John DeMatteis (Republican)

8465 US-16
Buffalo, Wyoming 82834
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I have lived in Wyoming for 20+ years. I am a husband, father, grandfather. I currently have a ranch raising Yaks and live off-grid in beautiful Buffalo WY.

I have a business background working in the food industry for 35 years. My final position was Director of Sales for Amy’s Kitchen where I worked for 20 years. When I began their Sales were $48 mm and when I left they were $600 mm. I help build the sales team. Along with hiring and managing a team of 18 people, I called on and managed several key customers like – Costco, Kroger, Safeway…
While doing this I also opened a restaurant “Up in Smoke” on main street as well as an Antique store.

University of TX Arlington, NLP learning Systems and many sales trainings.

JOCO First Board, Chamber member.

My first thoughts were like many others here that I wanted to give back to the community that has given me so much. After spending the time going to commissioner meetings, local board meetings and special district meetings I truly believe I have something to offer that will make Johnson County as better place. Just this week at an airport board meeting, I found out that the commissioners had voted in Jan to raise hanger rates at the airport. The county was to send out updated leases after previously taking the leases from the airport board. Since the board did not have the leases in their possession they have been waiting on the commissioners. As of this week they still have not sent out the updated leases with increases 7 months later.
I think a government that the community is involved with is the best form of government. I will get all of our commissioner meeting put online so that people can attend online or in person. I would look to change the timing of some meeting to the evenings so that people can attend. I would also consider taking meeting to Kaycee 3-4 times per year. Currently we can attend ever state committee meeting online as well as our cemetery board meetings. The technology is there we need to get people involved and make it easier for them to participate.

#1 – Growth as our county grows we need to be prepared for it. the county and the city need to work together on this since many of the county developments will be annexed into the city over time. We do not have a current land use plan and are working off of zoning regs that badly need updated.

#2 – Property taxes – As most WY counties property taxes are going through the roof. I saw a 35% increase this year. Johnson County has 4th highest Mil levy rate in the state, we are #5 in avg property tax and #3 in rate of property tax by income for the county. we need to work with hte special districts to keep the mils down and push the state to make change.

#3 Transparency – I would like to put all of our county meeting online. We do this at the state level and can do it at the county level as well. the more people are informed the better the decisions we can make together.