Patrick Dominick Named as New Chairman
The Conservation Alliance Annual Meeting was held on June 13th to a smaller than usual number of Members on a stormy, traffic-challenged evening. The meeting was marked by the change in the Board Chairman, with Kirk Davenport stepping down having served his sixth term as a Board Member and having served 2 years as Board Chairman. Other Board members leaving the Board included Juliet Unfried and Mary Bess. Dave Sollitt would have termed off this year, but left the Board to become Executive Director in October.
Other Board Officers include:
- Jennifer Fitzgerald – Vice Chair
- Jim Laroe – Treasurer
- Bill Hayes – Secretary
Bill Hayes and Jenny Fitzgerald are new Board members voted in by the members present. LeeAnn Inberg-Schuff is another Board member elected by the Membership.
Former Chair Davenport recapped the work of the Board from the past year, including the Strategic Plan devised by Board and Staff at a Board retreat in May.
Executive Director Dave Sollitt, in his State of the Alliance presentation cited several new and ongoing initiatives in the past year, including:
- A project to update and revise Rural Land Development Regulations (LDR’s) to improve wildlife habitat, permeability, scenic integrity and other goals cited in the Comprehensive Plan.
- Continuing opposition to Grand Targhee’s development plans that violate Teton County Wyoming LDR’s, Targhee’s own Master Plan and minimize significant fire risks as cited by the Caribou Targhee National Forest.
- We continue to fight Wyoming’s administration of State Trust Lands in Teton County. The State of Wyoming continues to fight the County’s ability to insist that development on State Trust Lands must conform to County LDR’s, building, plumbing and electrical codes and other local regulations. The state also threatens air quality at the foot of the Tetons with an industrial incinerator adjacent to Teton Village.
The State also threatens one of Teton County’s most cherished Class 1 rivers, Fish Creek Placement of a septic system incompatible for the river for a commercial entity on sensitive wetlands, while;
- Ignoring existing nitrogen loads in the river;
- Refusing to consider alternatives to the septic system, including connecting to the existing sewer system that originates in Teton Village;
- Ignoring the developer’s multiple violations of building codes and other violations in other developments in other locations.
