The race to become Park County’s next assessor may once again be wide open.

After commissioners balked at choosing among the three nominees forwarded by the Park County Republican Party — expressing concerns about errors made during the party’s selection process — the responsibility of choosing a replacement for Assessor Pat Meyer fell to a district court judge. And she has decided to effectively start the process over.

Presiding Carbon County District Court Judge Dawnessa Snyder is inviting any qualifying candidates to apply for the position between now and Monday. Anyone who is a registered Republican voter and lives in and owns property in Park County qualifies for the position. Judge Snyder plans to publicly interview each of the eligible applicants on Jan. 29 and choose one as the next assessor — though one member of the local GOP’s leadership team is asking the judge to only consider the three nominees put forward by the party.

How we got here

Meyer, who’d served in the assessor’s office for decades, triggered the political quagmire by retiring at the end of December, in the middle of his four-year term.

Because Meyer is a Republican, the Park County Republican Party was tasked with picking three potential replacements for the commissioners’ consideration. Six people applied and at a Jan. 9 meeting, the party’s central committee picked their vice chair and financial adviser Bob Ferguson, teacher Allen Gilbert of Powell and Cody City Councilman Don Shreve. However, there were problems with the party’s process.

Most significantly, just before the commissioners were set to pick between the three nominees, Party Chairman Martin Kimmet informed commissioners that there’d been a miscount in the initial round of voting, which whittled the field from six to five candidates.

Specifically, Kimmet said two ballots that should have been discarded under the rules had mistakenly been included in the tally and a vote for a candidate had been missed. Those corrections put the fifth place finisher, Paul Lanchbury, in a tie with the sixth-place finisher, Terry Call — and that tie should have been broken by the body.

The error prompted commissioners to unanimously vote to turn the decision over to a district court judge.

“The three candidates may not have changed if the vote were caught earlier, but we don’t know that for sure,” Commissioner Lloyd Thiel said at the Jan. 14 meeting, saying he didn’t see it as being a legitimate procedure.

Dueling court petitions

The following day, a member of the party’s central committee, Stefanie Bell, filed a petition in Park County District Court, formally asking a judge to pick the next assessor. Bell wrote the document with the help of fellow committee member and attorney David Hill of Cody.

Meanwhile, finalists Ferguson and Gilbert made their own filing, asking the court to order the commissioners to choose between the party’s three finalists; they argued that the recount was unofficial and that commissioners had no authority to interpret the party’s process. Park County District Court Judge Bill Simpson signed the cases to Snyder, who quickly rejected Ferguson and Gilbert’s complaint. 

She said the commissioners’ failure to pick one of the party’s nominees within five days put the decision in the hands of the court. Gilbert and Ferguson’s request for a preliminary injunction against the commission “is not appropriate and should be denied,” Snyder wrote on Thursday.

In a third court filing on Friday, Park County Republican Party State Committeeman Vince Vanata, urged the judge to only pick between Ferguson, Gilbert and Shreve.

Vanata called the commissioners’ concerns “irrelevant as they interjected themselves in the county party selection process” — noting that commissioners Dossie Overfield, Scott Steward and Kelly Simone participated in the GOP meeting as precinct committee people. Vanata said that amounted to a “direct conflict of interest.”

He also noted that “were no objections, motions, points of order, or demands for recounts regarding the process of selecting those three persons” at the meeting.

“Any commentary, actions, or other inappropriate activity inconsistent with the aforementioned governing documents [used by the party] is a nefarious act to ‘muddy the water’ by disgruntled persons who took issue with their ‘guy’ not being selected,” Vanata wrote.

Precinct committeeman Colin Simpson had approached Kimmet with concerns following the initial round of voting — noting there was an apparent miscount — but neither he nor anyone else made a formal objection.

Open to applicants

Snyder did not appear to have ruled on Vanata’s request as of Monday, but in an earlier order on Bell’s petition, she noted the law is “silent” on the procedure she should use to fill the seat.

Snyder said she considered methods, including by limiting the field to the six applicants considered by the party or just the three nominees it put forward.

Ultimately, “after giving due consideration to all the facts and being fully advised in the premises, the court finds it should invite all qualified electors who meet the criteria for the position of County Assessor” to file letters of interest with the district court by noon on Jan. 27, she wrote in a Friday order.

Snyder also noted that, under the state’s rules of judicial conduct, “the court is required to be apolitical.”

The judge plans to separately interview each of the applicants at the Park County Courthouse on Wednesday, Jan. 29. The interviews will start at 9 a.m. and be open to public observers. Snyder said she will, at minimum, ask some basic questions to ensure each applicant meets the qualification.

She intends to make a decision by no later than the close of business on Feb. 14.

(Editor's note 2/7/25: This version of the story has been corrected to reflect that Kimmet not only mentioned two undervoted ballots, but also a missed vote for a candidate.)