County Commissioners weigh letter faulting Park Service Moose-Wilson amendment

The Teton County Board of County Commissioners will consider on Monday, Sept. 28, a draft letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum expressing "disappointment" with the National Park Service's Aug. 14, 2026 amendment to the Moose-Wilson Corridor Record of Decision. The item is listed as proposed outgoing correspondence, and the draft carries Chair Mark Newcomb's signature line. According to the draft letter, the amendment "adds a separated multiuse pathway along the length of the corridor and realigns a segment of the road." It says the Park Service selected pathway and realignment elements of Alternative D that the 2016 decision had dismissed. The agency said it reopened the decision to align with Executive Order 14314's direction on recreational access. The draft adds that the amendment describes mitigation and possible wetland benefits from moving part of the road. It says those measures "do not erase the County's concern."

The only earlier county action in the record is the one the draft attaches. On Jan. 26, 2016, a Board chaired by Barbara Allen, with Newcomb as vice chair, wrote to Grand Teton Superintendent David Vela as a cooperating agency. That Board praised a "thorough, open and inclusive process" and stated it did not support "a separate pathway along the entire corridor" (2016 letter, attached). Newcomb is the one commissioner who sat on both Boards. The 2026 draft calls the new amendment a reversal of the decision the county endorsed then.