The Valley Signal

Growth & Land Use

Teton County Files Grand Targhee Objection, Turns to Cross-State Workshop

Teton County commissioners voted unanimously to file the county's Grand Targhee objection on the deadline, then turned to a cross-state cost workshop.

By Valley Signal Staff ·

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.

July 13 was the deadline to challenge the project itself under the Forest Service's Part 218 review. The county's letter also objects under the separate Part 219 track, which governs the programmatic amendment reclassifying 694 acres of national forest. It argues the Forest Service counted the resort's projected economic benefits while dismissing the local costs of the expansion as outside the scope of its review, an argument the county has pressed since June.

Before the vote, County Administrator Billie Siddoway, who drafted the objection, added language on the visual and sound impacts of an 11,000-square-foot restaurant and guest-services building proposed for the summit of Fred's Mountain, about 100 feet from the Jedediah Smith Wilderness. Those concerns rank high on Teton County, Wyoming's own objection, board chair Brad Wolfe noted. The resort straddles the state line, and both counties are challenging the same federal decision.

The board agreed to send the objection to Idaho's congressional delegation, its state legislators, and the press, at the urging of Philip Hocker, a longtime Jackson conservationist who spoke during public comment. "Boards of county commissioners pull a lot of weight," he told the board, recalling earlier forest fights. "If Board of County Commissioners sent a letter, sometimes we get telegrams to the congressional delegation. Things changed, and you guys are in that position." Powers moved to approve the letter, and Wolfe seconded it.

The objection is the defensive half of the county's response to the expansion. It can slow or reshape the federal decision, but it cannot pay for the roads, deputies, and housing the county says a bigger resort will demand. For that, the commissioners are turning to a cross-state workshop.

The bill the objection can't collect

The county is carrying the same impact-cost case into a workshop with Teton County, Wyoming, expected around July 23 and facilitated by the University of Wyoming's Ruckelshaus Institute and the University of Idaho's McClure Center. The two counties set the effort in motion at a June planning call, previewed here.

Ahead of it, county departments have submitted written estimates of the expansion's costs for road maintenance, solid waste, search and rescue, and workforce housing, which staff are consolidating into one-page summaries for participants. Siddoway singled out a submission from Greg Adams, the county's emergency management coordinator, for attaching specific dollar figures to projects.

Commissioner Dan Powers said the county should steer the workshop toward money Wyoming can move without the sign-off of governors or state legislators. His main example was a Teton County, Wyoming deputy posted in Alta around the clock, which would take emergency response to Alta and the resort off the Idaho county's books. Siddoway added that state troopers, not Teton County deputies, already handle most traffic control on Teton Pass, and that a Wyoming deputy stationed on the Idaho side of the line would be "a big help to us."

Wolfe said the simplest fix would be to get money without going through Wyoming's state government at all, by persuading Grand Targhee to add a fee that flows directly to the county, alongside small service agreements modeled on the existing cross-border contract that funds county fire and dispatch coverage. He called the direct resort fee "maybe a pipe dream."

The county has pressed the underlying fiscal mismatch for years. Idaho's tax structure bars it from capturing the visitor spending the resort generates, while that revenue accrues to Wyoming and to the resort. A 2022 study the county commissioned found it would "likely experience only costs" from the expansion.

What to watch: The West Slope Tetons workshop, where the two counties take up the cost question, has not been formally scheduled; July 23 is the last date the county has named. It will be streamed, though whether the public can attend in person is unclear. The Grand Targhee objection now goes to an Intermountain Region reviewing officer in Ogden, Utah, who can direct the Forest Service to revise its draft decision before it becomes final.

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