The state agency manages state trust land, property intended to raise money for Wyoming schools, under the auspices of the five-member State Board of Land Commissioners. The board’s members include the state’s top elected officials: governor, treasurer, auditor, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction.

Crowder said Basecamp Hospitality LLC, the Utah-based company building what some have dubbed “Teton Village Resort,” wanted to talk with state land commissioners and ensure “there’s no appearance or optics that they’re trying to do something without the board’s knowledge.”

Basecamp CEO Ryan Thomas did not return a request for comment. Staff said he was not available.

But public comment will likely not be taken Thursday because the board will consider it as an “information only” item. Gov. Mark Gordon has the power to open public comment, Crowder said. But Gordon’s spokesperson said Tuesday that the governor didn’t have any plans to do so, though that could change.

Sixteen Teton County residents, including the head of the Teton County Democrats and a former Teton County engineer, are lobbying the governor to allow comment at Thursday’s meeting.

Jared Smith, one of the 16, said the idea of not opening public comment was frustrating, particularly after state land commissioners traveled to Teton County two summers ago and committed to a “robust public dialogue” with the community. When critics of Basecamp’s proposal — and a separate storage operation that commissioners approved — spoke up at a public meeting in June, they presented an alternative development plan for the roughly 20-acre parcel near Teton Village. Then, officials promised to work with Teton County to find a long-term plan for the parcel. Not opening public comment, Smith said, flouts those commitments.

“It seems very frustrating to not be allowed an opportunity for public comment, especially when there’s been violation after violation of Basecamp’s own commitments and the state commitments,” Smith said.

The meeting, set to start at 8 a.m. in Cheyenne, comes after Teton County and a local water quality advocacy group, Protect Our Water Jackson Hole, put some legal teeth behind their complaints with Basecamp.

On Monday the county initiated formal abatement proceedings, a process that begins with a notice of violation, that could end up with a hearing in front of the Teton County Board of County Commissioners and, if Basecamp continues doing the work Teton County disapproves of thereafter, in front of a local judge.

Basecamp now has 10 days to rectify the problems the county has identified. They include violating setback requirements for development and leach fields, a failure to identify wetlands, refusal to comply with scenic development standards, and starting electrical work without a permit.

“We listed everything,” Teton County’s Chief Deputy County Attorney Keith Gingery said.

But Gingery said commissioners also are poised to approve a letter next week asking land commissioners to revoke Basecamp’s permits, which require the company to follow “all state, federal and local laws and regulations.” Though Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens dismissed an earlier county lawsuit saying the county didn’t have standing to sue, Protect our Water Jackson Hole noticed that line in the permit.

The county has since taken it up as its next line of attack, though Crowder said the Office of State Lands and Investments still believes developments on state trust land are not obligated to follow local code.

Asked specifically about the line in the temporary use permit, Crowder said “you’re dipping into a little bit of a legal question that I may not be able to answer for you, not being an attorney.”

Protect Our Water Jackson Hole, meanwhile, is suing the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality for approving a permit for the septic system Basecamp is installing on the property. Among other things, the water quality advocates say a raised leach field is too close to class one wetlands. And, they argue, the way the DEQ approved the facility — with an expedited review under a 2017 general permit — wasn’t appropriate.

That permit needed to be renewed before June, when it expired, the lawsuit claims. Since Basecamp’s notice of coverage for the septic facility was approved after, the nonprofit is arguing it’s invalid.

Judge Owens is now set to review Protect our Water’s petition. This is the first lawsuit the nonprofit has filed. Executive Director Meghan Quinn said Protect our Water did so in part because of its history of advocating for Fish Creek. The nonprofit was originally formed as Friends of Fish Creek, the watershed where Basecamp’s operation sits. Protecting it is “at our core,” she said.

Quinn added that her group’s concerns go beyond water quality: “Every single part of this is wrong,” she said.

This article has been updated to correct an error. The meeting will start at 8 a.m., though the Basecamp issue is far down the agenda. — Eds.