Judd Grossman Files to Run for Town Council

May 23, 2016

For Immediate Release:

Jackson resident Judd Grossman has filed to run for Town Council. Grossman, a local musician and businessman, is running against incumbents Jim Stanford and Hailey Morton Levinson for a 4-year term on the Jackson Town Council.

“My principles and positions are clear: the General Excise Tax increase should be defeated at the ballot in November and taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to directly subsidize housing for private employees and their private employers, because that is corporate welfare.”

Grossman, who has been an active voice at the Jackson Town Council and Teton County Commission meetings, came to Jackson in 1980. He’s had a 30-year career as a musician, and along with his wife Mary, founded the alternative weekly newspaper, Planet Jackson Hole Weekly. He was a Town Planning Commission member in the 1990’s and was part of a local activist group called “People for the Plan” that fought in support the 1994 Comprehensive Plan.

His website www.votejudd.com refers to his pledges if he’s elected:

I will not give in to big development interests that want to cash in on our valley.

I will not give in to individuals and special interests who want to turn the government’s coffers into their own personal piggy bank.

I will tenaciously defend the taxpayer’s hard earned money.

I will provide real solutions to our workforce housing and traffic challenges.

I will fight to protect the character of our neighborhoods, our open spaces and our wildlife habitat.

Grossman is concerned that our community is on the wrong track, and that we can’t expect that to change by reelecting the current incumbents.

“The Workforce Housing Action Plan and the Integrated Transportation Plan that our elected officials recently passed are fundamentally flawed documents. They call for a massive increase in taxes without a coherent and intelligent plan for how to make our traffic and housing problems better.

The Community Priorities Fund the tax increase will support is a blank check for the government to give the appearance as if it’s doing something about our traffic and housing, but the return on investment – in even in the best case scenarios – is pathetic. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent to only improve traffic and housing by a few percentage points. This constitutes a huge money and power grab by local government that is nothing more than unbelievably expensive lip service.

I love this town, I’ve been here for over thirty years, and now that my kids are growing up I’m ready to offer my time and energy to the Town Council to make sure that we preserve this great community and guide its growth in the proper direction.

I will propose a workforce housing overlay that will use zoning incentives to encourage the private sector to build deed restricted workforce housing without requiring massive taxpayer subsidies.

Morton Levinson and Stanford have done some good things on the Town Council, but their support of the flawed Integrated Transportation Plan and Workforce Housing Action Plan, and their reckless effort to implement an unprecedented General Excise Tax increase of over 15% to fund these wasteful and ineffective transit and housing plans are deal breakers.

If you think Jackson is on the right track then vote for four more years of the same ineffective leadership. If you think we are on the wrong track, then I’d like to ask for your vote. I promise to be the taxpayer’s watchdog in government, and to propose real solutions to our housing and traffic problems, not just lip service.”

Visit votejudd.com to learn more about Judd Grossman’s principles and policy positions.

Judd Grossman for Town Council

P.O. Box 3222

Jackson, WY 83001

307-690-4935

campaign@juddgrossman.com

https://www.facebook.com/JuddGrossmanTC/

https://twitter.com/JuddGrossmanTC

https://www.instagram.com/juddgrossman

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