Primary Candidate Forum: Alex Muromcew

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnhcEzUAYA8

Question: Why are you running?

Answer: 21:50

I get that question a lot - it’s really because i love this community and i feel so blessed to live here and have raised my four children here. We are facing some serious issues and quite honestly I’m concerned about the direction the County is headed. And I think we need some fresh blood and new ideas on the Commission to lead us and to have people on the Commission who can not only address today’s problems but look 5 or 10 years down the road so we are really planning and have a strategy for the future.

I had a very successful career in the private sector and one of the skills I will bring to the commission is the ability to manage not only complex issues but multiple complex issues. It’s time to give back and serve the people of Teton County.

Like Kasey, I have served on the planning commission and am currently the chairman of the Teton County planning commission which has been excellent training and has allowed me to master so many of these land use issues that confront the county and the commission.

Whether it’s housing, transportation, water quality issues, and just conserving and protecting what makes Teton County and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem so important is a very strong motivator for me.

Question: What does public service particularly mean to you?

Answer: 27:49

Ive already had the honor to serve on some volunteer boards in the community and to give back. I think part of that is just in my blood. I grew up in Washington D.C. and my father was a foreign service officer and somehow that just got instilled in me or was already something apart of the water we drank growing up there. But public service really means representing all the people. And rather than thinking about what I think is right or what organization is right, it’s really about listening to the needs and concerns of the people when making tough decisions. We do have some tough decisions to make to properly guide and direct this community going forward.

Question: Property taxes in Teton County increased by an average of 30-50% this year putting significant pressure on local homeowner, especially older residents on fixed incomes. Given the county’s limited authority to control the property tax formula, what would you do to in the role of commissioner to help address this issue?

Answer: 31:31

Problem number one and one of the top reasons I want to serve on the county commission because I think the commissioners can do a better job and be more apart of the solution. This isn’t just a Teton County issue it’s a lot of Wyoming counties seeing this same increase. The county commissioner association can also go to Cheyenne to lobby for this and it’s an important role. Secondly, we do have a county mill levy. And in an environment where property tax and sales tax revenues to the county are up 50% in five years. Why can’t we cut the county mill levy? It’s not going to be a huge sum of money but I think that’s an important gesture from the county government to the people saying “hey we feel your pain and here is a solution.” We can do better with your tax dollars and we can spend them more wisely within our means.

Question: Let’s talk Northern South Park - a major development opportunity in town. What do you think will be the biggest  implementation challenges for this development and how do you hope to help the County anticipate those challenges so we can have the best development possible?

Answer:37:04

Very timely question given all of the current housing issues. Northern South Park is a partial solution. As chairman of the County Planning Commission, we just approved the first draft of that plan so we’re moving it along. But I was very disappointed at the process of the land owners working with the town and the study group. And the very well paid consultant. Time is of the essence and we need to be building now. One issue I brought up at the last meeting was “is there the potential to increase density further?” This is a brand new neighborhood that we can really think outside the box with. We can push density in certain areas like have 4 stories instead of 3 for more housing. We also have to make sure the landowners, the Gills and the Lockharts, are buying in and getting their compensation since their private landowners that have generously donated to workforce housing. We’re making great progress and unfortunately the 2026 completion date is just the nature of building but I’m very excited about this.

Question: Speaking of kicking development down the road, we have an important decision on the Tribal Trails Connector coming up. Please tell us about your position on this development.

Answer: 49:30

I’m absolutely opposed to the Tribal Trails. I was on the first Tribal Trails stakeholder committee so I know the ins and outs of this road. I think the very defective planning process that is behind it is lacking any convincing data proving that it would solve any traffic problems. What you’re trying to do is put a road that runs by three schools, three churches, and several neighborhoods which does not solve any traffic problems. Show me an example where building more roads solves traffic - it actually leads to more demand. I’m very big about fiscal responsibility and how our tax dollars are spent. This is a county road so this means we’re the ones who have to pay for it - not by the State or WYDOT. This is a $7 million road based on the last estimate in 2015. When we widened 89 South, that was 40% over budget. So the unofficial numbers from WYDOT are actually $18-20 million. This would be the most expensive half a mile stretch of road in the State. When I look at Teton County’s problems, spending $20 million on a road that doesn’t solve anything is a pretty low priority on how we spend our tax dollars.

Question: How do you think we can solve our local water quality problems?

Answer: 49:30

This is one of the major reasons I’m running for County Commissioner. It’s not that we have a water problem it’s a water problem due to inaction by our current electives that has now become a water crisis. There doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency around this. This is a serious health and economic issue where we have fecal bacteria in Flat Creek where people love to spend summers and we have algae blooms in the Snake River which is not good for anglers or the rafting companies. We take our water for granted and we can no longer do that. So after some realization, the county finally elected a consultant. I attended the meeting that this consultant hosted and they’re going to spend two years gathering data, and then come up with a recommendation, and then the county and town comes up with an action plan, and maybe get stakeholder input. We can’t run our government like that anymore. A couple things we can do is manage mandatory inspections of septic systems when a house is sold (currently we have poor water regulations compared to other counties). The other option is appropriate money to elderly residents who can’t afford to update their septic systems. Wilson at the moment has a moratorium on new hookups to the sewer because it’s maxed out. This is a classic case of managing for toady rather than managing for the future. We can do a much better job.

Red Card Follow up: 1:00:00

Because we have been kicking the can on this water issue, there’s a magical window of American Recovery Plan money for infrastructure that has come down from the federal government to the state. The State is scrambling to figure out how to spend that money. We are squandering an opportunity to use this money to upgrade our water infrastructure in the entire county. Yeah it will be expensive but there’s money we could access right now and those people deserve better.

Question: What’s your mentality towards tourism? 56% of local survey respondents feel that the drawbacks of Jackson’s tourism outweigh the benefits. However, 86% at the same time feel that Jackson’s economy is dependent on tourism. How would you approach this contradiction?

Answer: 1:06:30

We are a community first and a resort second. I think that our government policies and how we’re spending our money are getting a little bit out of whack. We have to make sure that our tax dollars are providing services for us, the residents, first and we should be the highest priority. We do have a tourist problem. And while it is a pillar of our economy, most of the local business people you talk to don’t smile about it. We need to do a much better job of managing tourism. And we need to do a better job of understanding what the Travel & Tourism Board does - are they apart of the solution or are they apart of the problem? They currently have an embarrassment of riches in that they have more tax dollars than they know what to do with. Another job for us county commissioners and our electives in Cheyenne is to continue to work on legislation to make sure that we spending that lodging tax money wisely to benefit us rather than to promote more tourists to come here.

Conclusion: 1:12:08

Thank you again for the wonderful opportunity to address the community and educate them on their choices at the ballot. Again, we are a community first and a resort second. We need to manage our county and manage our tax dollars appropriately. One of my pillars on my campaign is fiscal responsibility - we have to stop the increase on the cost of living and the cost of doing business here. We can do a much better job than we are. I want to be balanced on focusing on conservation and growth - it’s not an “either or” proposition. We have to manage them and that’s the only way we can grow and progress as a community. My time on the planning commission shows I have a strong track record of managing that balance and also promoting workforce housing. I’m a firm believer in saving the rodeo grounds. I don’t believe the Fairgrounds are an appropriate place to build housing. It’s a wonderful community asset used in numerous ways - we cannot lose that gem.