CASPER, Wyo. — Happy Friday to the delightful citizens of Casper and other readers out there and welcome to the latest edition of Oil City Speaks! Heading into Mother’s Day weekend, if you are looking for something to do, you might check out the 42nd Annual Casper’s Children’s Chorale Mother’s Day concert at 4 pm Sunday at Highland Park Church.
- It just so happens that a reader submitted a heart-warming comment on our story about the Mother’s Day concert, which will be the last for retiring Director Marica Patton who founded the Casper Children’s Chorale in 1979:
- With this week being “Teacher Appreciation Week” there was no shortage of heart-warming reader responses to choose from for this week’s Oil City Speaks. Check this one out in response to a story about nine Casper area teachers being honored as the 2021 “Ellbogen Meritorious Educators” after receiving the most nominations from the top of the 2021 graduating class:
- Let’s keep this positivity train rolling with another heart-warmer that came in response to the announcement that Black Tooth Brewing will be opening a new location at Casper’s new downtown development “The Nolan”:
Quite the craft beer community indeed! Black Tooth will be joining the following businesses serving their own craft beer in Casper:
- Oil City Beer Company
- Skull Tree Brewing
- Mountain Hops Brewhouse
- Gruner Brothers Brewing
- Frontier Brewing Company and Taproom
Craft beers made by local breweries are served at other restaurants and bars around town and don’t forget that Backwards serves cocktails made with spirits they distill in Mills at their downtown Casper location.
“The Nolan” is one aspect of a wave of new energy coming to the downtown, adding to other new businesses and development that plan to open soon in Casper, such as a new axe throwing location on East Second Street or the new State Office Building off of Collins Drive.
The City of Casper is paving the lot off of Collins which will add some parking as downtown gets new energy. That lot is near to David Street Station, where performers like Jalan Crossland, Chancey Williams and John King will play free concerts this summer.
- While the line-up for David Street Station got readers excited, let’s look at a thought-provoking comment in regard to Friday’s story about the station’s summer concert line-up:
Casper City Council member Kyle Gamroth points out that David Street Station offers free concerts to the public. But free to the public does not mean free to host — David Street Station has to pay for the musicians and things like sound equipment and more. David Street Station is also coming off of a tough year as the pandemic prevented most of their normal events from happening and are looking for funding support from the community in order to be able to keep offering events in Casper.
Their station was also ineligible to receive COVID-19 support to offset impact from the pandemic due to their classification as an entity of the Casper Downtown Development Authority.
- David Street also runs into unexpected costs at times. Let’s look at a thought-provoking comment that came in response to a story about someone tagging David Street Station with graffiti:
While it may be frustrating when things like vandalism take place at a public space you love, Susan says it is important for people to try not to make assumptions about who is responsible without knowing all the details. That’s a theme that popped up on other stories this week as well.
- Take a look at this thought-provoking comment that came in response to a story about a suspect being killed after being shot by a Casper Police Department officer early Thursday morning:
The police department released limited information about the incident on Thursday. While the Natrona County Coronor’s Office identified the Casper resident who was killed on Thursday, the police department has not made other new information available since Thursday. Oil City asked the police department for further information from the police department on Thursday, but we have not been told new information as of 4:10 pm Friday.
We think Dianna’s thoughtful comment is well worth pondering. Some readers have been quick to judgement against either the officer or the shooting victim. But there is a lot of information we simply don’t know yet, for example:
- What was the reason for the traffic stop on Thursday morning? Why did the interaction between the police officers and the suspects occur?
- Who were the police officers involved?
- Some people have been critical of the police officer getting into the subject vehicle, but we don’t know how or why that happened. We also don’t know what happened prior to the officer deciding to shoot the suspect who was allegedly attempting to flee in the vehicle while the officer was in the passenger seat. Did the officer give the person a verbal warning? Did the officer consider using a taser? Did the officer attempt to turn off the ignition? How long was the officer in the suspect vehicle before they used their firearm?
- We also don’t know much about the suspect who was killed. Did he have a weapon? Why did he feel the urge to try to flee?
- We also don’t know anything specific about the emotional and mental state of either the suspect or the officer during the incident. We don’t know anything about what either person is like.
What else don’t we know about the incident? What type of additional information might make a difference in the way that you think about the situation? If you’ve already started to form any sort of opinion about the incident, can you imagine any extra information that might make you change you opinion on things?
Here’s another thought-provoking reader comment along these lines in response to the officer-involved shooting story:
With Tom and Dianna’s comments in mind, we also think it makes sense that people are asking hard questions about what happened. That’s why we think it is so important for officials to be transparent and provide as much information as they are able to, whether that is in relation to a police incident or whether it is about something like a local, state or federal government action or decision.
- Let’s turn our attention to a hot take that came in response to Friday’s story about Darin Smith, a Cheyenne attorney, announcing that he will run against Wyoming’s U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in the next election:
The race for Wyoming’s only U.S. House seat is getting crowded early. Smith joins Anthony Bouchard, Chuck Gray, Bryan Keller, and Marissa Selvig in the effort to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney, who is under intense pressure from the GOP after voting to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Will a crowded field benefit Cheney in the primaries? What do you think? And how about Wyoming’s voting structure more generally speaking? Do you support the concept of runoff elections? Those are elections which are triggered if the leading candidate in a primary does not get at least 50% of the vote. In the runoff election, the top two vote-getters face off head-to-head. The Wyoming Senate killed a proposal to implement runoff elections in Wyoming’s primaries during their 2021 General Session.
What about other voting protocol changes, such as instituting ranked choice voting? When voters head in to primary or general elections, they may sometimes find themselves in a difficult position. Their preferred candidate may not appear electable, leading voters to have to decide between voting their values or making a strategic, pragmatic decision.
Proponents argue that ranked choice voting would solve this dilemma. It works like this: You vote for your favorite candidate first, then mark your second favorite and so on. If your favorite candidate doesn’t get to a certain minimum percentage of the vote, your second (or third, etc.) choice vote is the one that will count in the end. The Wyoming Democratic Party used ranked choice voting for the first time during their 2020 primary and caucus process.
How often do you think about protocols? What mechanisms that our political system relies on do you think work well? What are some that need adjusting? Do you have some new ideas about how to improve things?
- That’s all from Oil City Speaks for now! Disagree with anything we said? Great! Feel free to get involved with discussion about what’s happening in our community by commenting on stories posted to Oil City’s Facebook page. Have a great day!
Why are we putting together this Oil City Speaks story?
Oil City News is all about offering coverage of the people, places and events that shape the community we love. We strive to provide informative stories for our readers and value dialogue about the Casper area community and the Cowboy State.
What makes for a valuable online discussion? It is no secret that readers are sometimes wary about the “dreaded” comments section (on stories posted to Oil City’s Facebook page). While comments may seem frustrating at times, they can also allow people to voice their perspectives, add more information for readers to consider or give people a way to celebrate their community together.
That’s why we’re bringing you Oil City Speaks, a selection of noteworthy reader comments from our local coverage. We care that you care about your community and we want to take the time to recognize comments that stand out to us. We’ll also offer some fact-checking on comments.
We’re not here to police your comments or your views. Comment Guideline: We welcome comments expressing all points of views on our posts–positive and negative–but reserve the right to remove posts that contain inappropriate language, links to items for sale, hate speech, personal attacks, threats, or are off-topic.
