Now I know you can't rehearse everything

Key Takeaways

as told by Gunnar Malm, Laramie County, Wyo. commissioner

I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into when I joined the Laramie County Board of Commissioners, because I watched four years of meetings when I was starting my campaign. 

The commission records their meetings, so every night, I’d watch one. I wanted to get an idea of the breadth of issues the commissioners could face so I would be ready if I were elected. Much to my wife’s dismay, I’d watch 2-3 hours a night. 

I saw how our development process works, our land use policies. I learned about all kinds of interesting issues around fireworks, malt beverage permits, motorcycle gangs. I saw how the work was done and what people expected from their commission.

I met with anybody who would talk to me — former commissioners, current commissioners, department heads — I just tried to get a handle on what county government did. I met with the Wyoming County Commissioners Association to get an idea of its role and the interplay between the counties in our state.

I felt like as a commissioner, it was really important that I understand the funding structure for the county government. I felt like I had a good handle on the budget and how we work with our federal partners and grants to accomplish things. We’re a small county of 100,000, but we’re the largest in the state of Wyoming.

I was always interested in politics—when I was in fifth grade, I wrote a letter to President Clinton, telling him how to solve all of these different problems. I was the public policy director for the state for the National Association of Realtors and always knew I would run for office. But I wanted to make sure it was the right time — I have a hard and fast rule to not run just to run — so I would only run if there was an opening or if someone wasn’t doing a good job. Then there was an opening in 2018. With my background in land use and private property rights, I felt like commissioner was the appropriate role for me, rather than city council or the Legislature. And I’ve really, really enjoyed my time as a commissioner, it’s given me a chance to learn even more about the community where I have been living for 40 years and my family has been living for 150 years.

What strikes me is that with all of that research and all of those meetings, I  watched, within a month, I was dealing with issues the county hadn’t dealt with before. In a year, we were all dealing with issues nobody had considered for 100 years. They don’t put global pandemics in the pamphlet “So you want to be a county commissioner.”

 It was an interesting time, a trying time, but ultimately, a rewarding time to see our community ultimately come together.