Lincoln Day Dinner sees success after rescheduling

WORLAND – The annual Lincoln Day Dinner took place at the Green Hills Restaurant on Saturday, July 25, after it was originally delayed from April 6 due to COVID-19.

This dinner gives local and state republican candidates the opportunity to introduce themselves to Washakie County Republicans, and serves as a fundraiser for the Washakie County Republican Party.

The dinner featured State Treasurer Curtis Meier as the keynote speaker, and he spoke about the Occidental Petroleum property, COVID-19 funding, as well as other aspects that have improved over his last two years in office.

When discussing the property purchase that has been a large topic of debate in the last month, Meier said that "four of the top five guys only really got involved in the Occi deal two weeks ago."

Meier does believe that the state did place a fair bid on the property as they did their "due-diligence" and went down, spoke to miners who said they had their hours reduced which would leave to decreased revenue for a short amount of time.

"We made our bid based on what we found out on the ground," Meier said.

He said that they ran the plan through the Investment Funds Committee which is chaired by the treasurer, discussed how difficult it was to put this deal together in such a short amount of time, but wishes they have five or six months to put together a proper deal with investors.

Regarding COVID-19, he said there was a little over $1 billion that the state is supposed to distribute through COVID-19 funding, and they have distributed $50 million so far with another $90-$100 million being sent over to the Wyoming Business Council.

He has asked the Office of State Lands and Investments to create a template after counties and cities get approved for funding in order to make the process simpler for other counties to understand.

He discussed how the nation has essentially spent more on COVID-19 in four months than they did on World War II, and essentially two years-worth of government spending during that time as well.

Meier said that he is expecting around $100 million-$200 million to go into the reserve fund which state legislature could use for upcoming budget discussions.

He also discussed how the state legislature has helped make investing and keeping track of everything easier through a new accounting system and discussed how more residents of Wyoming are claiming their unclaimed property items that are held.

United States Senate candidates in attendance at the dinner were Robert Short, Donna Rice, Mark Armstrong and Josh Wheeler, but Wheeler left early due to a family emergency. A representative for Cynthia Lummis was present, and Bryan Miller sent a letter due to a family scheduling conflict.

Wyoming State Senate candidates that were present were Linda Weeks and Ed Cooper for Senate District 20, and Mike Greear for House District 27 who is running unopposed in the Aug. 18 primary.

Other candidates seeking office who were present were Aaron Anderson who is running for Washakie County Commissioner and Worland Mayor Jim Gill.