The saga of the Wendover Gas Company and more importantly its surprise ending(s) was the story of the year for Wendover in 2013.
When the year began it appeared that West Wendover City’s entry into the gas business and even the gas pipeline business was all but a done deal.
Over the previous three years the ground work for a municipal takeover of the financially beleaguered gas/propane company had been laid. Several supply crises had been narrowly averted only with the 11th hour bailouts from the West Wendover City Council, an independent study commissioned and paid for by the city found that buying the gas company and building a pipeline to connect to the Ruby Pipeline 90 miles north were both affordable and extremely doable.
The municipal takeover of Wendover Gas and the construction of the pipeline seemed to be West Wendover’s next big thing and then suddenly it wasn’t and for the first time in its history West Wendover begins a new year with no big project underway or on the horizon.
From the construction of the Toana Vista Golf course even before West Wendover incorporated to the most recent beautification project of Victorian style light poles West Wendover has always had some kind of often flashy publicly funded project.
In the beginning those public projects were always done in tandem with private developments. The millions spent on the golf course, on the compost plant on the Ola Grade off ramp were all done during an era of unprecedented growth in West Wendover. During the first round of public growth four major casinos were built as were three residential housing developments, several apartment complexes, four mobile home parks and a shopping center.
Public and private spending hit a major bump with the StateLine Bankruptcy in 2003, however with the acquisition of the corporation’s two casinos and their subsequent renovations and expansion private and public growth was once again full steam ahead.
The second growth spurt was by no means as rapid or diversified as the first new home construction lagged as did private non-casino development. But the tax base expanded enough for the city council to at least justify some of its most ostentatious developments including the $10 million City Hall, the Wendover Will statue.
But the Great Recession hit West Wendover hard and all the private casino growth was put on indefinite hold. Still public spending continued unabated. After the city was built the spending spree continued extended to the Wendover Will statue, the Victorian street lamps et cetera.
At the same time West Wendover was spending public money the council began to adopt stricter and stricter building codes and business regulations that help extend the down turn of the Great Recession long after it ended nationally in 2009.
Privately people began to predict that there had to be a reckoning. With a stagnant tax base the city could simply no longer borrow and spend on massive public projects.
However no one reckoned that the reckoning would come so soon and especially over the gas company.
A year before the city and the company signed a letter of intent to explore the possibility of purchasing the company and even commissioned and paid for a feasibility study that was generally favorable to the purchase.
The $10,000 feasibility study prepared by Bob Springmeyer of Bonneville Research enthusiastically endorsed not only buying the beleaguered utility but also the natural gas pipeline in its synopsis. In total the city spent $24,000 in the process.
The feasibility study suggested that given the right conditions the city of West Wendover could purchase the gas company and operate it at either a profit or at least at the break even point.
That conclusion also gave the council political cover to support the project and to answer critics that the council had not done its due diligence in researching the project.
But in the two weeks between the release of the study and the council vote opposition to the purchase of the as company and the construction of the natural gas pipeline was growing most significantly from casino executives who reportedly not only read the report’s synopsis but also the numbers behind the conclusion. While initially favorable to the idea when it was first proposed and until late last year several executives in the casino industry began to weigh the savings offered by natural gas to the cost of the pipeline and the debt burden it would place on the city and the cost that would have to be incurred to change over from propane to natural gas.
The withdrawal of casino support may have been crucial to councilman Roy Briggs to vote against the project despite being one of its most ardent supporters in the past.
The doubts whether the city could break even on the gas company was perhaps compounded with the question on the cost of the pipeline. While estimated in the feasibility report to cost just over $9 million Wendover has been burned before with overly optimistic projections.
After the city withdrew from the purchase, the problems of the Wendover Gas were fixed the old fashioned way by the private sector.
Steve Shute who had been the trustee of the company, became a partner purchasing 40 percent of the company.
The saga of the gas company is not only important in and of itself, it could also be a significant turning point in West Wendover history when there are no more Next Biog Things or if there are , they will be significantly smaller.
