Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, February 6th. I'm Mac Watson.

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The State Land Board on Thursday voted 3-2 to begin a legal process that could cancel two controversial state wind leases in Converse and Niobrara counties. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Secretary Chuck Gray, Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, and Auditor Kristi Racines all voted in favor while Gov. Gordon and Treasurer Meier voted against.

"In the Constitution, there's language suggesting that for state trust lands, you gotta promote projects that are going to help fund the Wyoming school system. And so they often talk about their fiduciary duty, that's their duty, to make these lands profitable to support our schools. And so that was the reasoning last April, when they voted in favor of these projects. But as the months dragged on and wind became just this flash point controversy. A couple of them, auditor Kristi Racines and Superintendent of Public instruction, Megan Degenfelder, were like, 'Yeah, this is clearly more important to people than was apparent earlier on, and we're gonna go ahead and reflect that.'"

The reversal follows 10 months of controversy and passionate public debate over the two projects, which are slated to cover several thousand acres of state and other lands.

Read the full story HERE.

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WY Fresh Farm has been in the same location for 20 years, with a farmstead added about four years ago. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that now the couple faces a forced annexation by the city of Cheyenne that they say threatens their business.

"This farm is among some of the last properties that the city is planning to annex. The couple just have a lot of questions about what that will mean for their operation. The devil's always in the details, right? They're, quote, 'grandfathered in', but if they're the wrong zoning, if for one year, they have a disaster and they can't do their chickens, well, then it's not a continuing use anymore. This farm is among some of the last properties that the city is planning to annex. The couple just have a lot of questions about what that will mean for their operation."

Co-owner Tommie Kniseley told Cowboy State Daily she started asking questions in 2022, when she inadvertently learned their farm might be in the pathway of the city's annexation plans. They were attending a city council meeting on an unrelated matter, when she happened to see the city's plans for their farm's future hanging on a wall.

Read the full story HERE.

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The Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to shield two more institutions from its proposed $40 million budget cut to the University of Wyoming. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that one of those institutions shares a financial backer with the campaign arm of the Freedom Caucus.

"The majority of the Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to shield the high bay Research Center and the WORTH Institute, a tourism school, under the University of Wyoming from a proposed $40 million cut to the university. So if you say that these two schools, these two centers, can't suffer from the cut, then the other schools under the university will get cut deeper, right, because they have to sustain the whole 40 million but where it it got interesting was the $5 million backer of the WORTH Institute, one of the centers that they want to rescue is also, in recent months, a top contributor to the Wy Freedom Pack, which is the campaign arm