Regional Forester Forsgren Retires

Intermountain Regional Forester Harv Forsgren this week announced plans to retire after the first of the year.   In 2010, Forsgren had proposed moving the Bridger Teton National Forest Supervisor’s office from Jackson to Alpine – a proposal that Forest Spokesperson Mary Cernicek says will remain on the table after his retirement.  Cernicek says the Forest is still under direction from the region to continue with conveyance of the property and continuing to look at whether the Forest Supervisor’s Office should relocate or stay in Jackson.  A decision on the latter, she says is anticipated to be made as of January 2013.  Meanwhile, Jackson voters this week disapproved a proposal to spend special purpose excise tax money on land the Forest Service wants to sell adjacent the current supervisor’s office.  Now, says Cernicek, the Forest will begin the process of finding another buyer.  She says the decision to sell the land had two parts:  one was to sell the land to the town in a direct sale – but failing that, the second party provided that the land should be auctioned off to the highest bidder. That auction she says will take place next spring.  She goes on to explain that any funds that would be realized from that sale is to be used for remodeling the existing building, building a new office if it is decided to move to Alpine, and to build a new fire cache for the interagency fire services.