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Jackson, Wyoming
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
One dollar
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Smack is back, police suspect
Almost lAst roundup
It’s not widespread, but cops point to several recent heroin overdoses and arrests in Jackson. By Emma Breysse
SOFIA JARAMILLO / NEWS&GUIDE
Participants get ready while others chat Aug. 13 before the Jackson Hole Rodeo. The final three rodeos of the season are tonight, Friday and Saturday at the Teton County rodeo arena.
St. John’s race is packed Including incumbents, the field for four trustee seats totals seven. By Ben Graham The race for four seats on the St. John’s Medical Center board of trustees is shaping up to be a crowded and competitive one. Three challengers — Susan Crosser, Frank Lyons and Dina Mishev — have applied to run. They join four incumbents: Joe Albright, Barbara Herz, Elizabeth Masek and Michael Tennican. The filing period for the race ended Monday. The general election is scheduled for Nov. 4. Crosser is the only nonincumbent who joined the race out of worry about how the hospital is being run. “The community has been subjected to bad governance for way too many years,” Crosser said. She mentioned the overbudget hospital expansion project that was built without a staff housing plan and based on patient volume projections that were
far off the mark. Crosser also pointed to the 2012 decision by trustees to continue paying departed Chief Executive Pam Maples $25,000 a month for consulting services that she didn’t provide and accused the board of an overall lack of transparency. “I gave up going to the dog and pony show because it was clear that nothing of substance actually takes place during the public board meetings,” Crosser said. If elected, Crosser said she would work to bring issues that should be discussed in public to the public. Trustees hold an hourlong executive session before every public board meeting. Executive sessions are allowed under Wyoming law to discuss litigation, personnel matters, land purchases or matters of national security, according to state law. “If something occurs in executive session that I believe the public needs to be informed of, I would consider it my job to inform them,” Crosser said. The 57-year-old Wilson resident also has complained
Bringing the ’80s back has taken on a more sinister connotation now that local law officers agree that smack is back in Jackson Hole. Police have spent the past year chasing rumors that only recently have become more concrete. Three arrests in the past month seem to provide proof that heroin is re-entering Jackson’s drug community after a long absence. “We’ve been contacted over the past year to a year and a half by concerned people within the medical and counseling communities that they’ve been seeing an increase in the number of people with symptoms of heroin overdose and addiction,” Sgt. Tom Combs of the Teton County Sheriff ’s Office said. “There have been rumors for the past year, but it’s just now that it’s been getting to the point where we’re seeing it, too.” Jackson physician Brent Blue saw his first cases of heroin overdose in at least 30 years during the last months of 2013, he said earlier in the year. Private practice doctors as well as those staffing the emergency room at St. John’s Medical Center tipped off police that the heroin hiatus might be at an end, putting the highly addictive opioid on officers’ radar, Sgt. Russ Ruschill of the Jackson Police See HerOIn on 22A
See HOSpItAl on 22A
Wilsonites sue to kill political contribution limit They claim law violates U.S. Supreme Court’s cash-is-speech ruling. By Michael Polhamus A Wilson couple have sued the state of Wyoming to strike down limits on how much money donors can give to political candidates during an election cycle.
State law prohibits donors from giving more than $25,000 to candidates over a two-year period. Wilson residents Daniel and Carleen Brophy are approaching that limit, and have sued Wyoming Secretary of State Max Maxfield to go beyond it. The case follows a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that scuttled national campaign finance limits of the same type. “I consider this a fairly open-and-
InSIde © 2014 Teton Media Works
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shut case,” said the Brophys’ lawyer, Steve Klein of the Wyoming Liberty Group. “The state certainly could fight it, but given the Supreme Court ruling, it’s very hard to overcome.” Klein said political donations are a form of speech, as did the majority of justices in the April 2 U.S. Supreme Court decision. “Money is a fundamental element of speech, especially in the political arena,” Klein said. 28A 30A 34A
Scenic flights criticized King plan loved, hated Genzer won’t run
That means political donations are protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, he said. Through the state’s donation cap — known as an aggregate contribution limit — the Brophys are unconstitutionally prevented from exercising their right to free speech, Klein wrote in his complaint to Wyoming’s U.S. District Court. “The United States Supreme Court See SpendInG on 23A
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