City council to induct new members, choose mayor, vice-mayor
Vice-Mayor Sharon Cumbie will begin a second term on council, joined by newcomers William Bowling, Melanie Vigil, Jim Fried and Matt Lockhart.
The Laramie City Council will induct four new members Tuesday, welcoming the first-time politicians who won their respective ward races in November.
Vice-Mayor Sharon Cumbie — the only city councilor to be reelected in 2024 — will also begin her second term, taking another oath of office alongside her newest colleagues. Those new colleagues include:
William Bowling, a progressive candidate who will represent Ward 1 alongside Cumbie.
Melanie Vigil, a progressive candidate who received the highest vote total in the race for Ward 2.
Jim Fried, a progressive candidate who will represent Ward 2 alongside Vigil.
Matt Lockhart, a moderate candidate who will represent Ward 3.
The councilors-elect attended their first orientation in November and have each been attending or streaming the council meetings since then. The incoming councilors have also been meeting with City Manager Janine Jordan and other city staff.
Bowling said he feels ready to serve — or at least as ready as a first-time official can be.
“It, in some ways, is probably a fool’s errand to try and fully prepare yourself for a job you haven’t had yet,” he said. “But I do feel like I’m in a good position, at least in terms of the support I have around me, to hit the ground running — hopefully with not too deep of a learning curve.”
Vigil said she feels “really positive” about the four-year term ahead of her.
“I really want to be in a position where I can build relationships, because I think that’s where I thrive,” she said. “So that doesn’t just mean build[ing] relationships with my constituents. It also means building relationships with our city employees, too.”
In the following year, the Laramie City Council will likely tackle more housing issues, whether that means encouraging new construction or strengthening the rental housing code. The council is also set to investigate options for public transportation.
These two interconnected issues — housing and transportation — are top of mind for Cumbie, Bowling, Vigil and Fried. These four candidates ran together as a slate, promising to pursue a progressive agenda on both fronts.
“What I ran so hard for during my campaign was affordable and safe housing,” Vigil said. “Figuring out what Laramie looks like in the next three to five years, I think that’s going to be critical … I’ll be honest: I don’t have a huge, ‘This is what we can do, and this is the perfect solution.’ But I’m excited to be able to be in the conversation of what that looks like, and how we move forward, and how we protect our residents — and how we build affordable, sustainable housing.”
Vigil said public transportation is sorely needed in Laramie — especially for her immediate neighbors in West Laramie, who are cut off from the bulk of the city by a railroad, a river and an interstate.
“It’s a struggle out here,” Vigil said. “We have the Dollar General — which is great in case you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have butter, I can’t go all the way to Safeway. It’s a blizzard.’ … But I’d really like to explore what public transportation looks like in West Laramie, because I don’t think we have a lot of it.”
Public transportation could better connect West Laramie residents with the vital services found east of the tracks, Vigil said, such as by ensuring that her elderly neighbors have rides to doctor’s appointments.
But Vigil and the other councilors-elect said they don’t have a pre-written list of ordinances they want to pass.
For Fried, the two months between the election and taking his oath of office have been a time to drill down on the issues facing the city and listen to new perspectives.
“It’s definitely a learning curve,” he said. “You think you know enough, or you know a decent amount. And you might. But then there’s always more to learn. There’s always more to understand, especially with some of these hard topics.”
The councilors-elect become councilors Tuesday.
“I feel ready in the sense that I think I’ve done my homework,” Fried said. “I’m just excited to get my hands dirty and start having time for conversations. It’s time to earn the respect and trust of the people and also hopefully make some lasting impacts in our community that are for everybody. I feel like I’m as ready as I can be.”
Cumbie and the new councilors will join Councilors Micah Richardson (Ward 1), Brandon Newman (Ward 2), Erin O’Doherty (Ward 3) and Joe Shumway (Ward 3) — whose current terms extend through 2026 — to fill out the nine-member governing body.
“I think we have a lot of good folks coming in,” Vigil said. “And there’s some good folks already there to mentor us.”
Also on Tuesday, the councilors will decide a mayor and vice-mayor from among themselves. The current mayor, Brian Harrington, will not be returning to council.
Lockhart declined to comment for this story.
Well hopefully they will actually do more than praise the city manager and give her raises. Hey one can dream.
Let's hope they are not inclined to make Laramie's city government even more bloated, bureaucratic, unresponsive, and wasteful - issues that concerned most of the voters to whom I spoke during the campaign. We need to get Laramie's city government back under the control of the people, not the bureaucracy.