A Rawlins-based judge will soon pick Park County’s next assessor from a pool of seven candidates.
The role has been vacant since the start of the month, when longtime Republican Assessor …
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A Rawlins-based judge will soon pick Park County’s next assessor from a pool of seven candidates.
The role has been vacant since the start of the month, when longtime Republican Assessor Pat Meyer retired at the midpoint of his four-year term.
The Park County Republican Party’s Central Committee interviewed six applicants and picked three potential replacements for Meyer earlier this month. However, after learning mistakes were made in the party’s nominating process, the Park County commissioners declined to pick any of the candidates and to instead turn the process over to a district court judge.
The decision landed in the lap of Carbon County District Court Judge Dawnessa Snyder, who opted to reopen the application process to any qualifying Republican landowners in the county.
Seven people applied by a Monday deadline, including four of the candidates who originally applied to the Republican Party: retired appraiser Dave Baker of Powell; First Deputy Park County Assessor Terry Call of Cody; Meeteetse financial adviser Bob Ferguson; and Cody City Councilman and youth probation officer Don Shreve.
Two candidates who appeared before the party earlier this month — Allen Gilbert of Powell and Paul Lanchbury of Cody — did not submit an application to the court and are no longer in the running; Gilbert had been one of the party’s nominees, alongside Ferguson and Shreve.
Meanwhile, three new candidates joined the race: Cody accountant Brenda Aycoth; Powell appraiser and real estate broker Andrew Whitlock; and Powell developer and real estate agent Tye Whitlock.
Snyder interviewed the candidates for roughly 20 minutes apiece on Wednesday morning at the Park County Courthouse.
Beyond confirming that they met the eligibility requirements, Snyder asked about their backgrounds, their knowledge of the position, how they would handle unhappy taxpayers and their goals.
While it wasn’t on the judge’s list of questions, frustrations about the messy series of events that brought the decision to her court also surfaced during the interviews — alongside differing opinions about what’s needed in the next assessor.
Background
As property values and taxes have rocketed upwards in recent years, the Park County Assessor’s Office has come under greater scrutiny. Although Meyer became a vocal advocate for property tax relief and was reelected with no opposition in 2022, some local Republican officials felt he was too slow to join the calls for relief. When Meyer recommended that Call replace him, “and essentially said, ‘Well, this is my guy, he should take the position,” that caused backlash, Ferguson told the Tribune.
At their Jan. 9 meeting to consider the six applicants, the roughly 85 members of the party’s central committee initially ranked Call at the bottom of the pack.
However, a later recount conducted by Party Chair Martin Kimmet and two other central committee members revealed three ballots had been miscounted and that Call had been prematurely eliminated from contention. Kimmet reported the error to the commissioners on Jan. 14 and said he didn’t know how to fix it, prompting them to unanimously vote to have a judge take over the selection process.
Ferguson, who serves as the party’s vice chair, and Gilbert tried getting the court to send the decision back to the commissioners, while another party official, Vince Vanata, asked Snyder to only consider the party’s nominees. However, the judge noted that it was too late for the commissioners to act and she opted to effectively restart the process.
Terry Call
That meant another series of interviews — including a second opportunity for Call. In his conversation with the judge, Call spoke in detail about how mass appraisals work and described the hundreds of hours of training he’s received over his 14 years with the assessor’s office.
Call said he crafted the numerous presentations that Meyer used in lobbying legislators for relief — including a successful push to put a 4% annual cap on property taxes.
Call said he’d like to use new technologies to boost efficiency in the office. He also said he wants to offer more transparency about how values are established and where taxpayers’ money is going.
“I know what the taxpayers of Park County need: They need the taxes not to keep jumping up a lot,” Call said, adding that he believes legislators are currently considering some “fantastic” options.
Bob Ferguson
In his interview, Ferguson laid out his background in finance and management. But he also made the case that picking an assessor — an elected position — is about more than experience.
“The reason it’s important for the parties to have input and focus on those choices is … it’s not just the bricks and mortar of someone’s resume about what their experience is doing appraisals. I think it goes deeper than that,” Ferguson said. It’s in part about “somebody that’s got more of a 30,000 foot view versus somebody that’s just an expert at going out and appraising properties,” he said.
Ferguson said he would lobby state lawmakers on tax relief bills as “a professional voice for the people.”
“We’re at an inflection point, where if we don’t do something statewide and with some pressure here in Park County, I think we’re going to wind up with problems like they have in Teton County,” he told the court.
Ferguson also said he would do more individual, in-person assessments of local properties. He acknowledged that could lead to higher taxes if staff, say, discovered new improvements to a property, “but that’s really how you come up with an accurate appraisal.”
He also indicated he would rely on current staff and take their input, saying they’ve done “an excellent job.”
Don Shreve
Shreve similarly called the current staffers “great people” and said he had no intention of “blowing up” the office. He made the case that the position needs someone like himself who can build coalitions rather than a “bomb thrower.”
However, Shreve also said the office needs more transparency and to do more public education.
For example, he said the assessor should hold meetings to explain the pros and cons of various legislative property tax proposals, such as the recently approved Constitutional Amendment A.
“... To be able to vote on them without knowledge is a complete failure, in my opinion, of the assessor’s office,” the councilman said, “and I would like to fix that.”
Shreve’s background includes time as a lawyer, with the Wyoming Challenge Academy and now as a youth probation officer for the county.
Like Ferguson, Shreve also seemed to encourage the judge to consider the Park County Republican Party’s preferences. He said the party’s process “makes it clear that the way the assessor’s office is currently run is not palatable to the citizens and they want change.”
Dave Baker
Baker differed from the other candidates in saying he has no intent of running for the office in 2026. Baker, who spent six years as a tax appraiser in Fallon County, Montana in the 1990s, described his goal as to “not rock the boat.” He said Park County’s office has been “run well” and doesn’t need significant changes.
Baker ultimately finished fifth in the Park County Republican Party’s voting, but he told the court that he believed that was due to having too many qualifications.
“I think the committee had a person, Mr. Ferguson, that they wanted to shoo-in there and they wanted to make sure they did not have qualified people, more qualified than him,” Baker told the judge, “so that’s why I did not do well.”
Picking favorites
Nominee Gilbert, a longtime teacher who recently moved to Powell from Pennsylvania, was open in saying that he had little knowledge of the assessor’s role, as was Lanchbury. However, both candidates — who said frustrations about rising local taxes prompted them to apply — indicated they would work to learn the role.
Precinct Committeeman Troy Bray, who also serves as a Powell city councilman, later said he and other more conservative members preferred Ferguson and that the other two names “were selected with the intent that the required 3 names be forwarded.”
Meanwhile, amid the accusation of the party being set on Ferguson, Bray and others contend the commissioners were set on appointing Call; in a Wednesday interview with the Tribune, Ferguson charged that the commissioners turned the process over to a judge because “they would do anything to get the person they preferred in the role.”
Disputing the process
Ferguson, Bray and Vanata have all argued it doesn’t matter if there were problems with the party’s process, saying the nominations were final when the meeting adjourned without any formal objections. They also say Kimmet lacked the authority to conduct a recount and question the results.
Ferguson additionally noted that the top three vote-getters in the initial round of voting became the eventual nominees. However, commissioners said there was no one way of knowing how things would have played out with a re-vote.
While the end result was similar, the rankings significantly changed across the different rounds of voting. For example, in the initial round, where party members were required to vote for five candidates, Shreve finished first while Lanchbury tied with Call for last place. In the second round, however, when party members picked three candidates, Shreve was nearly eliminated, as he dropped into a tie for third with Lanchbury. Shreve then won decisively in the final round, where members only voted for one candidate.
New candidates
After Snyder reopened the process, a trio of new candidates also opted to enter the mix.
Aycoth is a longtime CPA who moved to Cody in 2018. She said she was ready to learn the job and to accomplish what the voters want, saying her values align with Wyoming Republicans. She said she’d be fair, equitable, ethical and moral.
During the interview, Aycoth also noted the tension between disliking taxes and wanting government services.
“At the end of the day,” she said, “everybody has to pay their fair share of taxes or we don’t have the services.”
Tye Whitlock is a Powell real estate agent who’s long worked in construction and as a land developer. He said he’s thought about getting into public service for some time and believed the assessor’s position fit with his knowledge and experience. Tye Whitlock added that taxes “are becoming quite oppressive” for some residents and said he’d hope to bring some sort of relief.
Andrew Whitlock, who’s a second cousin of Tye’s, similarly cited an interest in public service, even mentioning the potential of running for governor in the future. He also said his background as a certified appraiser and as a real estate broker match up with the role.
Andrew Whitlock suggested that the assessor can serve as something of a “stopgap” when property values are rising. He also said taxable values should reflect more of a “quick sale value” than the higher market value.
Andrew Whitlock spoke highly of the assessor’s office and their “great work.” He opined that the county’s next assessor “needs to be someone with expertise in the area that’s certified or someone from the staff that’s already trained and knowledgeable.”
As she wrapped up each interview, Snyder generally offered her thanks and a handshake, reiterating that she’d make a decision by a Feb. 14 deadline.
(Editor's note 2/7/25: This version of the story has been corrected to reflect that three, according to a recount of the ballots, three ballots had been miscounted rather than two.)