Hot City Alliance open house

Not much more than a year ago Dusty Lewis and Wade Lippincott were sitting in Lewis's shop and said they should start a nonprofit organization with the vision of developing trails for the Thermopolis and Hot Springs County area to bring in more tourism and outdoor recreation. Since then, their efforts have snowballed into a greater increase of success and community support with their nonprofit Hot City Alliance.

Hot City Alliance held an open house on August 3 seeking community input on what trails they wanted to see developed. Lippincott said, "We haven't had an open house to the public before. The meetings are always open to the public and we haven't really advertised them." He added that along with the trails study group working hard, community input was also need. 

Lewis added, "The open house was information gathering. There were some suggestions from community members of places to look at."

Lippincott explained that you need a GPS tracker to specifically map out and define the potential trail. 

They are looking for community input, for suggestions on what trails people want and what kind of new developments they would like to have. There can be different kinds of trails and different kinds of people who they are targeted for.

According to the polling done at the open house, the strong majority of people said that they want trails that will draw people from out of town. 

Lewis said, "The open house was to confirm that on a bigger level."

Partnering with Hot City Alliance are Todd Thibodeau, an independent contractor, and Bruce Burrows of Wyo Pathways who are contracted trail builders and also facilitators for finding funding and doing community analysis of what kind of trails the town wants and what options are out there.

They are contracted to do the study and the grants Hot City Alliance acquires goes to pay for them. Monies came from the BLM, the Rec Department and the Moser Foundation.  

Lippincott said, "To get the grant money you need a plan and a cost analysis. This report will give us a draft to follow. It helps us plan."

They also explained that the study can be for their higher priority trails to develop first and then move onto the next series of trails in their pipeline and building upon each other as they apply for grants. The areas that are successful have a project every single year and are constantly working.

Areas like Cody, Jackson and Lander always have something they are submitting and are always in the works. "We are early on and the good news is there is a lot of work to be done on a local level." 

Next the contracted trail developers, Thibodeau and Burrows, will look at the areas they researched and walked with Google Earth and use other tools.  

There will be another open house and a presentation potentially in September. There will be more opportunities for the community to provide input and data and show support.

"Let us know what you're excited about," said Lippincott.

Lewis also said that he encourages the community to reach out to the state level authorities and let them know they are excited and interested in the trails and development.

Lippincott concluded, "This is for the community. There is just so much more potential here in Thermopolis for economic gain, good health. I certainly don't want the Alliance to come across as anything but an open forum. I don't want it to come across as a closed forum. People can come in. The Alliance is as much theirs as it is ours."