Valley Signal Staff

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of August 2–8. Three hundred two calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

A porta-potty fire in Tetonia is under investigation. A traffic stop in Victor put a deputy on the ground. Not one permitted burn was logged all week, and the log carries no DUI arrest and no theft report.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners take up a $24.2 million FY27 budget at an August 24 public hearing, a balanced plan that shifts money toward emergency dispatch and the jail and away from planning and building.

VICTOR — The Victor City Council appointed Erica Linnell to its vacant council seat on a 2-1 vote Tuesday morning, then adjourned without swearing her in.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of July 26–August 1. Two hundred ninety-seven calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners on August 10 postponed a decision on whether to put the county's exclusive garbage franchise out to bid for the first time since 2015 or renew it with RAD Curbside.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of July 19–25. Two hundred thirty-eight calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners voted 2-1 on July 27 to reopen their approval of a Highway 33 industrial redesignation, sending the Corner Fox comprehensive plan amendment back for a new public hearing two weeks after they granted it.

Five county hearings run back to back Tuesday evening in front of the Teton County Planning and Zoning Commission, on a drive-in theater, a private high school, two code amendments and a rezone. Tetonia holds its 2027 budget hearing the same night, and Victor holds its own the next evening on an appropriation of $9,023,870. The stretch closes with a 56-acre Victor rezone, the county's own budget hearing and the first day of school.

DRIGGS — The two Teton counties' first joint workshop ended July 23 with four small bi-state working groups. Commissioners from Teton County, Idaho and Teton County, Wyoming coalesced around them, each group asked to price out a single shared problem and report the costs back to the two boards. The commissioners aimed to form them within 30 to 60 days. The counties had spent the day looking for ways to move money across the state line, where Grand Targhee's growth costs fall on an Idaho county with fewer ways to tax for them (overview).

DRIGGS — Four cross-state service models came before the two Teton counties at their July 23 joint workshop: a regional planning agency at Lake Tahoe, a voluntary visitor fee in Whitefish, Montana, a bi-state commission at Bear Lake formed in 1973, and a cross-valley forum the counties built themselves and let go quiet. Commissioners took none of the four as a template. The one cross-line arrangement that already works, the fire and EMS deal between the two counties, was not among them.

DRIGGS — A commissioner wants the two Teton counties to stop pressing their Grand Targhee expansion objections through the federal review process and start working them out directly with the resort. Len Carlman, a Teton County, Wyoming commissioner, floated the idea at the two counties' July 23 joint workshop, and the two board chairs signaled agreement to bring the valley's cities into the effort. No vote was taken.

DRIGGS — A Wyoming commissioner told Teton County, Idaho, and Teton County, Wyoming, commissioners on July 23 that federal rural-transit dollars are lapsing back to Washington for want of an Idaho local match. Another Teton County, Wyoming, commissioner proposed a regional transit board to capture them.

DRIGGS — Teton County, Idaho can no longer require a license, permit, or inspection to run a short-term rental, after its own legislature stripped those housing tools this year. The one housing lever officials found workable originates across the state line in Wyoming. At the two Teton counties' July 23 joint workshop, Idaho Commissioner Ron James estimated 685 to 700 short-term rentals in the county, with second homes converting into VRBOs that "take away housing from our citizens."

DRIGGS — Commissioners from Teton County, Idaho and Teton County, Wyoming steered away from standing up a dedicated around-the-clock sheriff's office in Alta and toward an arrangement Wyoming already pays for, the fire and rescue contract that funds Idaho crews to answer calls on the Wyoming side of the Tetons.

DRIGGS — Seven Teton County, Idaho departments and agencies priced Grand Targhee's growth costs for the July 23 joint workshop. In all but two of them, the county absorbs the growth costs with no way to bill for them. The resort and the visitors who generate the demand both sit outside the Idaho fee base that pays for the services they use.

DRIGGS — The nearest-term way to make Grand Targhee's Wyoming-side growth pay for the costs it pushes onto Idaho is a single Wyoming penny of sales tax, and Idaho controls none of it. Commissioners from both Teton counties kept returning to that penny at a July 23 joint workshop. A three-member Wyoming board could switch it on by a vote of its own, with no public election and no act of either legislature.

DRIGGS — Mike Maltaverne still owes Mike Moyer for lunch. He drove over Teton Pass one day for his turn to buy, forgot his wallet, and the Jackson fire chief covered him at Nora's. "Probably still owe you," Maltaverne told him, in front of two counties' worth of elected officials.

DRIGGS — The Victor and Driggs city councils met July 29 for the first time since Victor dropped its lawsuit against Driggs on July 1, spent two and a half hours on both cities' wastewater systems and how a shared plant would be paid for, and took no votes.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of July 12–18. Three hundred sixty-three calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

The two weeks ahead build toward Wednesday, August 12, when a Victor budget hearing on next year's spending lands the same night the Driggs planning commission takes up a rezone on East Ross Avenue. The deadline to apply for Victor's open council seat arrives August 10, the same day the county commission and the school board come back from their late-July break. The stretch opens Tuesday with the Driggs council's hearings on a 180-home subdivision and a 69-room hotel.

The City of Victor is accepting applications to fill a vacant council seat, with letters of interest due August 10 and an appointment expected August 26.

Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative is backing a new natural gas plant in northern Idaho, joining a wholesale-power project it says is meant to keep electricity reliable and affordable as the Northwest's hydropower runs short.

Two comment deadlines arrive in the week ahead. The objection deadline on the Grand Targhee expansion's forest-plan amendment falls Tuesday, and Idaho's draft seven-year road plan, which carries five Teton County highway projects, takes comment through Friday. The county commission works through budget and closed sessions after Monday's meeting sends next year's budget to an August hearing, and the school board holds a working session Tuesday. The larger decision waits for August 4, when the Driggs council opens hearings on a 180-home subdivision and a 69-room hotel the same night.

DRIGGS — When commissioners from the two Teton counties sat down for their first full-day joint workshop on July 23, they spent seven hours sorting ideas for how Teton County, Idaho, might pay for the growth arriving on its side of the mountains. By the time the day's facilitators had ranked those ideas by effort and impact, the fixes that rose to the top were the ones neither county could build alone.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of July 5–11. Three hundred thirty-three calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

DRIGGS — The Federal Aviation Administration will not pay for any of the repair to the water-damaged runway at Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport, Airport Superintendent Billy Cyr told the city council July 21, a reversal that leaves Driggs facing a bill it now estimates near $1 million.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of June 28–July 4. Four hundred eighty-three calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office.

Two city councils take up their wastewater plants on back-to-back nights this week, and both set aside time to talk to each other. Driggs meets Tuesday to weigh a treatment-plant design option and Victor's share of the plant's operating cost; Victor meets Wednesday to reopen its own facility plan and take up a draft agreement with Driggs. On Thursday the commissioners of Teton County, Idaho and Teton County, Wyoming meet jointly over what the resort's growth means on both sides of the line. The following week brings the county budget, the curbside-hauling contract, and, on August 4, a Driggs hearing on a 180-unit subdivision and a hotel.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners voted unanimously Monday to file the county's Grand Targhee objection with the U.S. Forest Service, meeting the federal deadline on the day it fell.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners voted 2-1 on July 13 to redesignate the 14.25-acre Corner Fox parcels along Highway 33 for industrial use, overriding a denial recommendation from the county's own Planning and Zoning Commission and objections from the City of Driggs.

Newly posted agendas put two contested land-use decisions on the county calendar. On Monday, July 13, the county commission opens a 10 a.m. hearing on an industrial rezone of 14 acres north of Victor, a change the county's own planning commission recommended denying. The next evening the planning commission takes up a permit for a 383-person event barn off Highway 33. Monday is also the federal deadline to object to the Grand Targhee expansion, and the county's objection is on the agenda too.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of June 21–27. Three hundred seventy-one calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office. Most were patrol, traffic enforcement, and after-hours security checks.

WILSON — A fatal Teton Pass crash closed the road in both directions for most of Tuesday afternoon and evening, cutting Teton Valley's main route to Jackson. Two people died, and four were injured in a multi-vehicle collision near milepost 6.8 on the Wyoming side of the pass, before noon on July 7.

The Grand Targhee objection deadline falls July 13, the same day the county commission opens its mid-month meeting. The commission continues into July 14, when three more bodies join it: the county planning commission, the Tetonia City Council, and the Victor Planning and Zoning Commission. The stretch opens quieter, with Driggs rental and subdivision hearings and the Victor council working through its mayoral succession, the handoff the valley has watched since Mayor Will Frohlich resigned.

DRIGGS — Teton County, Idaho collected $341,718 this year in Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILT, the federal program that reimburses local governments for the untaxable public land inside their borders. The Teton County PILT payment is one of the smallest of any county in the state, less than a seventh of what Teton County, Wyoming received for the same reason.

Teton County is preparing a formal objection to the U.S. Forest Service's approval of the Grand Targhee Resort expansion. The resort sits on the Wyoming side of the state line, while the workers who staff it live in Idaho and strain its housing and services. Roughly 65% of the tax revenue the resort generates accrues to Wyoming, the county's draft objection states, and Idaho sales tax is pooled in Boise and returned to counties by formula, so a busier Targhee does little to change what Teton County collects. The Forest Service, the county contends, counted the project's benefits and dismissed the local costs as "outside the scope" of its decision.

VICTOR — Victor's mayoral handoff comes July 1, when Mayor Will Frohlich's resignation takes effect, and Council President Stacy Hulsing becomes acting mayor. The council takes up an interim appointment a week later, on July 8. Between the two, Driggs and Tetonia hold the land-use hearings that carry the window: a short-term-rental rewrite and a 37-lot plat in Driggs, and the Pinnacle Peak development in Tetonia. The stretch opens with two Driggs comment deadlines on June 29 and a holiday weekend in the middle.

DRIGGS — Idaho's homeowner's exemption takes half the value of an owner-occupied home, up to $125,000, off the amount the county taxes it on. In Teton County, 2,764 of the county's 7,323 residences carry the exemption, according to figures a county commissioner presented at a June 23 budget work session. Roughly 4,500 do not.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of June 7–13. Three hundred forty-five calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office. Most were patrol, traffic enforcement, and after-hours security checks.

VICTOR — Mayor Will Frohlich resigns effective July 1, saying he could defeat the recall petition filed against him but would not put the city through a months-long fight over it.

DRIGGS — Teton Valley Health Care handed Teton County a $164,750 check Monday that included a $94,749 share of the hospital's 2025 profit. But the recovery behind that payout still rests on a billing operation that isn't working yet, CEO Leianne Everett told county commissioners.

DRIGGS — Highway 33 between Driggs and Victor carried as many as 17,367 vehicles in a single day last summer, an Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) planner told Teton County commissioners June 22. The agency's highest-priority safety project on that stretch, turn lanes at the 6000 South intersection, was scheduled for 2031 and now has no construction money after the Legislature cut the department about $1 billion over seven years.

DRIGGS — The city council voted June 16 to authorize up to $95,000 for the Driggs runway repair, a project that will abandon for good the buried irrigation line that damaged the runway at Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport.

A Victor special meeting and a two-day county commission session anchor the week ahead, alongside the Driggs council and the Teton 401 school board. Victor convenes after canceling its regular date, and midweek the state is set to lock in the financing for the Driggs wastewater plant. The quieter second week brings a new state short-term-rental law and the county clerk's signature-verification deadline.

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council heard FY27 funding requests from seven community organizations and county agencies at its June 16 meeting, six of them routine asks for a few thousand dollars each and one, from the Teton County Sheriff's Office, for $400,000.

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council voted 4-0 on June 16 to design the rebuilt Driggs wastewater plant large enough to keep treating the City of Victor. City staff presented it as the only option left, and the council called it one it had "no choice" but to take. On the record the city built that night, it was also the cheaper plant, the one Driggs can bill Victor for, and the one that protects the state money already lined up. It was the obvious call, as much as a forced one.

Voting for the Fall River Electric board of directors returned two incumbents and added one new member at the cooperative's annual business meeting in Driggs on Saturday, June 13. More than 6,600 owner-members cast ballots online, by mail, and in person at the utility's 88th annual energy expo, held at Teton High School. Five candidates ran for three seats. Directors serve three-year terms, and this year's ballot covered three of the cooperative's districts.

DRIGGS — The next two weeks build toward June 24, when the state is set to lock in the financing for the Driggs wastewater plant and Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport holds a public conversation about a runway closure tangled up with a burst pipe. Before then, the county commission takes up its FY27 budget in a special meeting, and the Teton Rock Gym's deadline to leave the Driggs Recreation Center arrives. The stretch opens Tuesday, June 16, when the city council takes up the 60% design for the plant the same day it meets with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Teton Valley sheriff blotter, the week of May 24–30. Three hundred and sixty calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office over the Memorial Day holiday week. Most were routine: 93 traffic stops, 65 after-hours security checks, 19 permitted burns. Just one was a DUI arrest.

VICTOR — The Victor City Council will decide Wednesday whether to reconsider its April 8 denial of the Market Street rezone, after the property owner's attorney filed a May 6 letter arguing that the council's written Order denies an application its Conclusions of Law say meets every applicable Victor Municipal Code standard.

DRIGGS — The Driggs consent decree set a hard federal deadline to rebuild the city's wastewater treatment plant by Dec. 15, 2028. The city now treats February 2030 as the deadline and is still working to secure the federal sign-off that would make the later date official.

The Driggs wastewater plant heads to a 6 PM public hearing next Tuesday, the day the city also meets with the Environmental Protection Agency. It is the council's first hard call on the 60% design since the federal consent decree clock started running. Before that, the Teton County BOCC holds a two-day FY27 budget review on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Driggs Planning & Zoning Commission hears a proposal for a 69-room Cobblestone Hotel, and a Wyoming-Idaho workshop on Grand Targhee convenes at the courthouse.

Three hundred and ninety calls came in to the Teton County Sheriff's Office the week of May 17–23. Most were routine: 118 traffic stops, 46 after-hours security checks, 29 permitted burns. None were DUI arrests.

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday to vote on whether to rebuild the city's wastewater plant for one city or two. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) rescinded approval of the Driggs-only design eleven days ago.

DRIGGS — Driggs presents the 60-percent design for its $25 million wastewater rebuild to council Tuesday; Victor returns to court the same afternoon on the judicial-confirmation petition tied to its $35 million wastewater project, and the Teton County commissioners take the Centennial Estates settlement back up Monday, June 8.

ALTA — The Caribou-Targhee National Forest signed a draft Record of Decision (ROD) on May 28 approving a 694-acre Grand Targhee expansion, extending the resort's special-use permit boundary. The agency opened parallel 45- and 60-day objection windows on May 29, when the Idaho Falls Post Register published the legal notice.

DRIGGS — Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative withdrew its reconsideration of the denied Midway Substation special use permit on May 27, citing a wildlife study that was missing from its original application. The county added the wildlife requirement to its Land Development Code in 2024, but the requirement is not explicit on the permit application form.

DRIGGS — Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative has asked Teton County to reconsider its denial of the Midway Substation, setting a June 8 hearing on a project the county commissioners rejected 2-1 in March. Update, May 29: Fall River has withdrawn its request for reconsideration.

VICTOR — Organizers turned in more than 300 signatures Tuesday for the Frohlich recall, the Teton County Clerk's office said, above the roughly 230 needed to force a recall election.

DRIGGS — Memorial Day opens a two-week window anchored by the Centennial Estates Settlement and an agenda dense enough to fill two consecutive Teton County commissioners' meetings, Tuesday and Wednesday.

DRIGGS — Primary day on Tuesday, May 19, is the busiest single day in the two-week ahead. Idaho's statewide primary, the Teton County Road & Bridge Levy, and the Driggs City Council hearing on the Alexandria Condos rezone all land on the same Tuesday. The Tetonia state-land auction follows Friday, May 22. Memorial Day on Monday, May 25, then rearranges the county's regular 4th-Monday meeting cycle.

DRIGGS — Teton Valley Health Care CEO Leianne Everett told Teton County commissioners May 11 that the hospital is running ahead of budget six months into fiscal 2026, posting a $13,000 operating margin against a forecast loss of $478,000.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners voted 3-0 on Monday to deny the Sweetwater reconsideration petition on standing grounds, affirming the March 9 approval of the Sweetwater Subdivision Phase 1 preliminary plat amendment.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — A grizzly attack on the Mystic Falls Trail near Old Faithful injured two brothers on Monday, May 4, the National Park Service said. The agency airlifted both men to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.

DRIGGS — The week ahead in Teton Valley loads five development applications onto the joint Driggs and Teton County Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) docket for May 12, the centerpiece of a two-week stretch that also runs a full Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting on May 11, the county's Land Development Code (LDC) public hearing on May 18, and the Idaho primary on May 19. The county had not posted cover pages for the May 11 BOCC and May 12 P&Z hearings to the eScribe portal as of Sunday night, but staff reports and supporting documents for every item are on file.

DRIGGS — Advocates for a Teton Valley YMCA presented an exploratory discussion to the Teton 401 school board on April 13, asking trustees to consider whether about 18 acres of district-owned land along Ski Hill Road, near Teton High School, Teton Middle School, and Driggs Elementary, might host a future YMCA campus. The item carried no motion or vote.

The week ahead in Teton Valley packs three of the spring's biggest civic items into a single Monday. On May 11, Teton County commissioners are scheduled to rule on whether neighbors have standing to reopen the Sweetwater Subdivision approval, the written-comment window on the county Land Development Code rewrite closes at 5 p.m., and Idaho DEQ holds a virtual info meeting on the $25 million wastewater funding package that ranks Driggs first on the state's draft list. The following Tuesday, Driggs Planning and Zoning takes up the 171-lot Corona Valley Subdivision. The window closes Sunday, May 17, a quiet day before May 19, the heaviest civic day on the spring calendar.

DRIGGS — Federal forecasters expect an above-normal fire season across southern Idaho this July. Snowpack across most of the West is at or near record lows after a record-warm mid-March. Spring snow and rain since have driven a fast green-up that's complicating the prescribed burns the Caribou-Targhee National Forest planned to run this spring.

The week ahead in Teton County puts three separate hearings in the courthouse on Monday: a Board of County Commissioners business meeting, a reconsideration of the Sweetwater Ranch Subdivision after a resident petition, and the first town hall on the new Teton River recreation ordinance. Idaho organizers face a Thursday deadline to turn in signatures for the reproductive rights ballot initiative. Wildfire Awareness Day lands Saturday, May 2. The following week opens with a Driggs City Council meeting on May 5 and goes quiet through the weekend of May 9–10.

DRIGGS — Idaho DEQ placed Driggs wastewater funding at the top of its draft Clean Water State Revolving Fund priority list for fiscal year 2027, making the city eligible for up to $25 million to rebuild its treatment plant.

Victor P&Z commissioners will hear two continued applications Wednesday night, the council faces a critical vote on the Evans property closing April 22, and the Grand Targhee expansion open house anchors a week packed with public input sessions across Teton Valley.

DRIGGS — The judicial confirmation hearing for the Victor wastewater borrowing plan has been rescheduled to September 11-13, expanding from a single-day hearing originally set for April 7 to a three-day proceeding, according to Teton County Court records.

DRIGGS — The Driggs City Council approved a $428,211 park-and-ride construction contract, a trail easement across school district property, the first-phase final plat for the White Antler subdivision, and new parliamentary rules at its Tuesday meeting.

DRIGGS — Idaho spends $51 per resident on state and federal housing programs, compared with $107 in Montana, $217 in Wyoming, and $1,150 in Colorado, Teton Valley Housing executive director Jarod Pfeffer told the Driggs City Council on Tuesday.

VICTOR — The Teton Valley Foundation announced the Music on Main 2026 lineup on April 6, opening its 20th season with Boise indie rock band Built to Spill on June 18 at Victor City Park.

DEVELOPING: The judicial confirmation hearing on Victor's petition to borrow $35 million for an independent wastewater treatment facility, scheduled for April 7 before Judge Steven Boyce, has been delayed. The Valley Signal is requesting details on the reason and rescheduled date. Updates will follow.

VICTOR — The Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the proposed density for Birch Crossing, a 172-unit rental housing development on 10 acres near Birch Street and Baseline Road, at the March 19 hearing. Commissioners voted unanimously to continue the application and directed the developer to return with lower-density zoning, a requirement that would force a redesign from apartments to duplexes.

HB 583 rewrites Idaho Code § 67-6539 to limit the authority of cities and counties to regulate short-term rentals. The bill prohibits local governments from requiring licenses, permits, fees, inspections, or registrations to operate an STR, while preserving basic fire-safety provisions and existing tax collection authority. It passed the Idaho Senate 23-12 on March 10. Gov. Little signed it March 16, and it takes effect July 1, 2026. The legislature tried twice before, with failed measures in 2024 and 2025, to settle the tension between local regulation and property-owner rights in Idaho's growing STR market.

VICTOR — Spring break empties the valley this week, with no government meetings scheduled. The week of April 6 brings Victor's judicial confirmation hearing for a $35 million wastewater plant and packed city council agendas.

Driggs, Idaho — March 23, 2026

DRIGGS — The Teton County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 on Monday to adopt revised juvenile ordinances covering runaways and minors "beyond control of parents." The revisions follow a sharp community backlash after the commission first adopted the ordinances in December.

DRIGGS — Teton County voters will decide on May 19 whether to renew the Special Road & Bridge Levy, a two-year funding measure that has appeared on primary ballots every cycle since 2010. This year's request: $1.5 million per year, up from the $1.4 million approved in 2024.

In the week ahead, five things to watch in Teton Valley: a county commission meeting, a land-use workshop on subdivision rules, and two public hearings in Victor.

For more than 25 years, the cities of Victor and Driggs have shared the Driggs wastewater treatment system. That partnership is now the subject of a major lawsuit, a mayoral recall effort, and more than $65 million in proposed infrastructure spending between the two cities. This is how it happened, what the lawsuit says, and what comes next.

TETONIA — A 35-year-old Rexburg man died Monday morning after his truck struck a dead elk on State Highway 33 and rolled off the road.

DRIGGS — The Corona Valley subdivision, a proposed 180-unit residential development, is moving through the Driggs planning process, with the development site located directly east of Teton High School.

ALTA — The U.S. Forest Service has delayed the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Grand Targhee Resort's proposed expansion, pushing the timeline back by four months.

DRIGGS — Teton Valley Hospital has secured enough philanthropic support to keep its doors open while leadership evaluates the hospital's long-term future, according to a public FAQ the hospital posted on March 6.

DRIGGS — Teton County commissioners will review proposed revisions to the controversial juvenile ordinance provisions on runaway and "beyond parental control" cases at their meeting this Sunday, March 23.

Update: The Victor Wastewater Hearing was Pushed to September as of April 7, 2026.

VICTOR — A group of Victor residents is attempting to remove Mayor Will Frohlich from office, filing a recall petition with the Teton County Clerk on March 10.