Teton County ‘residents’ propose county swap with Colorado

Recently, Gov. Mark Gordon endorsed a northern Colorado county’s desire to secede from Colorado and become part of Wyoming. In response, a group of (fictional) Teton County residents offer the following counter-proposal: Instead of a one-way deal, execute a county-for-county trade and make Teton County the “Upper Peninsula of Colorado.”

“Just like Weld County in Colorado, we don’t fit in with the rest of our state,” said carpenter Diego Ripper from Jackson Hole, a mountain community in Teton County that votes more Democratic by several orders of magnitude than the rest of Wyoming. Ripper’s group, Leavers for an Economically Feasible Tetons, call themselves “billionaire wilderness refugees,” acknowledging the community’s vast income inequality as described in Justin Farrell’s 2020 book about Jackson Hole. However, LEFT members believe the county swap could help alleviate the community’s widening income gap.

by Mike Geraci