contributing time, land and funds to house local workers, or […]

Our Comprehensive Plan: Community First

We need clear development standards that reflect our community’s Common Values as identified in the Comprehensive Plan: Ecosystem Stewardship, Growth Management and Quality of Life. And we need consistent interpretation of these standards.

The Comprehensive Plan identifies Ecosystem Stewardship as our commitment to protecting our natural resources. It identifies Growth Management as a suite of strategies and guidelines on how to achieve the goals of ecosystem stewardship. And it recognizes how Ecosystem Stewardship and Growth Management combine to preserve our Quality of Life. Our Comp Plan is a commitment to a community-first, resort-second ethic. If we are consistent with this vision, we will protect our habitat, provide for a diversity of housing and implement effective multi-modal transportation. The key lies in how we craft zoning rules and development standards to implement our plan.

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Teton County’s Human Capital

Astute visitors to Teton County notice three things: that no matter the horizon, your gaze hits a mountain range that appears untrammeled; that some form of wildlife could and often does appear around any corner; and that the community surrounded by those ranges is vibrant, alive with small businesses, art, music and other forms of culture and entertainment. To a visitor, that’s Teton County.

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Workforce Housing–Then and Now

Workforce housing opportunity: one and a quarter acre a mile from Wilson. $3,000 an acre! Alas, dateline 1967. Based on the Federal Reserve’s measure of CPI, that’s about $21,000 in today’s dollars. It was the price Margaret Schofield was asking on 5-acre parcels just south of Wilson when four river guides/ski area workers/off-season laborers threw their money together, bought a parcel and split it equally among themselves. Say you built a 1,500 sq. ft., Bob Koedt-design, house for $13 ($91 now) a square foot, including your laborer’s wage of $1.80/hour ($13/hour now), with the help of a $17,000 ($120,000 now) loan from Felix Buckenroth. Voila! You have housing for a family of five. Today? Not so fast.

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Tax Day in Teton County

Tax day! The good news is you don’t owe Teton County any income tax. Or Wyoming. But if you live in the county, you’ll likely contribute something to the county’s coffers before the day is over. The county collects over $23.5 million in tax revenues from two primary sources: sales and use taxes on what and how much we buy, and property tax on the value of our home and land. More good news is that while those collections are high on a per capita basis, nationally our effective local tax rate (percent of sales and percent of land value) is relatively low.

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