ROCK SPRINGS — The Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce hosted a debate between candidates for the Wyoming Legislature’s House District 60 at Western Wyoming College Aug. 12.

Ted Ware, moderator, outlined the format of the debate: each candidate would get a two minute opening statement, followed by questions with 90 seconds for an initial response and 90 seconds for the opponent to respond, a rebuttal if necessary, and a three minute closing statement. 

Opening statements

Tony Niemiec, a 50-year resident of Green River and the one-term HD 60 representative before incumbent Marlene Brady defeated him in 2024, said he returned home from the Marine Corps and joined the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office. He had a 22-year career at the sheriff’s office and retired three years ago. 

Brady described Wyoming being at a crossroads. 

“Whether we continue down a path of low GDP (Gross Domestic Product), high inflation, low wages, high property taxes, poorly performing schools and a decrease to our mining and agriculture industries.” 

Brady said that while 39% of schools are not meeting expectations, it is not the fault of the teachers.

“I believe in protecting our constitutional rights, defending parental rights, supporting our families, keeping our community safe and making sure government lives within its means,” Brady said.

What do you see as the most important issue of the upcoming session and how do you plan to deal with it? 

Niemiec said the economy is the top issue. He said Wyoming has to attract manufacturing businesses and expand the state’s mining, oil and gas industry. 

“These things we need to bring more jobs into the state and keep our people here, our youth to work here” he said. “In my opinion that is the most important.”

Brady agreed that the economy is the most important issue. She said the economy deals with everything from taxes, to how much the government collects and spends.

“I would promote, heavily, private enterprise and encourage more business to come to our communities and to be able to get the regulations and rules out of the way so they can expand.”

She said she’d like to ensure the government is only collecting what is necessary because she believes in a limited government based on the Wyoming Constitution and the Wyoming Republican Party. 

“The government is supposed to provide those essential services that we need, things we can’t do ourselves, plow the roads, infrastructure, such as that,” she said. “Beyond that we need to look at how we can protect the Wyoming taxpayer and at the same time, control the expansion of government.”

How do you feel about school choice, funding allocation and curriculum reform in Wyoming public schools?

Brady said she believes parents have the ultimate authority over their child’s education, whether it be public, private, charter or homeschool. 

“The parent is the ultimate decision maker,” she said. “Therefore I fully support school choice.”

She said that they are obligated by the state to fund K-12 and that curriculum reform is the local school decision to use a certain curriculum. 

“It’s a local control effort in my mind,” she said. 

Niemiec said he supports school choice and did when he was in the legislature. He believes that the state needs to give the schools tools and let them decide the best way to use funds. 

“The state legislature needs to give the tools to the school boards and let them decide the best way to use those funds,” he said. “That is what they are elected for, the bottom up is how we do it.” 

Brady used her rebuttal card to follow up on her original statement. 

“I think we passed the best recalibration bill there was, it exceeded the expectations of the school, $114 million more than was even necessary,” she said. “I’m very proud that Wyoming and this legislature picked it up and passed a very good bill.”

What is your stance on public lands policy and balancing energy development with conservation?  

Niemiec said that public lands need to stay in public hands.

“We should not be selling off state lands, federal lands or any public lands,” he said. “Let’s increase what’s been coming into this state, let’s keep the jobs flowing.”

Brady largely agreed with Niemiec, but said the focus should be on conservation rather than preservation. Conservation would see use of hunting, fishing and camping continued the way it is now.

“Whatever it is we want to do, not preservation,” she explained. “That would stop us from even walking though those areas.

She also agreed that mineral exploration would be a good use of public lands to bring in revenue and is not in favor of selling public lands. 

Wyoming currently has a long-term homeowner property tax exemption, are you in favor of extending or repealing that exemption. 

Brady said she was active in bringing in a voter initiative in November that would bring a 50% residential property tax reduction. 

“I am absolutely in favor of extending it,” Brady said.

She claimed that 3% of Sweetwater County’s revenue comes from residential property tax.

“Even if it’s 50%, that’s only 1.5% of a budget that needs to be adjusted,” she said.

Niemiec said he is also in favor of keeping the long-term homeowner exemption. He said the exemption was set up to help the people and that the cut is backfilled by the state legislature. 

“It does not hurt the counties or cities,” Niemiec said. “I’m in favor of keeping that program how it is and extending it.” 

What do you see as the positives and negatives of data centers in Wyoming and how would you control the negatives?

Niemiec said he is one of the few people around that like the idea of data centers. He said he likes the tax revenue and the jobs that are brought into the state. Niemiec also claimed that a lot of misinformation has been spread about data centers.

“The State of Wyoming has already put in certain regulations to control the building of these data centers,” Niemiec said. “You need to educate the people in the State of Wyoming about the regulations that the state is placed in and should have people go to those data centers, take a look at them.” 

Brady said that the U.S. is well ahead in the race for data centers against China. She also said the amount of jobs that data centers would provide is not established.

“I’m for the people, whatever industry you are speaking of, it should go before the people first,” Brady said. 

Brady pointed out issues residents are having with data centers in the state, referencing a water contamination issue in Cheyenne. 

A full video of the debates can be found on SweetwaterNOW’s Facebook page here.