The Wyoming State Loan and Investment Board just approved a new agreement that brings a gun ammunitions company to Cheyenne for fewer tax dollars.
The previous agreement was a grant/loan combination of $13 million. The new agreement would be an $8.3 million grant, some of which the company would pay back.
That’s because of a new plan that would house the company in preexisting facilities.
Magpul is leaving Colorado after that state tightened its gun regulations and outlawed some of the manufacturing processes Magpul uses. Randy Bruns, the CEO of Cheyenne’s economic development group, says it will bring 200 new jobs to Laramie County.
Some opponents to Cheyenne’s sponsorship of the move worry that the company may move workers from Colorado, rather than hiring people in Wyoming. Bruns says that the majority will be locals, but that a few people from Colorado wouldn’t be bad thing, either. “I don’t think that we are at that point yet where we want to build a big fence and put up border guards to stop people moving one state to another,” Bruns says.
Bruns says that hiring in Wyoming is already happening. “And those workers are actually commuting to Colorado to complement their workforce down there and to get training in preparation for the move up here,” Bruns says.
The company is expected to be operational in Cheyenne by November.
