Town and county get nowhere trying to increase Travel & Tourism Board to 9
Mary Bess named to TTB, which will stick to 7 members
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — An accord on the number of members the Travel & Tourism Board should have serving on it was never reached Monday during a joint information meeting (JIM) Monday, signifying less to do with how many people should be on the board and more about the palpable rift between town and county electeds.
Town councilman Jim Rooks alluded to the two government bodies dysfunction with a claim that the only reason the item was on an agenda was because the town and county have not been able to agree on who the 7th board member should be, so a circuitous solution would be simply to increase the number of serving board members to 9, giving both the town and county their personal preferences.
“I think the only reason we are fundamentally talking about a shift from 7 to 9 is based on the obvious truth that town council and county commissioners can’t come to an agreement on who that 7th person would be,” Rooks flatly stated during Monday’s JIM.
Rooks further shared that he found ex-TTB board members to prefer 7. He also wished to flesh out exactly what the makeup of the board should be as long as they were discussing the topic.
“You could argue that everyone who lives in Jackson is related to the tourism industry in some way. You could also argue that the people who actually pay this tax are the most ‘invested,’” Rooks added.
Commissioner Luther Propst, along with town councilmembers Arne Jorgensen and Jonathan Schechter pushed for the 9-person TTB board. Commissioners Greg Epstein and Mark Barron preferred the board be kept at 7.
“I’m very uncomfortable to go into executive session, which was designed for only three reasons: personnel issues, potential legal issue or action, or consideration of real estate,” Barron said. “I just don’t think we would find ourselves going into executive session to simply appoint a board member without blowing this thing up.”
Barron added that moving to 9 board members would not spread the workload, and the entire discussion and delay on voting a 7th member of the TTB was disrespectful to the waiting applicants.
“Going to 9 doesn’t make the workload any less. It actually compounds the work,” Barron argued. “We have pushed off making that last appointment to the board which is not respectful to those applicants so we could have this discussion instead.”
BCC chair Natalia Macker said she wasn’t necessarily opposed to 9 but preferred to keep the board at 7. She thought a wide array of opinions could still be heard by using 7 members if outside committees continued to be utilized by the TTB.
A couple of iterations of motions all failed. The stalemate resulted in the board staying at 7. Mary Bess was later voted in as the 7th member of the current Travel & Tourism Board during an executive session.
