Karla's Kolumn: Is Worland ready to grow?

How do you grow a city? That’s a question facing the city of Worland as they fight to keep the population above 5,000 in order to hold on to federal Urban Systems funding.

The Urban Systems funding has helped the city build major streets including 23rd Street. The Urban Systems Committee has been setting aside funding potentially for a Washakie Avenue improvement project. They have $633,000 in the account to date. They receive $100,000 annually from the program.

If the city falls below 5,000 in population all the funding goes away — the annual payments and the funding that has already been saved.

As an immediate fix, the city of Worland is hoping to annex subdivisions on the east side of the city to help ensure they stay above 5,000. Whether or not the city will fall below 5,000 is anybody’s guess. Estimated population currently is between 5,100 and 5,200. The 2020 census is coming and it will be based on city boundaries that are set in December 2018, thus the rush for annexation.

On Monday night, about 50 residents from the subdivisions in question gathered to hear from city officials and voice concerns.

Some concerns were valid, including the fact that the county currently provides snow plowing services along Road 11. The city after major snow storms struggles to get to all the side streets in a timely fashion. The priority for the city is the main arterial streets including the two highways, and then the streets around the schools.

Some concerns or rather complaints raised Monday night stemmed from issues in the past, which have no relevance on the question of annexation at this time or on the desire for Worland to grow.

There were two main issues raised during Monday’s meeting that do impact the future of Worland — the past can sometimes come back to bite you and how can Worland grow or more importantly do the residents want it to grow?

First let’s look at the past. Past decisions from city councils and mayors regarding subdivision developments are part of the issue at present. Currently if a subdivision wants to connect to city water but is not part of the city limits they must agree to annex in and become part of the city. That was not done with the subdivisions that are being proposed for annexation. They have city water but were not required to annex into the city when the utilities were brought to the subdivisions.

So now the current city council is dealing with those past decisions.

Several residents said if they wanted to live in the city they would but they chose to live in the country … with nearly all the amenities of living in the city. One resident complained because the police were called when he was illegally dumping in a city dumpster. That’s a perk of living in the city, if you pay city sanitation fees you can dump in any dumpster in the city. You don’t get that privilege if you choose to live in the country and thus choose to not pay for living in the city.

I personally, live in the country, but we chose property where our nearest neighbor is a few acres away. Many of these subdivisions have neighbors almost as close as if they were living in the city (which I personally don’t understand).

Since I don’t have a “dog in the fight” so to speak, I can’t argue for or against annexation. I understand what the city is trying to do, correct wrong decisions of the past and bring in subdivisions that are on city water into the city limits and make sure our population stays above 5,000 so it can continue to receive funds to help build new roads if and when the city grows.

I understand not wanting to live within city limits because there are a few more regulations than in the county. It’s not easy for either side.

What I didn’t understand Monday night was the “what’s in it for me” predominant attitude, yet at the same time one resident when speaking about economic development remarked that maybe people would be willing to give up land if it helped attract businesses to the area.

I almost laughed out loud. I believe he was sincere when he said that, however, in my experience in living around Wyoming usually if a parcel of land is sought after it tends to be overpriced and not readily “given away.” This is exactly what happened in Lovell in the 1990s when Lovell was working with the state to bring the medium security prison to the community. The guy didn’t give his land to the city for the project, he got a nice pay day out of it. And the state, once given ownership didn’t give it back to the city after they opted to put the prison in Torrington. I believe this stems from the “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude.

So how do you grow a city? That’s the million-dollar question, or in the case of Worland the $100,000 question.

A few years ago when Basin was working on economic development I wrote then, and still believe, you can’t force economic development. Worland, just like Basin, has a few issues. Two major highways going through that make it easy for people to drive on by. However, Worland has even more ways for travelers to bypass. There are two U.S. highways that run through the city, two Wyoming highways that allow people to bypass the city and a county road just outside of Ten Sleep that again allows people to bypass Worland.

Worland needs to find ways of making them stop, but unfortunately, they are not a “destination” per se regarding tourism. Several business owners and the Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission understand this as they have talked repeatedly about working on getting people to stop in Worland as they are headed to other destinations or making Worland their “hub” if they want to go to Thermopolis for the hot springs, petroglyphs at Legend Rock or the dinosaur center; if they want to go to Ten Sleep rock climbing; to Greybull for the dinosaur site; to Lovell for the Pryor Mountain mustangs or Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area or on to Yellowstone.

That’s not to say Worland does not have some great things for people while they visit, because we do, but it’s usually not “destination” things; we don’t have that national park or big tourist draw.

So you have to look at business and industry and there’s the catch 22. We need a population and so do businesses. Most businesses don’t bring their own workforce, they expect to hire within the community and without more people we don’t have a huge workforce.

There are no easy answers when it comes to growing a city or when it comes to economic development. It doesn’t mean we don’t try.

But first, we need the people to believe in the community and for the people to want to grow, and after Monday’s meeting I’m not sure Worland is ready for growth. Not because the majority at the meeting seemed opposed to annexation, but because there was so much negativity and people can’t seem to forget the past.

It is time to learn from, but forget, the past, and look to the future.

When comments like “Worland is dying so maybe we should just let it become a town instead of a city” receive applause, I know Worland is not ready to grow and it can’t grow until the residents are ready.

People asked about contacting Powell and Cody and Thermopolis about how they are doing so well.

My guess is the people there have been and are ready for growth; they believe in their community and they want it to succeed.

But, that’s just my humble opinion.