OPINION: WTE offers thumbs up and down 10-8-22

Oct. 8—DOWN to certain pet owners, who are making life difficult for those who need their service animals to accompany them to stores by selfishly bringing their animals with them while shopping.

As several service dog owners related to a Wyoming Tribune Eagle reporter recently, this goes way beyond an inconvenience. Some expensive, highly trained animals have had to be removed from service following repeated disruptive encounters with non-service animals. And, believe it or not, we're not just talking about dogs — one of our editorial board members saw a raccoon in a carrier in a local store recently.

Many store owners, managers and employees have the mistaken notion that there's nothing they can do to prevent these encounters. In fact, employees legally may ask two questions of a service dog handler: "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and "What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?"

Legitimate service dogs can be easily identified by their quiet, focused behavior, and will be totally under control and focused on their handler. Of course, some pets will be just as well-behaved, and their owners can lie about the dog's training or services provided. We wish they wouldn't.

More local residents and store employees need to take the time to educate themselves on how to behave around service dogs, how to recognize whether a dog is a service animal and what to do in either case. To do otherwise is not just disrespectful, it can have a disruptive, negative impact on someone's life.

UP to Wyoming Cowboy Challenge Academy staff for working to provide immediate continuing education options for cadets affected by the decision to shutter the program for at-risk teens at Camp Guernsey.

Thanks to their efforts, programs in Idaho, Montana and California have agreed to enroll cadets immediately into their classes so they can graduate on time in December. The Nevada Challenge program had previously agreed to enroll all of the remaining cadets into their class starting in January.

Of the 63 members of the current WCCA group, ages 16 to 18, 32 have decided to participate in another Challenge program, including three joining the Nevada program next year, according to a recent news release. The remaining 31 "will have remote options for either credit recovery or to prepare for a high school equivalency test. Some will return to their local high school," the release said.

This is good news for these troubled teens, who have so clearly benefitted from the Wyoming program for the past decade-plus. We still hope they can reopen our state's program as soon as possible, but it's good to see the current group of cadets being supported.

UP to the Laramie County Library System board for voting to eliminate all fines, as well as ending checkout fees for video games, DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

As County Librarian Carey Hartmann said in a news release, "Removing fines and fees will assist those in our community who are most in need of free and easy access to library materials. The families and individuals this will most impact are those who value engagement and growth, but have to make difficult decisions on where and how to spend money."

During this time of record inflation across all parts of our economy, we applaud this move as a small way to help out those are struggling to make ends meet.

DOWN to some county residents for objecting to being annexed into the city without acknowledging that they could have it much worse.

For decades, city officials have discussed the possibility of annexing county pockets into the city. These are parcels that, over time, have been surrounded on at least three sides by city land; many are completely surrounded. The 65 pockets, representing 127 independently owned properties, haven't been annexed so far because no one wanted to impose thousands of dollars of extra costs on these residents for things like curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and connecting to city water and sewer services.

Now, Mayor Patrick Collins and the Cheyenne City Council have agreed to grandfather these properties in without any such expenses unless the way the land is used changes, the property is subdivided, or a new multifamily or nonresidential project begins. This includes allowing nonconforming uses, such as livestock ownership, as long as that use doesn't stop for longer than 12 months.

Yet residents are objecting to paying, at most, around $22 a month more in property taxes. And that amount is only if their property is worth more than half a million dollars. (For more details, visit cheyennecity.org/annexation).

Despite what some residents think, this isn't a cash grab by the city, which is likely to spend more over the long term on providing services to these areas than the taxes will generate. It needs to happen in order to streamline delivery of emergency services, which are often delayed when city departments have to wait for county services to arrive.

It also protects these property owners from incurring an average of $12,000 in costs if they decide on their own they need to be annexed in order to connect to city water and sewer services. (Even those who aren't annexed, but want to connect to these city services, have to pay 150% of the in-city cost.)

Sorry, folks, we know no one wants to pay any more taxes, but the fact is you're living in a place that's going to be annexed eventually. Instead of complaining at this coming Monday night's council meeting, you should be thanking city leaders for their thoughtfulness. The alternative could have been much worse.

WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK: Contact us via email at opinion@wyomingnews.com.