Packed Planning Commission Meeting Hears Neighbors Oppose Bit-O-Wyo Ranch Venue

Wildcat Trail's 16% grade has become the defining conflict in Laramie County's most-watched rural land-use fight in recent memory. More than 50 opponents packed the planning commission's hearing room — the largest crowd it had ever seen, by observers' accounts — to contest a proposed wedding and events venue at 470 Happy Jack Road, only to watch commissioners approve a Class C Conditional Use Permit after roughly two hours of public comment.

The venue is Bit-O-Wyo Ranch Wedding & Event Venue, proposed by Tania Riedel of Riedel Ventures LLC, who purchased 39.97 acres of the historic property after it sat dormant for more than a year. Riedel plans to operate seasonally from May 1 through October, hosting indoor weddings capped at 100 guests alongside reunions and concerts. The ranch had historically offered horseback trail rides and cowboy chuckwagon dinner shows at the same address before going quiet.

Most opponents arrived in coordinated T-shirts reading "Safety first! Vote NO to Bit-O-Wyo" and "Protect BLM land, public land and our community," drawn largely from the neighboring Cheyenne Pass and Table Mountain Ranches communities. John Isebaert, president of the Cheyenne Pass HOA and a working wildland firefighter, led the organized opposition, arguing that Riedel's plan to bus all guests from Cheyenne via a pending Bureau of Land Management access lease was unrealistic: event guests "are not going to want to ride shuttle."

The road concern is not hypothetical. Neighbor Jo Zimmerman testified she has "seen countless vehicles slide off of it, get stuck on it, land in a ditch" on Wildcat Trail and warned of "a hundred or more possible vehicles" converging during events. Riedel acknowledges that residential easements connecting Happy Jack Road to the property are off-limits for commercial use; her pending 30-year BLM lease application would route all guests by shuttle through adjacent public land. Attorney Jeffrey Boldt urged commissioners to keep the access question separate from the liquor licensing track, calling the conflation a legal error by opponents.

Riedel's team offered in November 2025 to pay for an automatic gate with a keypad and multiple remotes at the Cheyenne Pass neighborhood entrance; the HOA did not respond. A BLM biologist visited the site and found no active bird nests, though a fuller wildlife survey is planned. Community opposition has been continuous since early 2024.

The Laramie County Board of Commissioners had unanimously approved a retail liquor license for the venue in November 2025, conditioned on Riedel securing a formal site plan. County Attorney Mark Voss warned that operating commercially without one would be "in violation of law." Commissioner Troy Thompson, who personally drove Wildcat Trail before weighing in, acknowledged "a lot of challenges ahead for the applicant" while still backing the concept, saying "I really love the thought of this area and this property being regenerated."

The approved CUP, with staff-recommended conditions attached, goes before the full Board of Commissioners on April 21 at the Laramie County Historic Courthouse, 310 W. 19th St., in Cheyenne.

The pattern here is instructive for anyone watching rural development pressure build along roads outside Laramie. At the planning commission stage, neighbors who place specific, documented concerns on the record — road grade, fire response time, intoxicated-driver risk on narrow gravel — can force conditions into a permit even when denial is off the table. Once a CUP clears that stage with staff-recommended language, the leverage shifts. If a comparable proposal surfaces on a gravel road near Albany County, the planning commission hearing is the moment that matters most.