May 31—CHEYENNE — In 2020, Michelle Aldrich was the only new face elected to serve on Cheyenne City Council. This year, she has announced she will seek another four years serving the residents of Ward 3, which covers primarily the south-central and southeast part of the city.

She told the WTE that she believes Cheyenne has a bright future, and she wants to continue projects she has been working on over the past few years.

“Cheyenne has been a great community for me and for our family, and I want to make sure that we are able to maintain our quality of life and do that in a fiscally responsible way,” Aldrich said. “There’s a lot of growth on the horizon, and I want to make sure that it’s planned, and it’s controlled, rather than just random … that it results in something we’re going to have to live with for many years to come.”

For Aldrich, she said that one of the limiting factors for responsible growth is water. She acknowledged the importance of the city continuing to provide services and maintaining roads and supporting emergency response capacity as it grows and annexes new land and developments.

“Those are huge responsibilities, and those, in my mind, have to come first in our community. And then, if we have anything left over or anything extra, we can work on some of the amenities. But our first and foremost priority has to be taking care of basic necessities and what we’re required to do by statute,” she said.

Aldrich also noted her support for Mayor Patrick Collins’ priority of boosting affordable housing development in the community. She said she hopes the council will continue to approach this through changes to the city’s Unified Development Code and working with developers to create more multi-family housing units.

Aldrich is currently the council representative to the Cheyenne Animal Shelter board and the Metropolitan Planning Organization. She previously served as the council liaison to the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Council.

She works for the Wyoming Department of Education as the career and technical education supervisor after teaching family and consumer sciences at Triumph High School for 15 years.

When she made the decision to run for council, she hoped to bring civility to a “fairly dysfunctional” council.

“It was a council that really was difficult to watch. And, as a classroom teacher, I just decided that I didn’t want my students seeing that that was what government looked like. I thought we could do better by working together,” she said. “… There’s a lot to be said for civility and for decorum and for kindness. And I don’t think we appreciate what we have nearly often enough, whether it’s our employees, or whether it’s our lifestyle in our community. So, I just ran for public office because I wanted to model better government for my students and for my grandchildren.”

As the only female member of the council, she said she hopes to inspire a more diverse population, including other women, younger people and people of color, to consider getting involved in politics and in the community. To Aldrich, diversity leads to strength through a variety of thoughts and ideas.

She moved to the community when she was in fourth grade and grew up in Cheyenne. She said she has seen it change and grow, and wants to continue to serve the community.

“There’s not very many places in the country that you can work and leave your office at five o’clock and be on a lake by 5:30 out at Curt Gowdy or out at Granite, or be hiking at Vedauwoo by 5:30 or be on the golf course by 5:15. We actually have the option to go to the big city if we want to for the day and come home at night,” Aldrich said. “We have the best of both worlds.”

Outside of council, Aldrich belongs to the Rotary Club of Cheyenne, currently serving as the area governor for the southeast region of Wyoming; recently finished a two-year term as the local Zonta president, and belongs to Delta Kappa Gamma, a society of women educators.

Two seats are up for election in 2024 for Cheyenne City Council members representing Ward 3. They are currently held by Aldrich and Richard Johnson, who have both filed for reelection in 2024. In total, six of the nine council seats are up for reelection this fall, two in each ward.

Noah Zahn is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s local government/business reporter. He can be reached at 307-633-3128 or nzahn@wyomingnews.com. Follow him on X @NoahZahnn.