Posted on 12/31/2003 6:22:27 AM PST by Theodore R.
Drought comes in second in WTE survey
By Becky Orr rep6@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - The election of Dave Freudenthal to the state's highest public job continued to be a top story in 2003, based on results from readers who submitted ballots to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.
Out of 36 ballots submitted, Freudenthal becoming governor of Wyoming in January got the most support as the top story of the year.
Freudenthal's defeat of Republican challenger Eli Bebout was readers' top story of 2002.
Jerold W. Manners of Cheyenne said he chose the inauguration as his top story "because the Democrats got back in."
"Maybe he'll stay there as long as Governor Ed," Manners said of Freudenthal, referring to longtime former Gov. Ed Herschler.
"I like the idea of having the House and Senate opposite parties from what the head honcho is," he said. Manners said that philosophy applies to any governmental structure at the state or federal level.
Out of 21 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle employees who filled out questionnaires, Freudenthal becoming governor was the second-ranked story.
The rest of the readers' top 10:
2. CONTINUING DROUGHT: Water - or the lack of it - was the top choice the 21 employees at the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle who handed in ballots, but was second on the readers' list.
A multi-year drought continued throughout 2003, making it part of the state's worst drought since the 1950s.
Cheyenne residents were put on water restrictions last summer. The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities also implemented a water surcharge fee, which will be reviewed in January to decide whether to continue it.
State Climatologist Jan Curtis estimated earlier this year that the state won't fully recover from the drought until 2006-07.
3. SIXTH-PENNY PROJECTS PASS: On Nov. 4, Laramie County voters approved all projects in the six sixth-penny sales tax propositions.
The propositions total nearly $58 million and will pay for a new library, estimated to cost about $26.9 million, and replacing the Norris Viaduct, which will cost about $11 million.
The propositions also will provide money for new equipment for police, sheriff's and fire departments, extending the Greater Cheyenne Greenway, creating a new park in south Cheyenne and other projects.
Laramie County Commissioner Jack Knudson said work on projects won't start in earnest until spring because the county won't start collecting the tax until then.
The new library will be four stories tall and nearly three times the size of the current one on Central Avenue. It will be built between 22nd and 23rd streets and Pioneer and O'Neil avenues.
"We are just at the very beginning stages of the project," Laramie County Librarian Lucie Osborn said. She hopes the new building will be ready to move into within three or four years.
Library employees met in December with some of those who live where the new library will be built.
"Hopefully they understand we're very concerned about how this is affecting them and their lives," she said.
Some of the money from the tax will go to public safety issues, such as equipping local police and sheriff's patrol cars with in-car cameras and computers.
Cheyenne Police Chief Bob Fecht said he expects the equipment on the cars within a year. Officers will be able to file reports from their patrol cars with the use of the computers. That way, they can spend more time on the street. They won't need to drive to the police station to do paperwork, Fecht said.
Manners is a retired police officer who has lived in Cheyenne most of his life. He voted for tax project that would pay for such equipment.
Although he didn't vote for all sixth-penny projects, he ranked the initiative high on the list of stories for 2003. "There are things that need to be done in the city. That's the only way to do it," he said of the tax.
WTE staff members also ranked this the third-place story.
4. BELVOIR RANCH: The city of Cheyenne paid $5.9 million for the 17,000-acre Belvoir Ranch west of Cheyenne. The property starts about three miles west of Interstate 25 and reaches to the Harriman Road exit.
Wells on the property could boost the city's water production by at least 50 percent, according to city officials. The city also plans to move ahead with using some of the land for a landfill.
Controversy about buying the Belvoir Ranch came about because some groundwater on the property contains the toxic chemical TCE. The solvent likely seeped into the groundwater from the operation and maintenance of a former Atlas missile site by F.E. Warren Air Force Base.
City officials have said they believe the contamination can be cleared up.
The ranch purchase was listed as Helen Landers' top story of 2003.
"I think it will have the most impact on the future of Cheyenne," the 81-year-old Cheyenne woman said. "It will answer some water problems. They'll have recreation places and a place for a new dump. It will have the longest-term effect of any decision that was made."
WTE staff who voted ranked West Nile virus as the fourth-place story.
5. WEST NILE VIRUS: Readers ranked the West Nile virus and its spread through Cheyenne and Wyoming as the fifth-place story.
Health officials stepped up their efforts to fight the virus last summer when they sprayed for mosquitoes.
As of Tuesday, 394 human cases of West Nile virus have been reported statewide, based on information from the Wyoming Department of Health. Nine people have died statewide from the virus.
Laramie County had 31 people test positive for the illness, and one person died.
Wyoming Secretary of State Joe Meyer asked Freudenthal earlier this month to give more money for city and county initiatives to combat the virus.
Kyndra Miller, a spokeswoman for Freudenthal, said Monday that the governor is considering Meyer's request but has not made a decision.
Ross Doman of the state health department said the agency's challenge now is "to get the notion across that West Nile virus is here to stay now. This is something that people are going to have to be thinking about."
WTE staff ranked the local soldiers who were killed in Iraq as the fifth-place story.
6. STATE SURPLUS: Wyoming and New Mexico are in a select group in that they are the only states projected to have a budget surplus this year.
Wyoming's surplus for the 2005-06 biennium is projected to exceed $1 billion, thanks mostly to a boom in natural gas production and prices.
Freudenthal suggests spending some of the extra money to pay for school construction across the state and a new medium-security prison.
Some state lawmakers want to put the money into the state's Permanent Mineral Trust Fund or a rainy day account to brace for the up and down cycle of state revenues.
The budget surplus also was the sixth-place choice for the WTE staff members who voted.
7. LOCAL SOLDIERS DIE IN IRAQ: A war thousands of miles away took a tragic toll here. Cheyenne soldiers Army Spc. Michael Deuel, 21, and Army Capt. Leif Nott, 24, were killed in Iraq in 2003.
Deuel was a member of the Army's 325th Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, N.C. He died on June 18 while on guard duty at a propane distribution center in Baghdad.
Nott died on July 30 in Belaruz, Iraq. He was responding to an unprovoked attack on his troop headquarters. Nott led a team that caught the perpetrators.
Nott was a 2000 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was serving in A Troop, 1st Battalion, 10th Cavalry at Fort Hood, Texas.
The soldiers were buried in the Cheyenne Memorial Gardens' field of honor for veterans of all wars.
WTE staff members voted the closure of Albin Junior-Senior High as the seventh-place story.
8. TRILEGIANT LAYOFF, HELI-SUPPORT COMING: In late October, employees at Trilegiant Corp. learned that as many as 300 people would be jobless by early 2004.
The announcement was the largest layoff in Cheyenne in about 10 years.
The company plans to move some resources from its Contact Center organization at 3001 E. Pershing Blvd. to other locations.
In an upbeat business matter, Heli-Support Inc. owners announced they would move from Fort Collins, Colo., to Cheyenne.
The helicopter leasing and maintenance company is expected to bring about 65 jobs to Cheyenne.
WTE staff chose the July 10 crash of a vintage World War II German airplane into a school district bus wash facility as the eighth-place story.
9. (tie): TEN COMMANDMENTS CONTROVERSY: Michael Haycock, 20, of Cheyenne voted the controversy over relocation of the Ten Commandments monument in Lions Park as the most important local story in 2003.
"The Ten Commandments set a good example about things you should and shouldn't do and things you can live by," Haycock said.
City officials began debating the monument's possible relocation after the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas wrote in a letter of his intention to erect an anti-gay monument in the park. City Council members later voted to move the monument to an area dedicated to historic documents within Lions Park.
WTE staff members ranked the March 18 snowstorm as their ninth-place story.
9. (tie) ALBIN JUNIOR-SENIOR HIGH CLOSES: A school that had been home to generations of students in and around the small eastern Laramie County farming community of Albin shut its doors in the fall.
The Laramie County School District 2 Board of Trustees' decision to close the school ended a more than 60-year tradition.
The decision caused a bitter schism between the school board and people in Albin. Residents and supporters fought the closure and said it would have a devastating effect on the economy of the community.
The trustees made their decision amid budget problems. But Albin residents said their school could have operated without hurting the school district.
WTE staff members voted the 10th-place story as the Laramie County deputy who shot and killed an Air Force sergeant during a domestic dispute this fall.
Dubya is making me believe that's not such a bad idea on the national level as well.
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