Lander mayoral candidates talk infrastructure, city regulations, utility rates and more at Chamber forum

(Lander, WY) – The Lander Chamber of Commerce organized a candidate forum last month for the three candidates running for mayor: Incumbent Missy White and challengers Michelle Motherway and Alan McOmie.

Chamber Executive Director Brian Fable said the event was intended to highlight issues important to the local business community, drawing on responses to a survey the Chamber recently distributed to its members. 

“Our mission is to be the voice of business through advocacy, opportunity, and economic growth,” Fable told the audience at the July 29 forum. “We really believe that the work that you all do is the fabric that connects this economy and funds this community. So thank you for the work that you do.”

Likewise, Fable thanked the mayoral candidates for attending the forum – and for filing to run for office.

“They put their name in the hat,” he said. “They want to make Lander a better place.”

Local roots

Fable began the forum by asking the candidates to describe their “roots and connection to Lander.”

In response, McOmie described himself as a life-long local resident with “strong institutional knowledge.”

He spent 41 years working as a Lander police officer, including 20-plus years as a supervisor – a position that he said gave him experience with department budgets, the grant application process, and representing the LPD at city council meetings. 

He is also the son of a former mayor whose “direction” he would like to “bring back” to City Hall.

“I have his knowledge,” McOmie said. “I grew up with the political aspects of knowing what’s going on – how to run a council meeting, how not to run a council meeting.”

Motherway was also born and raised in Lander, both of her parents having moved to town in the 1960s “at the beginning of U.S. Steel.”

“We started the business – Mr. D’s – during that time, and I am a proud third-generation business owner,” she said. 

Like McOmie, Motherway said her family has a history of political involvement, and that was something she “aspired to do” as well. 

“I’m a helper of people – I’m a people person,” she said, citing her experience as a paramedic, grocer, and local volunteer. 

Unlike her opponents in the race, White was born in the midwest, but when she first arrived in Lander she said she “absolutely fell in love” with the town and its residents. 

“My goal was to figure out a way to be here and to make this my home – which I think I’ve done quite well,” she said, calling her “personal roots” in the city “very strong.”

“I’ve been part of the community in many ways – both as a neighbor, a community member, a volunteer for a number of nonprofits, (and) on council,” she said, adding, “Folks are appreciative that I have that background of multiple years of understanding how municipal government works, what it can and can’t do, (and) the processes that are required in order to be fiscally prudent.”

Residents have also told her they appreciate the local infrastructure projects the city has been able to initiate and complete in recent years, White said.

“Unfortunately, it did take a lot of time to be able to have the data to be able to make informed decisions about what are the highest value projects to be doing,” she said. “But we’re doing those projects, big and small, whether it’s re-doing Lincoln Street (or) putting new grills in the park.”

Lincoln Street

Motherway also mentioned the Lincoln Street project during last month’s forum, but not in a positive light, instead characterizing it as an “intrusion” into local business.

In fact, she said one local business owner told her he has been “losing approximately $200 a day” because of the disruption – and she guessed that “he’s not the only one.”

“The Lincoln Street project (was) supposed to be done in December 2025,” she said. “How many businesses have gone out, or how many businesses have struggled, because of just that? … That’s on the city.” 

Motherway also criticized municipal officials for their recent decision to update local liquor laws – a move that she considered disrespectful and which prompted her to run for office. 

“The city wanted to butt into my business specifically,” she said. “It was (the) government overstepping into my business, and it scared me, and it scared us, and I decided at that point that … we just need some change.”

McOmie agreed that the city has been “overregulating” the business community, specifically when it comes to local building projects.

“I mean, when you have to have a permit for a water tank replacement in your own house – come on,” he said. “We’re putting way too much fees (and) way too much regulations on the business community. … We should be promoting the businesses, not harming them through regulations, and I promise to change that when I get in.”

If he is elected, McOmie said he would also “stop (work) immediately” on the city’s new Popo Agie Park project, which he said he is “totally against.”

“We have a lot of great parks,” McOmie said, suggesting that the money being spent on the Popo Agie Park project could go toward improvements in those existing parks instead – or toward local infrastructure and economic development.

“(We need) to work on our streets, our curbs, gutters – the stuff that needs to be done, not the city parks,” he said, noting that “strong infrastructure” will help attract new businesses to town.

“We need to sell Lander, (and) you can’t sell Lander when you have terrible-looking streets, gutters, curbs,” McOmie said. “It has to change.”

Motherway called the Popo Agie Park project “the parking lot to nowhere,” agreeing that, “if I am the mayor, it is one of the things (which) will be x-ed off the list, because there’s things that we definitely need before that.”

“I want to know why we’re doing this,” she said. “Why are we spending money on a park when we have so many other things that need to be done first?”

To answer that question, White approached the Popo Agie Park situation from the perspective of last month’s audience – local business owners. 

“If you had the opportunity to increase your overall assets by $1.6 million and only pay about a third of that cost, would you be interested in that?” she asked. “That is essentially what we’re doing here. … There was a grant opportunity that was specifically for a project like that in a neighborhood with specific demographics that could only be used for pavement, curb and gutter, and underlying infrastructure to a public facility. So, we took advantage of that.”

The decisions that city leaders have to make are “complex,” White explained earlier in the forum, describing herself as someone who is “comfortable having to make the hard decisions,” even knowing that “there’s absolutely no way you can make everybody happy with any given decision.”

She pointed, for example, to local utiltiy rate increases, which she said are needed in order to “leverage” grant and loan dollars “so that we don’t have to increase our utility rates even more.”

Regardless, McOmie said the city needs to reduce its sewer and water rates, which have become unaffordable for many local residents.

“They’re pricing people out,” he said.

Utility rate increases are also hard on local business owners, Motherway said – especially those who operate within thin financial margins and are already struggling to provide employees with a “living wage.”

“You need (a mayor) that is a business person, that understands the meaning of a dollar – and I do know that,” she said.

Last month’s forum touched on additional issues ranging from the need for additional housing in Lander to fiscal responsibility and government transparency.

To watch the entire forum, click here.