Tagged: Jackson

A five year effort in Teton County has come to an end.  County commissioners and the Jackson Town Council have voted to adopt a new comprehensive plan that will guide future development in the county. 

Under the plan most new development will occur in existing neighborhoods and communities.  Jackson Mayor Mark Barron says that will protect open space.

“It makes darn good sense if you are going to be a planning a community to put any additional density where dense masses already exist.  For example the town of Jackson, Teton Village, the town of Wilson, so that you can maintain more open space opportunities. ”

Barron hopes that the plan will ease the concerns of many residents. 

Jackson's Town Council is working on new rules to clarify the permitting process for allowing special events on the Town Square.  

Town attorney Audrey Cohen-Davis says the new rules were in the works before a pro-life ministry group proposed putting up a controversial anti-abortion display on the Town Square. The town stopped the group from showing graphic images of fetuses during a Boy Scout Expo on the Town Square, a move which the Wyoming Supreme Court said violated the group’s First Amendment rights.  

While the town lost that case, Cohen-Davis says Jackson still has a say over what happens in public spaces.

Jackson Town Councilors voted Monday to allow a ten-by-eighty-foot display, which could include graphic images of fetuses, on the Town Square. Texas-based Operation Save America would be allowed to put up the anti-abortion display for four days in May. But the council denied the group's request to set it up on a Saturday during the Boy Scouts annual elk antler auction.

Councilors said the content was not the problem, but that the display would compete for space with the Boy Scouts' event.

Councilor Mark Obringer stressed that pro-life protestors could still come to the square. 

"It does not prohibit anybody from walking around introducing themselves, passing out brochures at any point... or carrying signs," Obringer said.

The town of Jackson is looking to buy a piece of property from the U.S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service plans to get rid of the 10-acre parcel on the outskirts of town and would normally auction it off to the highest bidder. But Jackson officials have asked the agency to consider a direct sale, where they would skip the auction and just negotiate a price with the town.

“Any time you can get 10 acres of dirt in Jackson Hole in one parcel, it’s worth looking into,” said Town Administrator Bob McLaurin. “I think one of the things that you will hear from folks around town is that they would like for this property to remain under public ownership.”

Anchor ice has been wreaking havoc on some Jackson residents and businesses this week. Also called frazil ice, it’s a rare phenomenon in which the river freezes from the bed up, so flowing water spills out from the sides of the waterway.

Teton County Emergency Management Coordinator Rich Ochs says Jackson’s Flat Creek is one of the few places in the country with prime conditions for anchor ice to form, winter after winter. Ochs says this year has been particularly tough because of the constant freezing temperatures.

“The heavy amount of snowfall that we got last year and the fact that the ground is still saturated really gave this water nowhere to go,” Ochs says. “It came up faster than we’ve ever seen before.”