NEWS
SUNDANCE : A fundamental question is currently haunting the Crook County residents. What power do Wyoming taxpayers actually possess to prevent the formation of a taxing entity they believe is illegally structured?
Following a year of litigation, public records requests, and a recent presentation to the Board of County Commissioners, the answer for many residents appears to be a troubling zero. The case of the Crook County Recreation District has exposed a systemic loop in Wyoming law. When a government body is accused of bypassing statutes to impose a tax, the doors to both the courtroom and the executive chamber appear to be locked by procedural technicalities and political hesitation.
The Paper Trail of Deception: "You Can’t Fix Stupid"
The depth of the coordination between local officials was only revealed after local resident and business owner Mark Koep filed extensive public records requests in association with a lawsuit. The documents unmasked a disturbing level of contempt for the public among the very officials tasked with protecting taxpayer interests.
In October 2025, after the Crook County School Board Trustees voted to appoint themselves to the new Recreation District, Koep followed the statutory requirement of filing a formal complaint with the office of then-County Attorney Joe Baron (D). Baron declined to investigate, claiming his office was too busy, and told Koep to "proceed as he sees fit."
However, internal emails show Baron was anything but busy when it came to helping the School District. Records reveal Baron was privately providing legal guidance to School Board Attorney Mark Hughes (a Precinct Committeeman for the Crook County Republican Central Committee) to help structure the district and institute the tax. In one exchange following a public meeting attended by over 70 residents, Hughes discussed the outcome of that meeting in terms of giving the dissenting members of the public and the “Freedom Caucus” a "black eye." Baron responded to the coordination by writing: "Yeah, you can’t fix stupid."
The situation escalated on December 18, 2025, when Baron published a letter to the editor in the local newspaper. While a lawsuit was active in his District on this topic (reference the “as you see fit” reply to Mr. Koep), the County Attorney used his public office to publicly exonerate the School Board. In that letter, Baron cited a seemingly unrelated statute to justify the board’s self-appointment, an action legal critics argue was a direct attempt to poison the potential jury pool.
Most notably, public records requests later revealed that while Baron was publicly citing these unrelated laws, he was simultaneously providing private, focused guidance to the School District that relied upon the actual, correct statutes. This discovery suggests a conscious choice to provide the public with one legal narrative while privately acknowledging another.
The Statutory Blueprint: W.S. 18-9-201 and 18-9-202
Under W.S. 18-9-201, a school district independently or jointly has the authority to initiate and form a recreation district and in doing so has the power to institute a 1 mill-levy tax. However, this power comes with specific, mandatory requirements found within the rest of the statute. The statute dictates that when formed independently, the board governing such a district "shall consist of five to nine competent citizens."
In Crook County, the School Board chose to appoint five of its own sitting members to the new district. While trustees are certainly competent citizens, the act of self-appointment violates Wyoming’s Ethics and Disclosure Act. Under W.S. 9-13-106(a)(ii), a "personal or private interest" is an interest that provides a "greater benefit... than it does for a large or substantial group or class of persons who are similarly situated."
The "similarly situated" class is the pool of all other competent citizens in Crook County. By appointing only themselves and codifying in their bylaws that only School Board trustees may ever serve on the Recreation Board, the trustees secured an exclusive benefit of authority and power over a public budget that was denied to every other resident.
Under W.S. 9-13-106(a), a public official is prohibited from voting on a decision if they stand to obtain such a private benefit. Once on the new Recreation District board, the School Board Trustees then ratified bylaws that explicitly limit Recreation District Trustees to only School Board Trustees.
The Constitutional Conflict: Gifting K-12 Funds
The financial structure of the new district has raised additional separate constitutional red flags. The Recreation District bylaws explicitly state that the School District will provide the new body corporate with "free" accounting, administration, and audit services.
This appears to be a direct violation of the Wyoming Constitution, Article 7, Section 4 & 7, which requires that all public school funds be used exclusively for the support of public schools. Using K-12 education funds to provide free services to a separate taxing entity diverts resources from the classroom.
This administrative gift is particularly controversial given that the School Board Chairman recently announced at a legislative town hall that the district is undergoing a "Reduction in Force" (RIF). While the district is cutting teachers and staff due to budget constraints, it is simultaneously gifting taxpayer-funded resources to a new, self-appointed board.
The "Get Elected" Defense vs. Historical Reality
When confronted with these issues, the School Board’s primary defense has been that if the public is unhappy, they should simply "get elected" to the board and change it. This defense, however, ignores the permanent nature of these districts.
History shows that once a recreation district is formed by a School District in Wyoming, it becomes a permanent fixture of the tax roll. There is no historical record of a recreation district formed under these statutes being dissolved in the state of Wyoming. By the time a new board could be elected, the "Anyways" tax, born in May 2025 when the board admitted they didn’t know what the money was for but were taxing "anyways,” was already codified and being spent.
The primary reason this evidence has not been weighed by a judge is the Brimmer Test. Wyoming’s Sixth Judicial Court ruled that the plaintiff Pro Se lacked "standing" because the tax harms everyone equally. This creates a procedural loop: if a board harms everyone, no one can sue. The ruling suggested this case is a “political” issue that should be handled by executive branches.
When the citizen took this "political” issue to the County Commissioners on April 7, 2026, the loop closed. The Commissioners acknowledged their authority to dissolve the district under W.S. 18-3-525, but they declined to act, stating they feared the School Board would just "do it again."
For the taxpayers of Crook County, the message is chilling. The County Attorney won't investigate, the Court won't listen, and the Commissioners won't intervene. The Wyoming guardrails have officially failed.
Note: The Open
Range Record has undertaken this investigation to provide a clear and
evidence-based window into the mechanics of local governance in Wyoming. In a
climate where public discourse is often clouded by hearsay, we have based this
reporting strictly on the primary sources generated throughout this year-long
dispute. The facts presented in this article are rooted in the legal filings
from Case No. 2025-CV-00009122 within the Sixth Judicial District Court,
alongside the official minutes and agendas published by the School Board and
the Recreation District, and public records files received during research of
this story.
To ensure the highest level of accuracy, critical interactions and admissions cited here have been corroborated by verbatim audio recordings from the Crook County Commissioners’ meetings and the recent legislative town hall featuring Speaker of the House Chip Neiman. By relying on these "black and white" records, we aim to provide a factual lens through which the community can evaluate the statutory health of our local government and the actions of those entrusted to lead it.