(Lander, WY) – The “Wyoming Citizens for Liberty” hosted a Primary Election candidate forum at the Lander Library last week, which was split into two sessions: one for mayor and city council candidates and the other for County Commission candidates.
Former House District 33 Representative Sarah Penn acted as Emcee for both sessions.
Penn explained that the Wyoming Citizens for Liberty is a “grassroots organization of people who want to help people engage,: which began doing forums during the last election season. (You can request to join their private Facebook group here to learn more.)
While the first session was for the Lander city council and mayoral candidates, the second session focused on the County Commission candidates. As with the council and mayor session, each candidate was given time to share a little about themselves and their campaign priorities, followed by curated questions from the Wyoming Citizens for Liberty. Each candidate was asked the same questions, which ranged from a one-minute cap on answers to a “lightning round” of 10-second answers. The floor was then opened to questions from the audience, and each candidate was given one minute for closing statements at the end of the forum.
The Commission seats up for a vote this year include: District 1, currently held by Clarence Thomas, who is running again but was unable to attend the forum (Thomas faces challenger David Mossburg); District 3, currently held by Ron Fabrizius, who is also running again but was unable to attend (Fabrizius faces challengers Ryan W. Preston and Shanell Stanley, who were unable to attend); and District 4, currently held by Mike Jones (Jones did not file for re-election) and includes candidates J D Carper, Christy Hirasawa Gabel, Steff Kessler, Jim Taylor, and Jeffrey A. Young (Carper and Gabel did not attend the forum). Each candidate filed as a Republican.
A Commission District map is available below, and can also be found here.
In total, candidates who attended the forum were: David Mossburg, Steff Kessler, Jim Taylor, and Jeffrey Young.
Opening Statements
David Mossburg: “Many of you might know my wife, Marta. We moved here five years ago with our three children. I am a retired Air Force officer. I spent about 10 years in the Pentagon in contracting. I worked for Anderson Worldwide in Chicago and the Deloitte Touche, doing Medicaid consulting in public schools and on the Indian reservations down in Arizona. I’m seeing a lot of stuff going on. I’d like to bring some integrity back to the governance of Fremont County so that we know where our money’s going and so that we can just be assured that it’s being spent properly.”
Steff Kessler: “I care deeply about Fremont County and believe the next few years will require experienced, steady leadership. Every candidate will tell you they support good roads, public safety, fiscal responsibility, and strong communities. I do too, but the real question is ‘When difficult decisions come, how will you lead?’ Our county is facing growing challenges, uncertainty in funding, increased demand for services, and more state pressure and overreach. The choices ahead aren’t easy. Throughout my career as a former county commissioner, school board member, and managing staff and budgets, I’ve learned that successful leadership takes proactive work. It’s about listening, learning, and bringing people together and then making the tough decisions. County government should be transparent. It’s financially responsible and focused on delivering quality services and protecting our local control. We need less division and more problem-solving. My goal is simple: keep Fremont County strong, protect our quality of life, and ensure local people have a strong voice in decisions that affect them.”
Jim Taylor: “I am a veteran, a father of five, and a grandfather of 15. I’ve been in Lander for 22 years, and grew up in a little burg called Superior, Wyoming. Lander is a very unique town. It has changed over the years. My dad sought health care here when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1981. I have seen this town change, not necessarily for the worst or for the better. The county doesn’t have a lot to say about what we do in the city, but the county does help fund some of the things the city does, and I think the county needs some accountability for what they’re doing with taxpayers’ money, and that’s what I would like to focus on.”
Jeffrey Young: “Most of you know who I am. I’ve been on every board in Fremont County. …The reason I’m running is mostly peer pressure. But the bottom line is I’ve been a registered professional engineer here in Fremont County for over four years and what I want to make sure is that I support… all the way through, the courthouse and I can go from the library, I can go from road and bridge, I can go from the treasurer’s department, I can go all the way through because they made three of my businesses successful here in Fremont County. So I want to make sure that they have support, and now it’s my turn. I’ve got two ex-county commissioners that have told me, ‘It’s your turn,’ and now it’s my turn.”
One-Minute Answer Questions
Question #1: What do you feel that the role of the county government should be? Do you feel that the county currently meets that role?
David Mossburg: “I think we have a very clear lane of what we need to be doing. You’re talking about public safety, you’re talking about the roads, and paying all the bills of the county. When you start stepping out of that, especially the fact that Fremont County and most counties in Wyoming have a very small tax base, and so we have limited tax dollars and probably double the needs or the wants that we need, that people want. So you kind of have to control the purse strings in a way that you can most efficiently run the county. Right now, I think we get off track, and we need to get back on track, and I think there needs to be trust instilled back into the county governance. There just seems to be a lot of stuff going on that is not accountable to the commissioners.”
Steff Kessler: “Counties are political subdivisions of the state, so we have to follow what’s in the Wyoming Constitution and state statute for the services that we are mandated to deliver to local residents. I believe that it’s our job at the county level to seek ways to deliver these services effectively and as efficiently as possible, because we’re gonna be facing a lot of budget concerns in the future. That means learning to work with others at the table with the county commission, because you can only make decisions amongst the five of you. Also because we’ve got some serious times ahead of us, we have to engage with the public more to get their feedback and input on what is the most important types of services for them when we do have to make budget cuts.”
Jim Taylor: “So all government is service to the people. A lot of the politicians have forgotten and think that they’re the boss. They’re not. Everybody in this room is the boss. When we face budget crunches in the county or the city or the state, and you see politicians giving themselves a raise, but their workers, no raise, they’re not meeting the needs of the people. If you’re gonna give yourself a raise… I’ve never been in a position where I was able to vote myself a raise. …If you’re having a crunch with numbers, why are we giving raises to the people that are supposed to control the money?”
Jeffrey Young: “I don’t know how many of you people have ever dealt with an engineer, but I’m pretty black and white, and there’s not a lot of gray. I’m gonna run on the fact that I’m gonna run this just like three really, really successful businesses here in the county. I’m gonna be very fiscally responsible for every single thing that happens. There isn’t, all three of my businesses are still open right now, because they were started and run correctly.”
Question 2: What do you consider to be the single most important priority for Fremont County?
Steff Kessler: “To live within our means.”
Jim Taylor: “There really isn’t a single most important priority. A single most important priority is the entire county. Some cities or some towns feel like they get left behind, while others… get more of the revenue. There has to be a way to even that out, whether it’s per capita or just by specific needs. Our biggest need in Fremont County is quality health care. I’ve been in health care for 47 years, started out as a nurse in the Army. I was at the hospital for 12 years, and I’ve been at the clinic for nine. We don’t have enough health care in this community, and it’s only going to get worse unless we have other things to draw, providers and their spouses in.”
Jeffrey Young: “I took an oath as a professional engineer, and I’m also registered, and I took an oath for public safety. Public safety isn’t just transportation; it’s every ounce of water, all the transportation structures, making sure that we do what we should do for public safety. I’m running on making sure that we don’t get anybody else ran over on a bike. I’ve got a neighbor that’s been ran over four times, and I’m done with that. We’re gonna make sure that we are fiscally responsible, and we spend our dollars where they need to be for public safety.”
David Mossburg: “I’m gonna echo the comment of, it’s fiscal responsibility, that’s probably the number one. We just had a big property tax relief, and it caused a lot of issues. I believe that there’s a way that we can increase revenue without increasing taxes, our tax base is based on sales tax. It’d be nice if we could bring more businesses to Fremont County and grow our sales tax base, and that would also support more infrastructure. So not only live within our means, but increase our means without… throwing an extra 2% in taxes. We’re in Wyoming, we love low taxes.”
Question 3: Where should the county be spending its money? Do you think it’s possible to cut the cost of delivering services without cutting the services themselves?
Jim Taylor: “As he said about tax base, the problem is, most of the tax base for a percentage tax goes to homeowners. The homeowners end up getting the brunt of the tax bill, and the majority of the users of these services aren’t necessarily homeowners. They don’t pay their fair share. We must find a way to make it so that non-homeowners, renters, outside entities, pay their part of the costs to make them work. The ambulance is a prime example. The ambulance service is a private service, but we’re looking to subsidize them for their inability to properly run their business.”
Jeffrey Young: “I’m just gonna echo what he said. You can’t have a successful community without transportation. It doesn’t matter if it’s air or public. Then you can’t have us as a community without ambulance. But, they have to be run as a business, and people don’t realize that these businesses can be ran with the funds that they come up with. …I’m gonna push really, really hard to make them run as a business.
David Mossburg: “How do you get government to be more efficient? That is the trickiest question that you could ask anybody at any level of government. A lot of times, we privatize things… that doesn’t help anything, because it’s usually just money given to big corporations. It’s very difficult to lower costs on government unless you’re talking payroll, which is probably most of the cost, but there’s probably waste in there somewhere. There’s probably efficiencies that we can get out of our government. …If you cut services, or if you try to save money, you inevitably are cutting services. You just have to look at the services that you shouldn’t be providing, and get rid of those, and keep the ones you need to.”
Steff Kessler: “What does it mean to try to find efficiencies without reducing services delivered to the public? That’s a key question. You need to work with some programs to see where you can help them find efficiencies, help the staff work smarter, and also look for other opportunities or innovations that can bring more revenue into the county, so that you can maintain those services, which may be partnerships. For example, we might be forced to have a partnership with our EMS service with another county, and that might save costs… look for grants. …You’ve got to work at this proactively as a commissioner to really dig in and find ways to do this, because it’s not gonna present itself to you, and you need to work with other people to get it done.”
Question 4: There’s been a lot of contention surrounding the county library board and its policy changes. How much intervention do you feel the commission should take with the governing body of the library board?
Jeffrey Young: “There’s absolutely no reason why the county commission can’t work hand in hand with the library board to make sure that the different things that go on in our libraries, our county libraries, don’t get solved. …If you don’t listen and you don’t proactively solve problems, that’s where problems come from.”
David Mossburg: “The two biggest kerfuffles, I guess, over the last year or so, have been through the library board and the fair board just recently. The governing board is supposed to govern, and the fair board and the library board are both governing boards. The commissioners need to select those board members and allow them to do their job, and that hasn’t happened over the last year or so. The commissioners have, if they don’t like something, they just… go around the boards and change everything, so the boards are kind of left powerless. My wife’s on the library board and I was on the library board for four months. In October, they decided just to have another election without telling me, and so I didn’t get enough votes on the second vote, so there’s some issues that need to be resolved, and if you wanna hear a little more about it offline, I’ll be available.”
Steff Kessler: “I don’t think it’s an entirely hands-off relationship between the county commissioners and the board, because ultimately, the county is responsible. We are accountable as county commissions for the operations of the library under statutes. We need to ensure that boards are demonstrating responsible stewardship of our public resources and that we are using our taxpayer dollars reasonably for the libraries. We can’t waste staff time, volunteer effort, and donor support in a lot of conflict, which is what I have seen. My priority will be appointing qualified board members who can govern professionally, respect differing opinions, and keep focus on where it belongs, serving all of the people of Fremont County. …That may require some training, and it may require some working with the board to help them get there.”
Jim Taylor: “The library board, the fair board, ultimately their boss, are county commissioners. I’m gonna go back to what I said at the beginning. You can’t act like you’re the boss to your bosses, and if you are getting to the point where you think you have the power over your bosses, you need to be replaced. We’ve seen that happen time and time again over the years in the different entities. As far as the boards go, fair or library, the county commissioners are responsible to make sure that their leadership on the boards are doing their bidding.”
Question 5: What is your stance on the Supreme Court’s decision that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional? And how do you think this will affect Fremont County?
David Mossburg: “I think that in the 1960s, it was probably a very necessary thing, but I think we’ve evolved past that. I’m in District 1, so all my constituents are on the reservation. We’re the only county in the state that divides the commissioners up by district. Everybody else is that large, so that the Indian reservation can have a proper representation. But, I would argue that you’re kind of putting them all in one basket so that they can only have one. …If you had two great people come out of the reservation and they won at-large, then you got two. I think in Memphis, they had kind of a carve out there, and then they eliminated it, and a black Republican won Memphis, so I think that some good things are going to come out of it, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen here in Fremont, but it’s probably going to happen.”
Steff Kessler: “I am not a constitutional lawyer. I don’t know if anybody in this room is. I have read legal interpretations of this in terms of how it applies to Fremont County’s districting from both sides. What I look at is what serves our county best and all of our county citizens. I think that the districting is working. Why fix something that’s not broken? We should continue to focus on what our true duties are and job is to provide services and be responsive to the public. This can only be settled in the courts, and I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all solution that has come down from the Supreme Court in this case.”
Jim Taylor: “Has anybody happened to look at the map for the districts of commissioner? The three of us are in four, and it’s a nightmare. We have most of Lander, but little bits and pieces of it we can’t have. Mortimer Lane, you get one corner of it off the highway, and then one corner of it off of Sinks Canyon Road. The whole map gerrymandering that occurred was somebody’s bad idea. I think at-large is the best way to go through this county, and the reason I think it’s the best way to go through this county is, again, as he said, if you have some good candidates for the reservation that want to get on board, by all means, please do. But it should be represented by the people of the county that are willing to make a difference.”
Jeffrey Young: “This is going to be a wishy-washy answer. I don’t care what you are, what you do. I don’t care your sexual orientation. I’m a huge proponent for the Wind River Indian Reservation. On one side of my family, I’m Generation 5, on one side of my family, I’m Generation 4. My great-grandfather, on one side, walked here from Oklahoma… with Chief Washakie. I don’t care what color you are. I don’t care about your sexual orientation. I don’t care about any of that stuff. That’s not why I’m running.”
Question 6: Do your values best align with the Republican Party platform or the Democrat Party platform? Please explain.
Steff Kessler: “I grew up in a household where my grandparents were immigrants. On my mother’s side, they go back to Revolutionary War people. I grew up with the American dream that hard work and dedication will give you an opportunity to move ahead. I believe in an America that supports that, and I pledge my allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights above everything else.”
Jim Taylor: “100% Republican. Sorry if you don’t like it. My dad was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, and if he was alive now, he’d be a Republican. 50 or 60 years ago, the Democrats were the Republicans, and then it’s changed, and it happens about every 60 years. So we are where we are now. I believe in small government and workers’ rights.”
Jeffrey Young: “I can’t believe I have to agree 100% with him again, I’m a 100% Republican too. I believe in less government. …But I believe 100% in being responsible for everything you do. …Running a business, and that’s what we’re doing as a county commission, we’re running one of the biggest businesses in Fremont County, and making sure that we run that business correctly and everybody has the opportunity to do that. So I identify… my pronouns are Republican.”
David Mossburg: “From District 1, I would serve with any of these guys, just from what I’ve heard their answers have been, but I am 100% Republican. What I’m for is smaller government and lower taxes, and efficient government, and that’s the Republican Party, it’s not the Democratic Party. I don’t even think the Democratic Party… even understands what happened to their party, so they’re going to have to go through some sort of reckoning. …I always joke with people that we moved from Tennessee to here because Tennessee was too liberal. Everybody knows that Tennessee is a very conservative state, Wyoming is even more so. We love being here.”
Lightning Round
Question 1: Do you feel that some material is inappropriate for the youth sections of the library?
Jim Taylor: “Absolutely. … Our children are our legacy, and if we allow people other than parents to control what our children do, then we have an issue.”
Jeffrey Young: “Once again, Jim and I are totally agreeable. I think absolutely our children shouldn’t have access to some of that material.”
David Mossburg: “Absolutely. If you, in the Landry Library, just go into the young adult section, there’s a book in there that Karen Wetzel read to the commissioners and started a big, you know, fight, and they bought five more of it from the same author, just go check it out.”
Steff Kessler: “Of course, I agree too, but the point I want to make is that the library does… many people have age-appropriate policies in place already, and while every parent has the right to decide what their own child reads, no parent has the right to make that decision for every other family in the county, and we should maintain that freedom to read.”
Question 2: Are you in favor of or opposed to the option for hand-counting ballots?
Jeffrey Young: “I think Julie does a very good job. I’m not opposed…. I’m not for hand-counting ballots, but I want to make sure that every single ballot gets accounted for.”
David Mossburg: “From what I’ve seen, the election process here is pretty tight, so if you need to hand count the ballots, I’m assuming not a recount, then so be it. Once you get some shenanigans in there, it needs to be looked at.”
Steff Kessler: “I think our county election people do a great job. I don’t see a need to hand-count ballots. We trust our finances through electronic means and banks, and in every way else, so we have a system that works electronically right now and delivers good results.”
Jim Taylor: “I learned a lot last Tuesday at the meeting when Julie talked about the election process. Hats off to that crew, you guys are doing a great job. I think hand counts only if it’s a recount.”
Question 3: What do you do when local control meets our Bill of Rights? Do you think local control trumps the Bill of Rights?
David Mossburg: “Absolutely not. All of our laws derive from the Bill of Rights, so no.”
Steff Kessler: “I’m a law and order person. We have to follow the Constitution and our statutes, so no, it never should.”
Jim Taylor: “Ditto.”
Jeffrey Young: “Ditto. …There’s absolutely nothing that trumps our Bill of Rights.”
Question 4: Does economic development such as the one-half cent and the proposed three-quarter cent taxes fall within your perspective of government’s responsibility?
Steff Kessler: “Yes, it does because we’re allowed by state statute to present that before the voters… of our county, for them to decide. So it’s absolutely a responsibility we have, but it’s up to the voters to decide.”
Jim Taylor: “Yes, it’s our responsibility to, but ten seconds is not enough to cover that topic.”
Jeffrey Young: “Jim, quit taking all my answers… I 100% agree. It’s up to us as Fremont County to decide that with a vote.”
David Mossburg: “What they said, and to follow up with transparency after the fact. Were the dollars spent where they were supposed to go, or did they go someplace that you didn’t expect?”
Audience Questions
Question #1: How do you feel about replacing boards that are not working effectively with communities, or the Commission, or doing a good job representing the fair, the library?
Jim Taylor: “Again, that falls under the County Commissioners. That should be a decision made by them, and it should not take a month to come up with that decision.”
Jeffrey Young: “You’re gonna hate my answer because it’s strictly business related. If you don’t do your job, you have to be replaced.”
Steff Kessler: “Do you all remember when the museum board was chaotic and crazy? Full of controversy, not getting the job done. I worked very closely with that board to slowly replace members, put in a better strategic plan, and save a lot of funding through efficiencies by creating one museum system, which we now have with an executive director over it all. So you have to be proactive in this work. You can’t sit back, you have to engage.”
David Mossburg: “Unless there’s malfeasance, negligence, or just walk away from your board responsibilities, you should replace board members as you see fit, in their terms, slowly. There are people that disagree on boards, and if just say, they’re not getting things done, doesn’t mean that you… okay, I don’t like what they say, so I’m gonna relieve these two board members and put two people in there that I think are gonna do what I want them to do. It’s over time.”
Question 2: What’s your perspective on the new hospital in Riverton? There’s been lots of talk about the opportunities for improved health care in Fremont County. How much is that new hospital gonna help us in that regard?
Jeffrey Young: “I don’t know how they’re gonna have enough employees to populate that hospital. We’ve got two right now, and now we need three, and I don’t know how it’s going to be funded. I don’t know enough to talk intelligently about it, but I’m relatively certain that this is gonna be a rough rodeo. …I haven’t thought about it enough, but I’m gonna start writing so I can answer that question intelligently next time.”
David Mossburg: “Well, my opinion of the hospital is that it’s a nice helicopter ride somewhere else. So, the current situation, it’s a public company that owns the hospital in Riverton. I’m not sure about any other health institutions around here, but I know that most of the people get on a helicopter and go to Casper or somewhere else for simple things like broken legs and things like that. We need something different, and I’m not sure whether or not it’s gonna happen with the new one, but it looks like a good start.”
Steff Kessler: “We’ve seen a lot of medical clinics closing in our community. We have a maternal health desert in Fremont County. People go out of county for their medical needs. My feeling is, I hope this hospital does provide more services and access and opportunity to meet our health care needs because we need it desperately in Fremont County, but I have no clue whether they’re going to survive or not.”
Jim Taylor: “Oh, could I spend a whole lot of time on this topic…spending 12 years up at the hospital here in Lander. …Watching what Lifepoint did to Fremont County health care is abhorrent. The new hospital being built in Riverton was supposed to be a community-run hospital. It is being run by Billings Clinic. So, you have traded one corporation for another. I am worried about what’s going to happen with the health care.”
Closing Statements
David Mossburg: “I have an uphill struggle on the Indian Reservation, so, I’m hoping to connect and find out where we can find joint commonalities and make that relationship work.” (Mossburg then offered pamphlets with more information about his campaign.)
Steff Kessler: “I think the key thing to consider is not necessarily what you think about priorities and needs today, but rather how are you going to make decisions in the future because we’re going to have some very hard circumstances ahead of us in terms of budget cuts and thinking about services. I just want to emphasize my way of making these decisions is to listen first, learn the facts, bring people together, and then make the decision that best serves the public. Something I’ve learned in this process is that it is not about you. You’re not the smartest person in the room, but good policy comes from listening, public engagement, and seeking the common good and common ground amongst everyone.”
Jim Taylor: “I’m a pretty good communicator. I’ve had some very left-leaning people sit down with me and tell me that he and I need to go to Washington DC and tell people how to talk across the lane. But, that being said, my biggest issue right now is the three-quarter cent tax and how they’re trying to get it passed. Any company that does a budget should have to budget each item, and you should never be able to take three entities, bundle them together, and say, ‘Well, we’ll just move money around as we need it.’ That is not how government should work.”
Jeffrey Young: “I’ve already said it, you guys. You have to realize you’re dealing with an engineer, and it’s either black or white. There’s no gray. I’m gonna run on the platform that I’m gonna run this just like a business. I’m not gonna do anything different. I don’t care about a whole bunch of things, but I’m gonna make sure that this is run as a business, and I agree with everything that everybody said, all the way across the table. I’m just a little different, and maybe you guys don’t want that. Maybe you don’t want a business leader. Maybe you don’t want an engineer…”
Penn noted that the Wyoming Citizens for Liberty will also hold a legislative forum in Riverton on June 23 at the Holiday Inn, starting at 6 PM.