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Monday, April 27, 2009
WCR09 The death of a newspaper affects everyone
The job of a newspaper is to knit its community together on a consistent basis; to share the successes of its members and to mourn its losses. It is an important job that is often unappreciated until it is not being done. – Bill Sniffin, in his Advice To Young Publishers memo, published 30 years ago.
Our family has been reading and enjoying and participating in the Wyoming Catholic Register for 39 of its 57 years. It will be hard to imagine what life will be like in our Wyoming diocese now that it is disappearing.
The announcement in early April of its impending demise was like a stake in my heart. The church and the newspaper business are things that I love.
These two things that have been consistent in my life have been my Catholic faith and my life as a newspaperman.
As the second-oldest child in an Irish Catholic family with 11 kids, I have been through it all in the church. From Mass Server to Marriage Encounter Presenter (we were trained by Ed and Pat McCarthy in 1975) to Parish Council President to being a member of the state’s Catholic Charities Board and finally, to being a columnist in the state Catholic newspaper.
And on it goes. . .
I started delivering newspapers at the age of 9 and started writing a local newspaper column when I was 16. If given one word to describe my most important life skill set, I would say “reporter.”
My wife Nancy and I have been involved in the ownership of 20 newspapers, magazines, print shops and Internet companies during our careers. And although we sold our last newspaper 16 months ago and sold our partnership in our daughter’s Internet company six months ago, we still go to work every day in a small Public Relations and Advertising firm in Lander called Wyoming Inc.
And I still write a weekly newspaper column that is sent to 20 local papers in the state.
The reason for the shuttering of the Register was financial with the diocese investments taking a big hit from the recent national economic downtown.
But newspapers all over are in trouble. Most recently the venerable Rocky Mountain News went out of business in Denver. Smaller newspapers like the Casper Star Tribune down to the Moorcroft Leader in Wyoming are still doing okay but owners of those papers and others in-between have seen the values of their properties drop somewhat plus the ability to borrow money to buy newspapers or expand them has been drying up as bankers view the industry suspiciously.
It has become a more difficult business and it is frustrating to see a decision to stop the Register made purely on financial terms.
Not long ago, I walked through the pressroom of the Rock Springs Rocket-Miner and reveled in the odor of the ink and paper. Yes, I have ink running through my bloodstream.
They even had an antique linotype machine on display in the corner. As I scanned that pressroom, my entire newspaper career flashed before me. I started in the time of hot lead machines and have been in this business long enough to see the age of the Internet and a time when newspapers are often viewed as dinosaurs.
And I cannot believe we are living in an age when newspapers are leaving us – especially the one that knitted together the far-flung Catholic community of Wyoming.
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Friday, April 24, 2009
WBR09 - Me and my banker
One definition of a banker is someone who will loan you an umbrella when the sun is shining. – old saying
This month’s edition of the Wyoming Business Report includes a lot about banking and it seemed appropriate me for to write about my relationship with my banker.
In fact, I just lost my banker. And I am mourning that loss.
No, my banker did not die.
Charlie Krebs, after decades of being a community banker, has taken a position with the Wind River Development Fund. He will be helping entrepreneurial Indian businessmen and women on the Wind River Indian Reservation start businesses and create jobs. A noble endeavor and I congratulate him for it.
When it comes to working with our Native American friends, Charlie has always both talked the talk and walked the walk.
Lots of folks do the talk. Not so many do the walk. I congratulate him and wish him only the best.
But after training him as my personal banker for the past 25 years, it might be a little frustrating to start over with someone else.
Some background might be necessary here. My wife Nancy and I have had ownership interests in more than 20 newspapers, magazines, print shops and Internet companies over the past 38 years. We have dealt with lots of great bankers during that time including Dave Moore, Bill Nightingale, Tom Davey, Bill VonHoltum, Doug Anesi, Richard Roller and Charlie Krebs.
And with business interests scattered from South Dakota to Hawaii, we had some pretty good bankers including Doug Long in Winner, S. D. and Lance Koth in Mitchell, S. D.
A good banker in many ways can become your best friend.
I have found myself giving this business advice to lots of people over the years. One of the most important pieces of advice is for them to find a banker who really cares for them. Someone who will take the effort to learn about your business.
Our job, as the customer, then is to protect our banker. We need to provide him or her with all our information we can. And we need to keep them in a high comfort zone. It is important to share with them “upturns,” and “downturns.”
As the borrower, you must realize that the bank is heavily regulated and is in business to make money. They also have a huge responsibility to their stockholders and depositors to not lose the money they are lending.
In our case, we always needed money to buy and operate newspapers, which up to a few years ago, was a business that could be very profitable.
For my particular business banking needs, my job was to educate our banker on the cash flow potential of newspapers. We also had to impress on our banker how valuable newspapers could be. And we needed to point out that as monopolies in small towns, they were much like franchises.
Frankly, I always assumed it is much easier for a banker to count a tractor or a cow or an acre of land or the size of a retailer’s inventory than figuring out our confusing business model.
Sometimes, trying to figure out the value of a complicated and singular business like a newspaper is hard work and, in some cases, may require a leap of faith.
To those of us in the biz, we knew how solid this business could be, if run well, back in those days. Thus, our challenge was to find a banker who we would train so he would be comfortable providing us capital when we needed it.
To expand on this subject, two long-time newspaper friends recently told me that getting loans for newspapers these days is very, very difficult. They said they yearn for those good old days when newspapers were perceived to have high value and were reliable cash flow generators.
Perhaps I got out of the business at the right time. By providing my bankers with good info, it was not that hard to secure the necessary loans.
A lot of good people did that for me but Charlie did it best and was my primary banker for the past quarter of a century. I am sure going to miss him.
Luckily, much of my entrepreneurial efforts are probably behind me, but you never know . . . anyone out there want to be my new banker?
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917 - Visiting other places in America as empty as Wyo
Sky-high gasoline prices, taxes on sex, the fastest speed limit in America, and the newest and the most expensive “bridge to nowhere.” Whew! Was that a busy week or what?
You would think that it would be easy to draw these conclusions and more after traveling through four states, on a 2,107-mile, eight-day motoring excursion. This trip covered Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Nevada.
Three of these states market their national parks as part a Grand Circle Itinerary, including Grand Canyon in Arizona, Zion, Bryce and other Utah parks plus places in Colorado and New Mexico. We skipped the latter two states and spent one quick overnight in Las Vegas.
True, there was a lot to see. And it takes some time to get around. Our trip started and ended in Salt Lake City where we rented a motorhome from CruiseAmerica.
This camping experience was a first and one that we intend to do again. It was fun, especially with grandchildren involved.
Driving a 25-foot long motorhome down a busy interstate, though, can be somewhat of a strain on the arms. We faced a lot of spring winds and I’ve been told a bigger unit would not have blown around so much.
So off we went on our own Grand Circle tour.
With the world population explosion it is easy to think that our country is filling up. And yet, we drove through vast expanses of empty land in Utah, Arizona and Nevada.
These areas reminded me of Wyoming. We are not the only “high altitudes, low multitudes” place in the West. Our state is not really different from these other states. It is just that we lack big metro areas like Phoenix, Las Vegas or Salt Lake City within our state borders.
The national housing glut was in the news in Arizona, Nevada and Utah. We heard about the multitude of empty homes in the Phoenix area, although we did not get that far south.
Nevada has thousands of homes in foreclosure with big auctions occurring each month to clear out the bank-owned properties. The St. George area overbuilt and has lots of empty homes, too.
It would have been interesting to investigate these housing situations but we needed to hit the road.
And Wyoming’s roads are in better shape than most.
The 90-minute delays on US 93 through the Hoover Dam area south of Las Vegas were horrible. This is the main NAFTA route, which runs from Mexico to Phoenix to Las Vegas and on to Canada.
Big news is a spectacular bridge costing a quarter of billion dollars spanning the canyon above Hoover Dam. Motorists will be able to look down on the dam and existing road. It will be named for former Arizona Cardinal star, the late Pat Tillman. He gave up a lucrative pro football contract to join the Army and was killed in Afghanistan.
After Vegas, we sped toward Utah. And I mean sped. One stretch sure caught my eye. An 18-mile length of I-15 has the speed limit posted as 80 mph, the fastest in the country. It is an experiment authorized by the Utah legislature.
Wyoming still has the lowest gasoline prices in the country. Saw one station in Williams, AZ that was charging $2.67. Yikes.
Las Vegas was our stopover for just one night, long enough to take the grandkids to the Fremont Street Experience and catch up on the news.
Big deal was that the Legislature wanted to put a $5 tax on all legal prostitution-type sex acts. Some $2 million was thought could be raised.
That project plus putting tolls on I-15 both died quietly, after big headlines and lots of letters to the editor.
Biggest construction project in Vegas is in jeopardy. Called City Center, it is being paid for by the MGM Grand and the country of Dubai. Dubai has quit paying and is suing its erstwhile partner, which might push the Grand into bankruptcy.
The economy is hurting, one cabbie told me. “We still get lots of tourists,” he said, about the city with 140,000 hotel rooms. “But not as many gamblers.”
Last year, Las Vegas hosted 37 million visitors. This compares to 3 million to our Yellowstone National Park.
So, what did we learn from this journey?
Yes, our western part of the country is vast. There is a lot of see. It is well worth the trip. Next time, I intend to go to fewer places and spend more time.
And yes, we are not done traveling yet. We have trips to Iowa and Texas in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
916 - Green River water plan is rip-off for Wyoming
In dry Wyoming, it has been said that water is more precious than gold.
If this is true, recent efforts by a Fort Collins entrepreneur to suck water from Wyoming’s Green River and Flaming Gorge and send it to Colorado should be generating terrific opposition.
Called a trans-basin water diversion plan, this monster project figures to use a 10-foot diameter pipe to transport water 560 miles from near Green River, WY all the way to Pueblo, CO.
Based on old studies and an outdated water compact, the plan calls for taking 250,000 acre feet of water per year out of the gorge and out the Green River near the town of the same name. This is water one foot deep over 250,000 acres, a huge amount.
The project involves the following:
• Aaron Million, a Fort Collins entrepreneur, has been working for years on a plan to divert this water from Wyoming to Colorado.
• He has hired former Wyoming state water engineer Jeff Fassett as his lead consultant and recently hired Cheyenne attorney Steve Freudenthal as his lawyer. Steve is the brother of Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
• Mr. Million estimates he can do the project for $4 billion. He claims getting the money is no problem.
• A tiny bit of the water may be dropped off in places in Wyoming along I-80 like Rawlins, Laramie and Cheyenne but more than 90 percent is presumably slated for cities such as Fort Collins, Greeley, Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Mr. Million, though, has refused to disclose where his end users are located.
• The Army Corps of Engineers is now studying the project and held scoping meetings in Green River and Laramie this past week concerning the project.
• Wyoming officials have not been enthusiastic about the project. The governor has said he is not excited about it.
• A competing group of Colorado end users has formed a small committee to develop a similar plan to Mr. Million’s, which they think will better serve their customers. It would not be private but rather would be a group of counties working together.
Mr. Million’s project has gotten a number of Wyoming groups excited about working against the water diversion effort.
They range from local chambers of commerce and government entities in Sweetwater County to environmentalists concerned about the effect such a project would have on wildlife and trees.
A Wyoming Outdoor Council spokesman said he thought it “could affect raptors and other avian species could be affected, too. We are worried about all those ripple effects from lower flows,” Steve Jones was quoted as saying.
It would not be smart to underestimate Mr. Million and his Million Conservation Resource Group. He has hired a top-notch team in Colorado and his project has strong backing in that state. The Denver Post has strongly editorialized for its approval as a way to soothe bitter fighting in that state between Front Range water consumers and west slope communities, who want to hoard their water.
I just returned from a trip that involved crossing Hoover Dam in Nevada. To see how low Lake Mead is these days was totally shocking. It must be 250 feet lower than it once was.
This is causing havoc in that watershed and some folks think Mead will be dry in a few decades. Could a similar fate await Flaming Gorge?
Flaming Gorge Reservoir, like the Green River, gets much of its water from snow and glaciers high in the Wind River Mountain Range. I look out my window at that range every day.
It is fact that our glaciers are disappearing at a rapid rate. What happens once these glaciers melt and are no more? It will negatively affect the current ample stream flows, which were the cornerstone of the science behind this project. Could we see a time when the fantastic Green River is reduced to a dry riverbed?
If the amount of water coming off the mountain is much less today and in the near future than it was back when these water compacts were signed by the states, it would sure indicate that their science is flawed when these promoters dreamed up the project.
It would behoove all Wyomingites to watch what happens with this project and get behind efforts to stop it.
And we would encourage our government officials, at all levels, to get excited about what this loss of water could mean to citizens and to the future generations of Wyoming.
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Thursday, April 9, 2009
915 - How to navigate the peaks and valleys of economy
So there we were, driving a rented motorhome up mountains and down into canyons – and my mind was wandering as much as the vehicle.
Seems I could not help but wonder about Wyoming’s economy as it seems to be falling from its peaks to lower valleys.
To those of us who tried to run businesses during the turbulent 1980s Wyoming bust, the past six months have an eerie familiarity.
But why should I worry?
Heck we are retirement age. My wife Nancy thinks we might want to buy a small motorhome as we drift toward an easier lifestyle.
I was behind the wheel of a 25-foot CruiseAmerica rig that we rented in Salt Lake City on our way to a spring break rendezvous with our daughter and family at the Grand Canyon.
Two of my best friends, Gene Bryan and Clay James, own rigs like this one and just love traveling all over the country. Should we not do this, too?
Up and down we went. The snow was oppressive. What the heck? This is spring in Utah. Is it the same there as in Wyoming? And the wind was blowing me all over I-15 as we worked our way south to Bryce and Zion National Parks.
Yet, my mind kept straying.
I had just read an email saying the Wyoming Catholic Register, a state newspaper for whom I write a monthly column, was going to cease after 50 years.
Blame went to the national economy. The Cheyenne Diocese had a lot of investments and many had gone sour. Time for belt-tightening and the newspaper, was never a money maker.
My mind also wandered to the recent dismissal of Diane Baird Hudson as head of the Wyoming Life Resource Center in Lander. This state facility employs about 400 people and cares for the developmentally disabled.
She was doing a good job. Why now?
There were veiled references to Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s recent edict to state employees to cut, cut, cut. He sees a $300 million shortfall.
Diane hated to turn over local stuff to Cheyenne so was that the impetus? Did this dedicated public servant lose her job because she would be unwilling to make the cuts necessary to balance the budget? Perhaps.
These thoughts went through my head as we spent our first night freezing in Kodachrome State Park beneath a 176-foot vertical rock monolith that was called the Ballerina Spire. In native circles that rock was probably recognized as a symbol for some pretty awesome fertility.
Typically I had not read the motorhome manual carefully enough nor listen when the guy gave us the indoctrination. Thus, we froze that night because I thought we needed the generator (prohibited at that hour) to run the propane heater. Duh.
I was crabby the next morning as we thawed out. No coffee because of no electricity. I took a swig of a Diet Pepsi and discovered it was frozen. Yeah, it was cold.
Once we got moving, we took a brief look at Bryce Canyon but they would not let RV`s visit the best overlooks. Oh well. I was grouchy anyway.
What was I doing in this thing anyway? My retirement accounts had taken a big hit, too. I liked working and will probably just keep on if this business climate worsens.
But then the clouds parted, the sun came out and the road rose up to meet us. By the time we got to Zion, everything was sunny. Also Nancy had found the renter’s manual. I appreciated her subdued version of I told you so.
Zion is a national treasure. Wow, what a place. The walls are straight up and down and the valleys seem to disappear into a void.
Sort of like Wyoming’s economy back in the 1980s?
Those of us who worked hard in economic development were just amazed at how bad things got back then in the Cowboy State. Is that what is going to happen in the next year or so?
I have always been the cheerleader who says Wyoming is truly bulletproof this time around. But this national bust is different from the last one, too. And if it follows that Wyoming has its subsequent bust – hopefully it should not be so bad, either, I keep insisting.
Yep, things may turn out just fine.
Maybe learning to predict the economy will be as easy as learning how to operate this motorhome.
With that thought it mind, I pulled the motorhome out of the stall at the campground and knocked over the electrical service that was sitting next to it.
Oops.
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
WBR08 - An American tale about losing your job
“A recession is when you lose your job. A depression is when I lose mine.” – old saying.
Thankfully, I did not put our phone number in the want ad.
That was the conclusion my wife Nancy and I came to after seeing first-hand how desperate job seekers have become in one of the larger metro areas in America.
It is an interesting story that shows how different Wyoming’s strong economy is compared to troubles in more urban parts of the country.
It started when we headed to Florida to watch the space shuttle launch last month. Watching such a launch is a lifelong dream of mine. It is on my bucket list. To no avail, it was postponed.
As a consolation prize, I bought a hybrid car that we had been admiring. We enjoyed driving it around the Tampa and Orlando areas. We liked the car so much, we even bought a second one.
We were conflicted on whether to drive them home (2,100 miles) or ship them?
Horrible weather made us conclude that we should ship them. My first inquiries found that nobody was doing that for less than $1,200 per car. Ouch.
So at 5:22 p.m. on the day before we flew home, I tried something different.
As a lifelong journalist, I find Craigslist interesting. But it has bothered me that this free Internet service has brought the newspaper industry to its knees.
Big newspapers make much of their income from want ads. In Denver, I bought a copy of the Post. The want ad section was just eight pages. Five years ago, that section would have been 80 pages. Craigslist had decimated it.
The final edition of the 149-year old Rocky Mountain News was also on sale. That venerable paper had been shuttered by, you guessed it, competitors like Craigslist.
Craigslist is so easy to use, it is laughable. And best of all, it is instantaneous. Even better than that, it is free.
I placed an ad in Tampa’s Craigslist looking for someone to either drive or haul the cars from Florida to Wyoming. As stated at the top of the column, thankfully we did not put in my phone number. In 20 hours, the ad generated 269 responses!
From a journalist’s perspective (and a student of human nature) the emails were fascinating. But they were also saddening.
First response was from a 48-year old guy who had been laid off. He and his 40-year old buddy, also laid off, thought they could drive the cars to Wyoming and then take the bus home. Their fee sounded reasonable. So far, so good.
Then the surge came.
Like many folks, I also get emails on my phone. We were eating in Florida’s oldest restaurant, the Columbia, in the heart of Tampa. Nancy was furious because I could not resist checking that pesky phone for all the emails pouring in. Although the phone was on vibrate, it was practically jumping out of my pocket.
There was no way to keep up. They just kept coming and coming. For example:
• A laid off construction worker said he would do it and “take the train home.” The train?
• A Marine recently back from Iraq vet said he needed money and had some spare time.
• A young couple begged me to let them do it. They had never been out of Florida and had little money. They were unemployed. This trip would give them a chance to see another part of the country and look for work.
• A preacher said he needed a way back to Colorado and he would gladly drive one car.
• A trucker with a broken leg said he could manage to get a car home since he was a good driver but was not allowed to drive a big rig in his condition.
• And on and on it went . . .
One nasty guy thought it was a scam. He was the only one I really wrote back to right away, assuring him that this was real.
The next day we flew back to Wyoming.
At baggage claim my cell phone rang. It was an out of work Tampa hospital worker who was a former medic in Iraq. He had deduced how to phone me although the ad did not have a name or number listed. Pretty good sleuthing.
Ultimately, we found a trucker to haul the cars home. That way the cars would not have 2,100 extra miles of wear and tear on them.
This experience brought us face-to-face with the fact that the world can be a pretty desperate place when you lose your job.
The vast majority of these folks were just ordinary people who had been struck down by what they felt were extraordinary circumstances. They were desperate to get their hands on some money to pay their bills and feed their families.
Frankly, we were glad to be home in Wyoming.
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WCR08 - Stacy M and Baby M taught about dignity of life
“The dignity of human life.”
There have been many people over the years who typified what this phrase means but two who stand out are a teenage boy named Stacy M and a little girl named Baby M.
They came into my life at two different times, almost 20 years apart, but both helped show that the real test of a civilization is how it treats the least of its citizens.
In the 1980s, we met a young man named Stacy Martell. He was a neighbor to my parents in the Capital Hill section of Lander.
Our son Michael, who was about seven at the time, became great friends of Stacey. Stacey was also adopted by his high school class, of which he shared with our daughter Amber.
Stacy was this shrunken little shell of a boy stuffed somewhat crookedly into a wheelchair. He suffered from Muscular Dystrophy and was probably someone that a lesser civilization would have shuttered away. But in Lander, his classmates made him a hero. They had him give a speech at their commencement in 1989. The band played The Wind Beneath My Wings following his talk.
Although his talk that day was inspirational, so were his writings:
“There are times when I want desperately to be like everyone else. I’ve thought about marriage. There’s a void when I think this won’t happen, that I’ll never be able to have a family of my own.
“But I know a person can’t dwell on improbables. You have to take what you’ve got and go with it. I used to worry about what people thought of my body. But now I know it is a person’s inner self that is important, not your outer self. I’ve looked at my inner self: It’s healthy, strong, vibrant, and active. When I think of myself this way, I’m satisfied. I’m at peace with my-self.”
Stacy wrote the following about life and death:
“I’ve lived, I’ve done my best, what happens, happens. I’ve seen an unspoken question in some peo-ple’s eyes. It’s ‘Do you wish some-times you had never been born?’
“Absolutely not! It hasn’t always been easy but I’ve met the chal-lenges and I’m here to say that life is worth living.”
Not long after that, Stacy died. His life was a struggle and ended way too soon.
Some 20 years later, we encountered Baby M, also known as Baby Miracle. She was probably an example of what became known in Wyoming as meth babies, those children born with profound disabilities as a result of their parents’ drug use while not realizing they were pregnant.
Our advertising company had just taken over the contract to do the anti-drug campaigns for the state’s Substance Abuse Division and we were introduced to the story of Baby M.
My wife Nancy, my brother Ron (a videographer) and I visited Baby M and her foster mother at a modest home in Douglas one fall day.
We worked all day and created a video documentary, which we planned to use to promote the negative impacts of drug use.
State employees viewed that video but we never quite figured out how to disseminate it publicly, so it pretty much ended up on a shelf at the Department of Health in Cheyenne.
Baby M was a beautiful baby girl, who looked about six months old although she was a year old when we met her. She was blind, could barely hear and had a terrible time breathing. It was assumed she was profoundly developmentally disabled.
Did I say she was beautiful?
It was heartbreaking to think of the lost potential you were holding in your arms. Because of the assumed high-risk behavior on the part of the biological parents, this child appeared to not have a chance.
But this was a human being. And she was loved by her foster mother (the real hero of this story), loved by her foster siblings and loved by everyone who came into contact with her.
Recently the following was written about her:
“Some people would define a miracle as something amazing, unexplainable, with bright lights or fluttering angels’ wings. Or simply, a glimpse of God.
“A special needs baby, Miracle, was born Sept. 29, 2002. Doctors gave her little chance of survival, but because of her will to live they considered her a miracle, hence the name. At five weeks old, Miracle was placed in the arms and the heart of her foster mom, who loved her so much that she later adopted her.
“Miracle’s family knew that she was not like other little girls and never would be, but she touched so many lives. Her innocence taught lessons in humility and her gentle little spirit gave people a reason to believe.
“You could not look at this beautiful child without catching that glimpse of God.”_
And on a spring day in Douglas a week ago, Baby M passed away. She was six years old.
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914 - Some Montanans have "energy envy" for Wyoming
After spending some days in Montana and hearing and reading what folks are saying in the state to our north, it is obvious some folks there have a serious case of “energy envy” for Wyoming.
Montana reflects the rest of the country in the way it has two strong political parties. It is quite divided into near equal parts conservative Republican like Wyoming and Liberal Upper Midwest Democrat, much like Minnesota.
I grew up just 60 miles from Minnesota and was strongly influenced in my youth by what was called DFL Politics. DFL stands for the “Democrat Farm-Labor Party,” which has always dominated that state’s politics. It is the party of Hubert Humphrey, Fritz Mondale and, more recently, Al Franken.
It is an over simplification to claim that Montana’s Democrats mimic Minnesota, but sometimes they look like they do.
Hotbeds of that DFL influence are the liberal universities at Missoula and other cities. But I digress . . .
Almost 40 years ago, just about everybody knew that the country would be turning toward “clean coal.” Back then, this was known as the sub-bituminous coal that was found in vast abundance in Wyoming and Montana.
Our western coal was easier to mine than eastern coal in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Our coal could be strip mined while eastern coal required dangerous shafts, often deep into the ground.
Our coal did not have so many BTUs (British Thermal Units) of power in a ton as the eastern coal. But the contaminates and pollution that power plants emitted from using western coal was vastly cleaner than eastern coal.
And thus, the western coal industry came into being.
To the late Gov. Stan Hathaway’s credit (and whole bunch of others), Wyoming put into place severance taxes and environmental safeguards in anticipation of this vast coal development.
Montana was doing the same thing only they made their taxes twice as high and had in place a much more liberal government agenda (i.e. stricter environmental rules).
It could be argued that the Anaconda Mining Company’s long-time grip on Montana politics may have spurred their caution.
So here we are, almost four decades later, and Montana produces barely one-tenth as much coal as Wyoming each year.
Our coal development also spurred a subsequent gigantic energy development called coal bed methane natural gas, which has brought additional wealth to our state.
Thus, Wyoming has been creating jobs, collecting property taxes and adding severance taxes to its annual state budget while many Montanans have looked on jealously, knowing they have just as much coal in the ground in their state which it just as accessible.
You cannot watch an election up there without this comparison being in the news. The GOP candidate in last years governor race literally made his campaign motto into “Lets do like Wyoming.”
The winner of that election, incumbent Democrat Brian Schweitzer, actually is very aggressive on coal development so his opponent’s cries were to no avail.
But Gov. Schweitzer has been unable to convince his state’s other elected leaders and the entrenched government establishment to get much accomplished.
And meanwhile, the beat goes on . . .
For example, a Wyomingite cannot go to Montana without hearing about some of the comparisons between the two states because of our mineral bonanza.
It really comes to the fore when they talk about education.
“All our good teachers are being recruited to Wyoming,” one leader told me.
In the newspaper up there was the story of elementary teacher Melissa Rocchio who drove to Gillette for an interview “just to polish her interviewing skills.” She ended up taking the job for $20,000 more per year than she could earn teaching in a rural school in her home state. She was stunned.
Editorial writers in Montana rail about how far short their state falls compared to Wyoming on spending for education. Wyoming spends $1.2 billion per year for 85,000 students while Montana spends $704 million for 140,000 students.
Another news story quoted Scott Chauvet, superintendent of Fort Benton, MT schools: “I call them the Wyoming machine, because they are. Wyoming spends $14,000 per student while we only spend $5,000.”
Although it is obviously long overdue for Wyoming to re-think its system of taxing minerals, we, once again, need to be thankful for the leaders we had almost 40 years ago. They were smart enough and courageous enough to step up to the plate and make smart decisions, which led to the developments we have in, place today.
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