Three vie for two seats on Thermopolis Town Council

Three candidates are running for two seats on the Thermopolis Town Council, Tony Larson is challenging incumbents Dusty Lewis and William Malloy.

The information included here and is what Lewis presented during the Chamber of Commerce hosted candidate forum held in early October.

Larson and Malloy were not in attendance at the candidate forum. They supplied bio information to the IR.

Dusty Lewis:

My name’s Dusty Lewis. So this is actually probably my third term, I think. Sadly, I dodged this forum the first two rounds, but with my wife running for school board coming to talk, she’s brave enough to get up here, too. So I’m here. And honestly, I wasn’t going to run this round. I talked to Adam a lot, and I said, our meetings have been kind of shallow. Not a lot of getting depth, not a lot of emotion, not a lot of work progress. And, I said, if I am going to continue on I want to have more subjects, I don’t want to be in and out of the chambers as fast as we usually are. Put me to work. Let’s do something. So to backtrack, I moved here in about 2005, so I’m coming on 20 years. I’ve got a family and three little boys, a great wife, Beth. I developed a number of different businesses that are both local. And, another outreach business across about a dozen states now. So keeping communication is a strong thing of mine. Maybe not in front of a group like this necessarily. But, one on one, I’m happy to listen to anybody. I can work and see different angles, different perspectives. That’s what I bring to the table. I take each topic and things that come for what it is and not for what it can benefit me or somebody else. I want to see Thermopolis prosper and grow. I want to be here for the long haul. I don’t see us going anywhere. And I hope that it’s the kind of place that is awesome and that my kids want to stay here when they grow up, too. So that’s all.

Bill Malloy

I am a Wyoming Native, born in Laramie, Wyoming and raised there. Attended the University of Wyoming for both undergraduate and graduate work. Student taught in Thermopolis in Jan. and Feb of 1963 and came back and started teaching here in August of 1963. Taught in the Thermopolis schools until 2006. Was Wyoming Teacher of the Year in 1971. Started the World Famous Thermopolis Wildcat Band in 1970 and competed in parades and marching contest throughout Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, Montana, Utah, 12 trips to Calgary, Canada, and on to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Taking 1st place in almost every competition we competed in. Took4 trips to Western Europe with the Wyoming Ambassadors of Music. I was in charge of organizing the Wyoming State Marching Competition for 15 years and our own Thermopolis high school band received superior ratings every year and my our Thermopolis High School Concert Band received Superior Ratings all 32 years I directed the High School Band. I was also chosen as National Band Director of the Year during my career and many time Big Horn Basin Band Director of the Year. I have worked with big budgets over the years raising money for band trips, buying equipment, planning trips for the programs I was responsible for. I served as mayor of Thermopolis for eight years and on the Town Council for 10 years and attended every WAM Convention except 2 during that time, taking training class in running town government. In 2006 the state started talking about a transfer station and now we are finally going to get one and part of the reason I am running for Mayor is I would like to see that project completed. I enjoyed every minute of being Mayor and on the Council, only missed a couple meetings during those years, except for missing the last couple months due to being in the hospital with a torn quad muscle. I feel during the years I was Mayor and on the council I helped with many projects that were done. I, with the help of our Assistant Mayor and Engineers, got the town my first year as Mayor $400,000.00 safe route to school grant for the side walks and curbs for the middle school to the highway. And that was a no matching grant. During my time as Mayor we did more construction projects with grant help that ever before. We kept our streets in much better shape. We worked extra hard at getting the town cleaned up, which we are still working at. I have over the years of going to WAM Conventions become acquainted with many government officials from around the state, which can be very helpful many time when dealing with town government.

I feel I have more experience and education in town operations than anyone on the council at this time and have enjoyed it all tremendously and would appreciate your vote to serve Thermopolis another 4 years.

I fell in love with our little town in 1963 and still love it today. I have also served as town representative over the years on the Travel and Tourism Board, Chamber Board, Golf Board and was Chairman of the Recreation Board for 23 year. I am a Conservative and worked with budgets as high as 7 million dollars or more.

Tony Larson:

I had three terms on the Town Council. I am proud of attending most of the meetings. You can go back and look at my records, I bet in those 12 years, I didn’t miss probably 15 meetings total. The people put me there for a reason and I’d like to make sure I’m there to vote on the stuff. Right now I think the council sort of have fallen off the wagon. Basically, I think we need to do more infrastructure stuff to try to get the underground sewer mains, water mains done so we can do something with these darn streets. The streets are becoming atrocious. By doing the streets it will clean it up. It will clean up the pipes but it will also clean up the town. It will make the town look better where you won’t be dodging potholes. The town crew is doing a good job right now trying to get potholes filled up and everything else, but they can only do so much. Where do we get the money? That’s a good question. We need to look at more grants hopefully. Everything takes time and you’re only one vote too. My ideas might not be the same as what everyone else’s ideas are. There might be some compromises here and there to get things done. I’m pretty accessible. They can get a hold me. It might not be what they want to hear but I am going to tell them the truth about what it is.

Question asked during the forum:

Will you allow state/federal funding to change your beliefs? 

Dusty Lewis:

No is the short answer. The state, they try to leverage all kinds of things that aren’t all the same way. It does play a part. Some things are big projects to get done. It’s really hard with local money. So when you have to weigh what’s coming and what the risk to benefit ratio is, and, I’ll continue to do that. I like to keep everything local and utilize our local resources as much as we can.