Council - Regular Meeting

This Heavenfield Town Council for July 27th, 2026 is now called to order. Lexi, roll call.

Mayor Ernie Blackford.

Here.

Council Member Daisha Edwards. Here. Council Member Greg Plestek.

Here.

Council Member Alana Vino. Here. Council Member Chad Edwards asked to be excused. Town Attorney... Town Engineer Shane Porter.

Here.

Town Clerk Janelle Underwood asked to be excused. Chief of Police Mike Thompson asked to be excused. Fire Chief Mark Cornett asked to be excused. Public Works Director Dan Corson. And Town Treasurer Lexi Erickson and the Interested Citizens.

Okay, do I have a motion for approval of agenda I move to approve the agenda Motion a second all those in favor aye opposed motion passed Consent of agenda we have a couple items approval of minutes regular meeting July 13th 2026 and approval of business licenses 24-hour heating and air conditioning LLC and Ficon and Fipro LLC Do I have a motion for consent? I so move I'll second I have a motion and a second all those in favor aye opposed motion passed we will now open this up for public comments and as you know when you come forward leave give your name and you have five minutes so we are open for public comments hello good evening

I am Rachel Pryor. This is Jesse Hodges. We are both with Central Wyoming Counseling Center's Mobile Crisis Team, and we just wanted to introduce ourselves. I don't know if you've heard of us yet. We've been around for about a year now, and we assist with mental health and substance use-related crises. We would like to work more with the town of Evansville, like work more with the police department, emergency services, and the fire department.

And we respond to anything that's considered a mental health crisis or potentially drug psychosis, suicidal ideation, those kinds of things. Statistically, if there's a mental health response along with first responders, we're more of a second responder once the scene is safe. There's a benefit to individuals who go into trauma, going through something along those lines. And as we work together, we just want to improve the quality of our community, try to help as many people as we can.

I guess this would probably be you'd need to reach out to our police chief who's on vacation right now and probably our fire chief and just set up an appointment with them to get together and say, I'd enjoy to sit down with you too. I would say give it another week or so and then reach out to us and we'll see if we can set up some time to... get together and delve into it a little more in depth. Well, thank you guys very much for listening. Appreciate you coming forward and introducing yourselves. Thank you. Thank you.

Could you, by chance, bring any of your cards with you? I've got one of mine in the bag.

Good question. I forget to ask this. That's why I got you here.

That's okay.

One will be fine.

We can make it work.

She's the one that asked, so she gets it. All right. We'll get it to those people. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. How's it going? Jeremy Brown, 615 Full Street. It's been a while since I've been here. Been out in the patch working, and yeah. I just had a couple questions. I know that some of my neighbors and people around town have kind of, like, had issues with that fiber optic, and I was just kind of curious, like, how do they go about getting that rectified and fixed? Do you guys know? I was hoping that Janelle would be here, but. She's on vacation.

Okay. We've had some pretty serious discussions with him. And they are supposed to be following up and taking care of all the issues that you've been involved in, those discussions, right? I will make a comment that they still have a hole behind my place in the alley. It's never been filled. And I think we need to be reaching back out to them to be getting on that. Because I wasn't in that meeting. You were there. You were there. And I was told that they said that they would be taking care of all those situations.

They were working in the new part first. To my knowledge, I don't know if they've made it to the old part yet.

Yeah, I don't really know what their schedule was. They were working from the new part. through town and there is i mean they were more than willing to to address those things there is a number i don't have it i think janelle had it but i believe dan may have you know either so there is a contact number i don't know who has it or i would say if anyone has any issues or are still noticing stuff at their property if they would call and leave a message for janelle

And make sure you give your address and let them know what the issue is. Then she could probably reach out to a visionary.

Okay, cool. And then another question I had for you guys, I don't know if you can really go into it at all, just kind of about like personnel matters and that kind of stuff. Is there... anything in place for like the new mayor and the new council that comes in and because basically from what i understand happened down in mills is with the mayor that's out there she came in there and tried to fire on a bunch of people and there's a huge lawsuit of it and i'm just wondering if our town is kind of preventing something like that so that that way we don't get cost like a bunch of money for the taxpayers and then also to kind of help protect the employees because we have great employees here at town and i mean obviously the the things that protect the employees it's not a free pass that they can't be fired whatsoever it's just there's certain criteria that has to be met and if you guys actually do vote on that before processing and firing employees or i don't know if you guys can touch on that or yeah we have a charter ordinance for that okay yeah mayor can't just come in and arbitrarily fire everybody okay it would take the whole Well, maybe I'll get with you after the meeting because I'm kind of curious to read it.

I don't have a copy of it.

I just know it exists. Okay, perfect. Because she knows where to get it. Okay, yeah. That's all I needed to know. Cool. Thank you, guys.

Well, thank you. Welcome back.

I'm Phil Gerke and just for Jeremy's last question I don't know where that comes from but I'm pretty sure the current mayor and I know I would have no intention of doing any such thing and I'm pretty sure If Ernie was going to do that, he would have done that already. So I don't know where that rumor came from, but it's totally false, and that would be silly.

Well, I think he's going by what happened elsewhere. In Mills, yeah.

And just being concerned that it won't happen there. Well, anyway, I just want to assure everybody that I think both of us can agree on that, that it won't happen here. Well, good point. Thank you, Phil.

My name's Tanya Bergantz. And just to touch on your basis with Visionary, I don't know what's going on with Visionary, but the manager up there does not get... Like, if you call into Visionary, you get, like, the support theme. Like, I said, why are you in my yard? You guys aren't coming to get it. Blah, blah, blah. They don't get that communication up on English Avenue. And I've been helping one of your neighbors... get their wire buried, and they still messed it up. So if anybody on your street has problems, just have them go up to the office on English Avenue, talk to the manager, and I promise you, it will get fixed. Because I don't know where the communication is falling off of when you call, and they go, oh yeah, we'll put you on the schedule when we have time. It's not getting back to him, to the guy that was here at one of our council meetings, to get it fixed. He's thinking that everything is getting done. And when I told him, one of your neighbor's yards was not getting done and it needs to get done. He made sure they got out there and did it. They did it wrong, but they have to come back. So just if anybody asks, if you guys don't have the number, I would just recommend going up to English Avenue to the office and letting the manager up there know that your yard still has not been fixed. You've called in multiple times to have it fixed. And... Because I've had to do that like several times before my yard got fixed.

After you've done that, are they getting to you and getting it fixed?

Yes, they've came out and they've got it fixed and everything is done. I mean, like my landscaper, I just took them the bill and told them you guys are going to pay it because obviously you guys aren't going to get out and fix my rock bed that you guys tore up. And they paid my landscaper, so... I don't know where the communication and why he's not getting fed, because all he thinks is that everything is getting done when it's actually not. So I don't know if people are turning in work orders. It's A and it's B, and it's really not. But to my recollection, he's saying he's not getting it done. So I went directly up on English Avenue and said, listen, this is getting a little bit ridiculous. And between Janelle calling and me calling and everybody else calling, they finally...

Well, that's good to know. But you say you had to have some landscaping done after they finished? Yep. And they did come back?

Well, they paid my landscaper to fix it. They tore up my whole rock bed in the front of my yard. Okay.

That's good to know. Thank you for letting us know that. Are there any more public comments? Any more public comments? If there aren't, then public comments are closed. Next item, resolution number 4-2026. Lexi?

Mr. Mayor and Council, brought before you tonight is resolution number 4-2026. It's a resolution authorizing submission of application to the Wyoming Business Council under the Building Resilient

Communities grant and loan program for community readiness project on behalf of the governing body of the town of Evanston Do I have a motion for a resolution for days 2026 I so move a second I have a motion in a second Is there any discussion on this I okay there's no discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion passed next one ordinance number four days 2026. actually mr mayor and council brought before you tonight is ordinance 4-

2026 Visionary Franchise Agreement. It's an ordinance granting a franchise to Visionary Communications LLC on behalf of itself and its operating affiliates to operate and maintain a telecommunications system in Evansville, Wyoming. Before you tonight on third and final reading.

So do I have a motion for Ordinance 4-2026? I move. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?

Would it make sense to wait on this vote until everything is fixed just to keep them moving in that same direction in the getting it done and making sure it's done?

Well, I guess that's our decision to make. as governing body.

But I mean, to me, it's one of those that we don't give a final payment to any of our contractors or anything else until everything is done and signed off on. We obviously have still work in the community. Does this give us one extra thing of like, look, you guys have to get this done or is it when we sign this off, are they going to walk away? Scott, do you know?

So in terms of using that as leverage or something, I guess that's the council's prerogative. But those protections are in there and can't be enforced.

I like having that one more thing that covers the town and the residents.

It's just me. Well, we put them off on the first round. And at this point, I don't know if he'd do any more good because we were promised all that was going to get done. And we are hearing that they are getting to it. It's taken a lot of pushing. So I don't know that it was much good to do that. We will ask for a vote and see unless there's any more discussion.

I don't think it does any good to hold off on doing the agreement when there's already the stuff in the contract that says that they do have to come back and restore residents' yards prior to them digging or putting any utility boxes in. So I don't see really a need to withhold not going through the agreement.

Good point. it's a stronger arm, strong arm really to make sure they do quality work with their contractors and just going forward with that.

So my idea would be that if they keep dragging their heels and not getting done what they need to get done then we need to have Scott get a hold of them.

I mean, I know that Janelle does have good communication with people at Visionary, so we certainly have that in with them.

But hearing that they are stepping up and taking care of, you know, the cost for what they did with you, I like hearing that. All righty. Any more discussion? If not, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion passed. Next item, ordinance number 10-2026.

Mr. Mayor and Council, brought before you tonight is ordinance 10-2026. IN ORDINANCE APPROVING THE REZONE OF LOT 5 OF THE COAL CREEK INDUSTRIAL PARK FROM HEAVY INDUSTRIAL TO URBAN AGRICULTURE, TOWN OF EVANSDALE, WYOMING. BROUGHT BEFORE YOU TONIGHT ON THIRD AND FINAL READING.

NEW SPEAKER So on ordinance number 10, 2026, do I have a motion? NEW SPEAKER I'll motion.

NEW SPEAKER A second.

NEW SPEAKER I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on this?

if not all those in favor aye opposed motion passed and i see we don't have you on the agenda here tonight did you have anything you needed to cover nope i was just here in case you had questions on that resolution for the business council grant application but okay all i have tonight okay excellent do you know when you'll hear back about that So we'll submit this week, and then I believe there will be a site visit within the next three to four weeks. They'll ask for more information, and then I think it goes in front of the business council, I want to say in December, and then in front of SLIB in January. It'll be a new SLIB board in January.

Okay. Okay, do I have a motion for adjournment? I move.

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passed. This meeting is adjourned at 7.19 p.m.