Children of multi-generation natives of Jackson Hole are moving elsewhere to find opportunity and where they can afford to buy a home. It puzzles me why community planners of pretty places such as Jackson exclude it's native population in their comprehensive plans favoring wealthy immigrants instead.

The other day in a deli I overheard a conversation between an elderly couple and a NIMBY. (Not In My Back Yard) They were talking about the folly of the proposed land developments pointing out that all the valley really needed is a bus system to bring the workers in from elsewhere. I was compelled to join in.

Me: "Isn't it fundamentally wrong that a real land shortage is exasperated by faulty and self-serving zoning that compels third and fourth generation blue collar Jacksonites to move to Driggs, Idaho Falls, Riverton or Salt Lake if they wish to buy a home or just get ahead in life."

NIMBY: "If the fair market value of property drives them out, its fair."

ME: "Yet you advocate denying Roger Seherr-Thoss, Robert Gill and Phil Wilson the opportunity of fair market value for their land further diminishing Teton County's 3% of private land available for habitation by homosapiens."

NIMBY: "Auto-wildlife collisions from increased traffic caused by more development justify denial of land rights; wildlife is my primary concern." Clearly a thinly disguised excuse for no development in his back yard. The argument that there was an overabundance of most species was lost on him.

Me: My wife and I discovered through the legacy of our Subaru that our 120 mile round trip commute from Swan Valley to Jackson mandated Broncos and Suburbans so the wildlife we killed on our way to work went under our car and not through our windshield. It is my belief that I would kill less wildlife if I drove 5 miles to work instead of 60. Thus a faulty argument.

What irked me was this NIMBY's inferred proprietary and exclusionary entitlement he felt to our Valley. The inference being if you can no longer afford your country club dues get out of the way and make room for those of us that can. His gross paucity of empathy for the severance of continuity of roots of the local families was shameful.

I have succumbed to financial pressure and left the area 4 times, but I lack the good sense to remain gone. I am doomed to cling to the periphery of this alpine nirvana, much less now as a participant of natures abundance than as a service provider of Jackson's conspicuous terra consumer vista hoarders who lack empathy for the blue collar folks they displace yet need from afar. A symbiotic relationship they may wish someday they had reciprocated in a more thoughtful and comprehensive way. Satellite communities may be a fine place for the underclassmen, but historically satellite communities soon become self-sustaining and it's population loses the desire to commute.

I know NIMBY's in Jackson that are of modest income who wisely bought early that share this elitist attitude. As they participate at the ballot box and in public forums they need to contemplate the long term effect of density limits, building heights, and over preservation. The consequential effect of their complicity in the furtherance of artificial land shortages may create the dynamic that closes the door of local existence for their own children.

NIMBY politicians often refer to the Teton County Comprehensive Plan; this always makes me cringe as there is nothing comprehensive about the plan. The only way Jackson will achieve a truly comprehensive plan is if Teton County elected 2 commissioners from Victor, 2 commissioners from Alpine and one commissioner from Pinedale, all of whom must work in Jackson.

As a conservative republican I am not against the rich, quite the contrary I aspire to it and applaud those who achieve the American dream, wealth is the engine that drives America. What I am against is high land prices created by restrictive, exclusionary zoning that fuel inflationary spirals.and un-comprehensive planing devoid of the mechanics that perpetuate family and community.