Big Changes to the Friess School Bill, was "Lex Anteinternet: We're really conservative except when we're not. ..."

Calling this the "Friess School Bill" may be a little unfair, but at least that allows anyone tracking it to know what we're talking about.  We first reported on this bill here:\

Lex Anteinternet: We're really conservative except when we're not. ...: In our recent Gubernatorial election, some candidates from the hard right complained that a couple of candidates who were on the right, but...

The bill as originally written would have exempted private schools from local zoning requirements, pretty much entirely. This came about after a small private school sponsored by the Friess family in Jackson, which has something like only 3% of its area available for development in any fashion, ran afoul of Teton County zoning and was turned down for an expansion.  Apparently the school is facing eviction, in addition, from the church that now houses it, if the report in today's Tribune is correct.

Well, the bill apparently was really controversial in committee and ultimately Democratic Senator Chris Rothfuss offered an amendment that not only changed it, it modified it out of existence from its prior form.  The bill as amended requires private schools to pass the state's Schools Facilities Commissions, just like the public ones do.

Wow.  That's a huge change.

I'm actually surprised that made it out of committee as that wouldn't have appeared to have been close to what the original sponsors wanted.  If I understand it correctly, the bill might exempt private schools from local zoning boards, maybe (I know that towns and cities in fact include where schools may or may not be in their local zoning, but maybe they don't restrict size, I'm not sure), but it adds a real element of state control to something that hasn't had it, and probably should have.  More on that in a future post, maybe.