Board of Trustees of the Natrona County Parks & Recreation System - Regular Meeting

All right, let's go ahead and get started. So go ahead and give roll call.

Chairman North?

Here.

Trustee DeVore? No. Trustee Hatcher?

Here.

Trustee Kenner?

Here.

Trustee Zeidler is on the phone.

All right, would you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do I have a... Do we want to go into exec right now? We need to approve the minutes first. Let's go ahead and approve the minutes for the last meeting.

Second.

Okay. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Aye.

Okay.

That was an aye for, right, Stacey? Okay. All right. So... So that... So the minutes are approved, um, rule with consent agenda.

Um, before we move for that, um, I have added a consent agenda addendum. The only thing on the consent agenda or the. A co a lot permits that we received, um, signed by a permittees to be executed by, uh. And so there was an added number of these as I was on vacation when I did the agenda, just trying to keep us caught up. So if there's a, however you want to do that, approve the addendum to be attached to the consent.

Yeah, we can do that. Stacey, you have any problem with that? The addendum has basically the additional ones that are on there, and that's all. Okay. All right. Do we have any discussion on that? All right. Do we have a motion for approval?

Motion to approve.

Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second it. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? So moved. All right. Do we want to go into exec now? Or do you want to go through the rest of these? Do we want to amend the agenda to move exec after we talk about this other stuff?

i guess that would be up to the chairman and the county attorney i don't have a whole lot to uh for a director's discussion probably five minutes worth all right well that was probably directed more toward ashley since you need to be here for exec but you don't necessarily have to be here for everything so i was trying to be nice i mean it's up to you guys if it's only gonna be five minutes then

I don't see.

Okay. I don't think it'll take very long to go through most of this stuff. Michael, I'm gonna steal your thunder.

That's fine.

Okay. Just so everybody knows we did, we were awarded two thirds of what we requested from the outdoor. rec council for the bear trap meadows um the shelters so we will be moving forward with that we received um 100 of our request for the archery range targets 70 000 from easton so uh the archery targets in the in the trail they are the the pathway maintenance on that so um That will be coming in. We've got all that stuff kind of lined out. So that's good news. So we will have a lot moving forward at this point in time. One of those, the Eastern grant is a grant where they will send us the money, but we have to send them all the receipts. We have to show what we spent and how we did it. Whereas the outdoor rec grant is a reimbursable grant. So they will reimburse us as we spend the money for things. So did I miss anything on that?

No, I don't think so.

Okay.

So anyway, all right, then I'll let you jump into the, so on June 24th, um, WWC engineering held a public information meeting for the Alcova cabin water sewer study. Uh, we had actually quite a few people here for that. Um, And it was just mostly an information to explain what the process is going to be, who's going to be on the ground, where to send information on their water wells and septic systems. So WWC will be doing their final field work this month and we should have a draft of the report I think in September. We have a final draft. I'll get it publicized so that all the cabin owners out there can see that. Alcove lot permit status. They are dwindling in. I think we have 20 permits left to receive signed. And then we probably have another 11 payments. And we can go into that more detail in exact. But Anyways, anybody out there that hasn't paid their rent, the last letter said you have until the 18th. So please get it in so we don't have to go through the process of termination.

How many have we got right now that haven't?

I have about 11 that haven't paid, and I have about 20 that have turned in their paperwork. And that's out of 257.

And that's that's just the trailer.

There's cabins.

Both.

And then just a real short 4th of July after action report. I was on vacation, but being in touch with staff, it seemed like everything went pretty smooth. We had some telemetry issues with our water well at the lake. Staff stayed out there till almost 1 o'clock on the 4th of July in the morning. making sure that there was water out there for everybody. A few hitches with camping, but they were fairly minor for the most part. No dumpster fires. I mean, literally, unlike previous years where they've lit them up. So overall, I think it went fairly well.

Hey, Michael, I have a couple things. One is thank you for getting the bigger dumpsters. There was out there that was there by the public beach. I think that really helped this year when the ones in the trailer park were full by the 4th of July. When I threw stuff out on Sunday night in that one, there was still a lot of room in there.

So that came at the request of our trash...

uh contractor yeah we did four of those one of the cabin one of the trailer park one at wolf point pathfinder and one of bishop's point pathfinder so i think that was a real probably on them for they have to come pick up all the trash because they're just in the years past they just stack it all around you know so i was just saying that was their request i think that was probably from them having to go out there their guys getting out so i meant that was very helpful out there i did have a question out there i i did not witness it but um trailer park people came up to me they on the morning of the fourth of july the garbage can that sits outside the bathhouse i guess your workers came and it's chained to that railing correct and they cut the chain and took it away and they said that was under your direction that there's not going to be a garbage can out there anymore you have to throw stuff inside the bathhouse no i don't remember a conversation like that i'll look into it okay yeah they were just especially on the morning of the fourth july because normally that's where people put their dog waste along with the other garbage. Um, I'm sure they had justification. Yeah.

Not to defend them without knowing what's going on, but I'm sure they had justification. Yeah.

No, I just, I just wonder as far as they, and like I said, I haven't been out back out there and I didn't witness this. People just could, do you know what I said? I can bring it up at tonight's meeting to see what happened with that. Um, Just with that, as far as, and especially, it may limit on the morning of the 4th of July when how much people throw stuff away and just as they're going by on bottles, which they're not supposed to have, but as people know, they violate that out there. But if you just check in this, if they were just going to put it back after the 4th of July.

Yeah, and they may have reason to not have it there anymore.

I don't know.

Right. Okay. For one, I think, just a quick thought, it may be a raccoon problem. Um, especially on the fourth when they can't get the lid on it. Cause everybody's overfilling everything.

Right. Okay. But I'll look into that. Okay. Thank you.

Uh, the last thing I had on discussion was the current budget process with the commission. Um, I've been made aware that, uh, there was some reduction, uh, to the mountain budget. Um, I requested $35,000 for additional archery targets. Um, Obviously, I don't think that's going to be needed now with the grant that we just received. And then there was $5,000 I requested for lighting in the shop and that was cut. $40,000 was reduced out of the mountain budget for the year. We'll get those final numbers towards the end of the month on what's finally approved. And it's my understanding the commission has been in discussions about wages and whatnot. So there may be some adjustment to staff wages coming in that budget. And we'll know that when it's finalized. That's what I've heard, so I wanted to pass that on to the board so they had an understanding of where the budget process is right now.

Yeah, as of right now, there will be an adjustment per the wage study for salaries and stuff. I don't know what the overall applications per individuals or where that's going to end up right now, but that will be. going through so but that's really all i have i took a vacation and tried to be on vacation so i don't know a whole lot right now so okay um as far as the 5000 that the 5000 was cut for the lighting and that's something if we could figure out pull that from a different spot. I do think that's beneficial. It makes a big difference when you can see what you're doing. And LED lights aren't really that expensive. And I think that is something that makes a big difference when you go in there and you turn the lights on and they actually come on instead of having to wait five minutes for same thing on the cool down. So, um, I do think that's something that if we can explore different options as far as where we can come up with that funding to get that done, I think that would be advantageous for us.

So I guess one other update. Um, I was at Pathfinder yesterday, assisting staff and putting the boat dock in at the Marina boat ramp. Um, It probably won't last a week. We set a new anchor in about four feet of water. That's as far out as we could reach. It's about 30 feet out. But the water's dropping eight feet a month. So hopefully it gets through the big tournament weekend. I know people are upset that there's not a dock there, but the management of it with the water retreating as fast as it is is just not really viable with as little staff as we have so all right at this point i would uh entertain a motion to go into executive session for litigation so move second okay

All right. And Stacey, we'll call you back on the other line if that's okay. Okay. Thanks. All right. We are now in exec.

Thank you.

Decisions were made work on litigation. So we will move on to old business. Any other old business? I don't have any. Okay. New business. I guess the biggest thing is that we're gonna be moving forward with the bear trap meadows and the shelters up there and working on getting that accomplished as soon as we can. We don't have the, I'm not sure what the date that the funding will be available, but that, like I said, that is a reimbursable grant. So once we have official notification that we have been approved, then we can start on that. And we can start on working with the Central Wyoming Trail Alliance on some of the path improvements up there at the archery range, as well as getting the additional archery targets. So anything else on that, Michael, that you can think of that I missed?

No, just note on that grant funding, Central Wyoming Trail Alliance did receive a portion of their request for the trails in Bear Trap. area on the county property. So I don't remember which trail they approved or whatnot, but they got partial funding.

So it was $30,000.

Yeah, it was 30,000, but they specified one trail and I don't remember which one it was. They said yellow. So I don't know if that was aggregate or if that was a trail up in the trees, which I think it might be.

Well, and just so everybody knows, they didn't fund, fully fund any of the projects because there was, I think, $2.2 million that were allocated, and there was about 2.7, almost 2.7. So they basically cut back everybody a little bit to make sure that everybody that were in the top tier got some funding.

Okay. Just on the old business, I assume we're still on the same, like there's no new updates on the parking lot, trail center?

No. I tried reaching out. I sent emails again. I called one of the contractors.

I do have a contractor that's interested in doing it. He's the same one. He would like to look at it. He's the same one that did the sidewalks out at the trailer park last year. So I reached out to him, and he's more than happy to take a look at it, along with some of the other stuff. Hopefully, we've got enough time right now. We can still get her done.

so time is going away quick yep it is but anyway um i think last year we couldn't last year i think when we addressed that was hard to find people go up there because of some red milk production season right well it was also it was also in november right so we were it was gonna freeze right but as far as last year as far as just with that it was it's hard to get someone to go up there and do a little job sure but they're doing yeah that should be slowing down here hopefully you know the project when they get somewhat of it that they can like yep we can schedule it in early october or something like that we shouldn't take too long so hopefully yeah i will say with the added gravel and the revised grading um there is a channel by the bus loading unloading that gets a little soft but it's not

like it was. It drains much better and works quite well for the most part.

And honestly speaking, when you have a new construction like that, you're, when you've got to grab a lot, you can expect that you're going to, it's going to take several years to finally get everything stabilized. And so it's, it's not going to be a one shot or done. Um, and we know that, and that's just something that we can, we'll work on and we will continually, um, get it taken care of. But, yeah, we do have somebody that's interested in going up and taking a look at it. So, okay. Okay. I don't see any public, so we won't have any public comment tonight. Trustee comments? Stacey, have you got anything? Justin?

Yeah, just went up to Rotary Park recently and saw the new bench that was installed for Mike McKay. It's a great spot, looks good. Also the work that the Wyoming Conservation Corps did up at Rotary Park. was needed and it's looks it's it's a lot better than it was so that's appreciated um also been up to crimson dawn and checked out the work that cwta did up there and yeah so i mean there's a lot of positive momentum happening in um in our parks and that's and that's good to see so thanks to everybody who's helped with that and that's all i've got john i don't have anything um

I'm going to reiterate that I am excited about us getting funding. We have been pursuing a lot of grants and a lot of different things to increase the funding that we have, and it's going to make a big difference in our parks because that's something that we don't have to worry about an outside source or the county. covering a lot of this stuff. If we can get the funding from an outside source through grants and stuff like that, it's gonna help us out a lot. I do wanna thank specifically Sabrina Kemper for helping us write the grants, going through them and getting everything submitted. I think that helped us out a lot. I wanna thank everybody else um including visit casper and any of the groups any and all the groups out there that are behind us and working with us to make our park system a better place because i think that's something that is very important and it's not not just one person it's it's a lot of people working behind the scenes and to get it done and without those connections and without that assistance, we wouldn't be making the progress that we are. But I've been looking back at the stuff that we've accomplished over the last seven months and how much we have gotten done through the parks and a lot of projects that were kind of hanging out there for a long time and they're getting taken care of. I do appreciate that, and I appreciate the assistance from the board on moving this stuff forward, and I appreciate the assistance from Michael taking the ball and running with a lot of this stuff and everybody else, because it is. That's the way we've got to make things better. And so, anyway.