(originally published March 29, 2020)

The elves who put this blog together for you have been abiding by the new social distance mores - staying at home, keeping at least 6’ apart and working from home. This many days in, they have had a LOT of screen time on the intertubes, which leads us to the subject of Wyoming. Yes. That Wyoming, the state. They found a lot of information about Wyoming on the intertubes. For instance, the population of Wyoming is roughly the same as the population of Sacramento County’s unincorporated UnCity. Let’s compare the two, shall we?

• Wyoming has two Senators and a Representative in Congress, a state government with a Legislature of 60 Representatives (1 for every 9000 people) and 30 Senators (1 for every 18000 people), 23 counties with Boards of Supervisors, and 99 cities with Mayors and City Councils. Cities in Wyoming with more than 4,000 people are known in Wyoming statutes as “first-class cities”. The largest city in Wyoming is Cheyenne. The third-largest city is Laramie. Together, with about as many people as there are here in Arden Arcade, they represent about 17% of the population of Wyoming.
• The UnCity, the largest political sub-unit in Sacramento County, does not have its own Senators in Congress, or its own state government. It is served by two Congressional representatives, shared with several cities. There are no Mayors or City Councils for the UnCity. Arden Arcade is represented by a Board of Supervisors (1 for every 305,000 people). Places in the UnCity with more than 4,000 people are easily found within areas smaller than 1 square mile. Arden Arcade’s 100,000 people equal about 17% of the UnCity’s population.

Democracy and local control are wonderful…if you live in Wyoming, where there is plenty of it. The UnCity and Arden Arcade? Not so much. Maybe it would help to think of the UnCity as #NotWyoming.