Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Good evening everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the January 12th, 2026 Town of Pineluff's Council meeting. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge 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. The first item is agenda approval. I move to approve the agenda. I'll second it. I hear a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I.

I. Opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. Second item, new business. The action items are confirm Wyoming Municipal Powers Agency board of directors appointment per resolution 2024-14. Justin Forstrom is the appointed representative for the term beginning February 20, 2025 and ending February 2028. Recommended continuation of this appointment. Any discussion? There aren't any like um um

conflict. Yeah, conflicts of interest with that being a representative voting on bills. I It was just a question. Someone had asked me and I said I did not know.

Yeah. Um so Justin Fornstrom currently the WMPA uh appointee. So um we had some discussion about that. Rosemary the um executive director does not feel like there would be at this time although they've never had this. So, um I think it'll be monitored and if they feel like it is, but um they will certainly certainly mention that to either myself or someone else at the town of Pine Bluffs. Um also, I' I'd just like to say if it's, you know, I'm happy to keep doing it. Um, I like the work, but I don't want there to be a conflict and I don't want there to be a uh any of those issues. So certainly I serve at your pleasure on the board and whatever you whatever you come up with is great with me. I will say that of the board there's oh I don't know currently I think there's three members that are unaffiliated maybe formerly affiliated with the municipalities so it doesn't have to be someone from our board or from the council but certainly that's probably more common than not so anyway

thank you any other questions how How many board of directors are there? Seven. Seven directors. Is there eight? I think there's eight. Eight. I had to think how many towns. I think there's eight. Yeah. And I think you were as much as saying you you kind of like serving in that capacity.

Yeah, I really enjoy it. Um I find the work interesting. Um assuming there's no conflicts. I think uh frankly it's a board that takes some amount of you know it's certainly a learning curve in terms of electricity and electricity issues and you know obviously I'm there to represent the town of Pine Bluff's interest as it pertains to the board and so you know you filter it through that lens but um also there are some things that are really good for the board. That might not be the best possible thing for the town of Pine Bluffs and you just that doesn't happen often but occasionally.

Do do you have monthly meetings or how often?

Uh yes. So we didn't have a December meeting in this particular year. We don't have a February meeting, but generally every other month we have a meeting um either in person in Lusk. There's a in-person meeting that rotates uh between Cody and Powell. And then there's a meeting uh summer retreat meeting like a long-term planning meeting that they've since I've been on there, they've hosted it in Deadwood for two days, but they've hosted it other places around the state of Wyoming as well. So um so it's like a day of regular meeting and a day of long long range planning. Typically they're regular meetings are three hours I would say. So pretty efficient well organized. Yeah.

I think we all know that that you care as much about representing the town's interests as as we do. Um, are you willing to come back maybe, I don't know, quarterly or something and kind of give us an update on what's going on?

Sure. Um, well, this is something I realized in my former capacity that I wasn't really very good about relaying what I did there. Um, and what we did and I felt like it was I don't think I consciously decided this, but I felt like, you know, it was kind of all in the mix. And I would understand at this point that I need to be more transparent and more helpful in relaying those things to you as I don't sit in other other meetings with with the council. So I think that would be much more important at this point. probably was always important, just a a bit of an afterthought maybe given that we we had meetings about these topics kind of sporadically throughout our regular meetings. So,

so in in the context of of a conflict of interest prior to this, you were the mayor of Pine Bluffs and so you were directly representing the town of Pine Bluffs, but you were on the joint powers board. How does how does you not being the mayor and representing the town affect your capacity for representing the town to the joint powers board? I don't understand how there would be any difference how there would be a conflict that didn't exist.

Well, I think the Yeah, that's a good question. And I think the conflict primary primarily lies with my new position. I don't think there's any conflict from the town of Pine Bluff's point of view or I would hope not. So it has more to do with being

on the generally we get legislative updates but we're not um subject to the public service commission or a lot of the things inside the state government. So, while statutes and those things are important, they're um and obviously guide the the group, it's not um I can't think of a time when it would have been a conflict in the time I've been on there from a legislative point of view, but you know, there's always a chance. So, um, but yeah, I don't I don't feel any conflict in my ability to represent the town of Pine Bluffs to the best of my ability.

You don't think there'd be any times where you'd be expected to say represent the town from a position of of authority or or elected position. You not like from a decision-making standpoint, right? Could you clarify that a little bit? Yeah. I'm just thinking, are you ever expected to make decisions on behalf of the town that would normally be made by, you know, an elected Sure. position from the town?

Um, I think that's where communication needs to be better, will be better. Uh generally speaking, these are, you know, you're you're one voice and I think it would require more uh pre-planning with some of these meetings to understand what what's going on. Um I can tell you from a board perspective, rarely, you're going to have a hard time imagining this, but rarely do we develop a topic and decide that day. I mean that un much to people's dismay sometimes it doesn't move that quickly and um typically anything that has a a considerable impact on the communities is given multiple meetings to uh arrive at a good decision point and whereas I felt like before I had a really good grasp on what might be best for the town of Pine Bluffs certainly at this point I I think we need to have more discussion about that with with everyone on the council and administration and many of the things and and uh Leanne and Kim can attest to this. Some of it's a lot of just administrative things and um so it impacts uh these folks a lot, you know, maybe more than some grandiose change that would impact our citizens a great deal, but it can and it has. And so there's all of those things to consider. So, well, I appreciate your time and any more questions, I'm happy to answer them.

No, I think I think you covered it. Thank you for coming in, Justin. Appreciate you coming in and addressing the council. So, we take a vote on keeping him in. Is that the Yes. Okay. So all those in favor of Justin maintaining his position on the on the board. So moved. Second. Thank you, Jam. You're welcome. Sorry. No, you're good. Want to repeat the hearing hearing a motion and a and a second. All those in favor? I

I opposed. Motion carries. Second item under new business is the proposed project for the 2026 LER Laram County 6th penny ballot. Completed ballot requests will be discussed at the Laram County 6th penny committee meeting on January 22nd, 2026. Um, so what do we have on that agenda?

So, there have been some uh minor changes to the last time that we talked about this at the council meeting, and I thought it would be great for us to go over it. While this doesn't need to be finalized um for the next meeting with the county on the 22nd, um I just thought it would be good for us to discuss it since our next council meeting is until after that that meeting. Um, originally our dollar amount was um, a bit below the $10 million mark. Um, I believe that our number has changed to that uh,10250. So even though it shows a negative 750,000 um, the the template spreadsheet that they sent us, we just didn't have that on there. So um what we've effectively done then is increased the the largest portion of that increase was to our electric system improvements which I think is by far our one of our top priority projects for the six penny ballot. Um they are divided into different categories uh per the county's request that being the infrastructure community facilities and public safety. Um and again, as you'll see, the majority of our requests over $9 million, 9.25, will be under uh infrastructure. Um the highest of those being the electric system and roadways. And we tried to keep it um a general uh topic like under the electric system improvements we know that our major projects are the voltage conversion and substation reconstruction. Um you know we didn't want to get way in the weeds on each of those topics and on the ballot I don't believe we'll get in the weeds with those either. Um, you know, same thing with the roads. We refer to reconstructing toward uh per our

uh our road CIP, our construction improvement plan. Um, and replacing a greater. Uh, so again, there really haven't been any changes since our last discussion. Um, but just wanted a chance to kind of go through it with y'all one more time and see if you've had any further thoughts. um or if you had any concerns. Um it's it's unfortunate that nowadays millions of dollars don't go as far as we would like them to. That's true.

Um but again, if there are any projects that we have not considered on here that we should consider, um please let me know and then we can think about where it is that we could trim some off of. um or where it is that we could get um some independent funding, other grant monies as opposed to this. You know, under public safety, there is an opportunity to possibly get some funding from different sources, but um uh sometimes that's up to the federal government on what they make available through those programs.

You don't anticipate the six penny committee wanting a higher level of detail as far as the cost of each of these projects. Um in the past they have not requested a higher level of detail.

Okay. I think it's um you know when we start to market our projects that's where it's up to us um that we will pull together information packets to folks. We'll you know we'll make like our CIP available and um kind of go into a little bit more detail on some of those projects as we market them. But um at this point where you know our dollar amounts are pretty even right now. uh as far when I say even I mean like $3 million flat. We know that's going to be a little bit different. We are working with our engineers to try and you know get that to um closer to an actual actual number. Anybody have any questions or comments on How many streets can we um repave with $3 million?

Maybe three. Three. Like end to end or just portions? Just depends on which street it is and you know the level of refurb. Yeah. So I mean just as as an example uh you know Walnut or not Walnut, I'm sorry, Maple was a pretty much a $1 million product. Right under one million,

right? Um, and that's, you know, a wide street. It's, uh, we do have some of our, uh, streets on the west side of town that aren't as wide that do need some significant repair work that I would say would be complete mill and, uh, you know, rework of the asphalt and not just an overlay. Um, and so those might cost a little bit less, but they're about the same length of road as that was. But I guess I'll I I would say my estimate would be that you can offset the co increase in cost from two years ago to when we could do that project with the fact that the road's narrower. Y

um but we do need to also address county road 213. Um you know since we have put that new addition in and we have closed the original railroad crossing. We have that odd jog in the road and we have some drainage issues, you know, significant drainage issues over there by Frenchman Valley. Um, that's going to be another major road project that needs to be undertaken. That's not a paved road. Um, but there is a significant amount of work that needs to go on with that. So, and then we also need to, you know, look at getting our own graater again since our last one is, um, you know, it's kind of fizzled out on us. It was a like a 1978 road graater. So, uh, we do need to now that we have roads that are going to need grading on a regular basis, more so than just a couple. Well, we really need to have our own graater back on hand.

We would just have to contract that out at this point, right? We have been we've been working with Pine Bluff Gravel to help us keep those roads maintained um until we can get our own greater back. And um and then as far as up in the they also assist us with the road up in the bluffs, but um we managed to get certain things done with our loader, but there's only so much you can do with that. Uh I guess the only question I'm going to have for the committee is going to be is that where they want that piece of equipment. Do they want it under our road project or do they see it more under a different category? So, we'll have to ask them that when we go there. What was the

What were you looking at for a target budget on a on a road crater? Um, you know, I haven't done research in quite a while and I know that the the folks in public works have some thoughts on a uh manufacturer. Um, you know, uh, it's it's again, it's been a while since we've gotten quotes on those, but our quotes were for new equipment, and I don't really think that we need to look at something brand new. We can definitely look at um, you know, maybe working with the state or the county to see if they have something that they might be um rotating out of their stock. Um and you know there are also some lease programs that we can look into.

Okay. So again before this meeting that we have on the 22nd I hope to have some more information back from some of our dealers that we worked with in the past and I can break out all the quotes that we got like a few years ago on those too. Okay, that's a really good idea. I uh I can give you a recommendation on a location or two where the grater hardly ever gets used. Nice.

So, it ought to be prime great condition. Um, as far as the water improvements that we have listed on here, you know, a lot of those are taken directly off of our intended use plan that we uh submit every year. Um, as well as our debt retirement and we we have put debt retirement in there before. So, um, debt retirement would be primarily we put that in place to also keep our rates reasonable. I saw in the consent agenda that there was an invoice for for the sidewalks

program. Yes, that project is um it's moving right along and you've probably seen some folks out surveying. Um that's uh part of that project and uh hopefully we will have a draft plan here in the next couple of months. Um once we get that plan finalized that's the document that we can use to go to Y dot to request funds for additional projects to take action on that plan. Good. You guys have anything else?

Thank you.

Uh visitor comments,

anything? No. Hearing none department reports? Jam, you have anything? I have nothing. How about you, Dave? Do you have anything?

Um, the airport didn't have a meeting this last month, but uh Kevin did share some uh some details on uh what's been going on at the airport the last month. Uh he said that uh for December fuel sales were about 241 gallons and 7,596 gallons for the year. And then the December operations, which would include anybody flying in or taking off from the airport or touchand goes, those would all be considered an operation. Um 192 for December, 3,55 for the year. That uh uh that uh measuring equipment's only been in place since February, so we don't have quite a year under our belt yet, but that's what we have seen in activity for the year. and he did report that our fuel price at $54 a gallon is the cheapest in the area. So

great. If you need a gas or aviation fuel, just come get it in Pine Bluffs. Pine Bluff's place to go. Absolutely. So given that that hasn't been in place for a year yet, did he have any feel for how many operation did how did that compare? Does he have any idea how that would compare with the previous year? I'd be interested in knowing. Yeah, that's a good question. Whether we have an increase or a decrease or He didn't share that information and I did not ask him that. So, it'll be interesting when we get a a year's history behind us to see what the monthly right

average is on the on the operations. Mhm. I was out there recently and I noticed the military had ospreys that they were flying in and out and doing touch and goes with ospreys and that was a cool. That's a neat thing to see out there. Those are fascinating machines. If you're not familiar with with what the ospreys are, they they they can rotate the whole engine to either act like a a helicopter or a prop plane.

A prop plane. Yeah. And then and then as they move up, they can rotate it forward and and fly like a regular airplane. And they're massive machines, but they're really fascinating to watch. They'd bring them in and they'd land them like they were a helicopter and they'd touch down. Then they'd lift off again and rotate the engines forward and take off and go forward. It was really neat to see out there doing operations at our airport.

Okay, Jana, how about you? Or I mean Callie, how about you? Um yeah, on the WHAM end of things, we're just uh prepping for legislative session. Uh this morning, Ashley went in front of JAC for uh direct distribution. JAC.

Yeah, the joint appropriations committee. Okay. Sorry. Um, and it they landed on 105 to start for direct distribution, which does take us back to the um 2021 numbers uh from direct distribution. So, we'll see how that plays out. Um, everything else they're monitoring right now. There's a lot of strange things on the table, but I think that's one of the top priorities. Okay. Okay. Kelly, for the uneducated, can you talk about what direct distribution means?

Yeah. Um, so direct distribution for this uh $15 million, all of that goes into the uh into a pool for the counties and the municipalities and then is split up based on a formula that they called the Madden formula. And at some point they had a bout amendment. Essentially it starts out with the small communities are all given uh $35,000 across the board regardless of population. But then this formula gets really complicated and if you're a hardship county then you get more money and your population is go factored into this and it gets really complicated and I've met very few people who really understand the formula on how that's broken out. Um, but that's that's the best way that I can explain that to you and uh maybe maybe in your research uh you've found something different, Justin, but or Kim, but that seems to be

Yeah,

please do. Yeah, I I think one of the big things that happened today, regardless of moving back um to 2021 levels, um is direct distribution has for a long time been um every budget session communities would go and for lack of a better way of saying it, we we would go with our handout and try to garn earner this direct distribution with no real backbone to how it was other than that it was distributed through the through the Madden formula with some some variations but um frankly there was no set funding mechanism. It was always just what can we get as the county municipalities this time. And so the the upshot of today was that they decided to uh uh thus far tie it to property taxes. So um they they used the 105 number to shoot for. They came up with a um a number uh to get us really close to that. Um that number is obviously movable, but the the upshot is in the future Um hopefully it will it's not just at random like you'll be able to

to know that it's that it's uh that it's there for the communities. So um I I think the one part is really good, the other part is not as positive news, but um I think the the reliability aspect of it is very good. And I was just going to give you what um Kim could as easily give you this. And I should have I started pulling it up and I didn't have it. So, um, last time the number was, uh, if we're just talking about Pine Bluffs was 158,000 was our direct distribution. Under this formula, under the 105, it would be about 121. So, it's a reduction of 36,000. So, um, you know, I think there's going to be a lot of there's going to be a lot of discussion about where to go with that number. The governor recommended that that be the baseline at 105. That's the number they chose to go with today. So, we'll see where it moves from there. But um so it's real it's real dollars as a percent of of um revenue and it's important to the town of Pine Bluffs and I think most people understand how important it is to their community or their county and and I look forward to some more discussion about that on the throughout the process I guess. So

thank you. Thanks.

So, it's a rejection anyway. Yeah.

Alex, how about you? You have anything? I'm good, thanks. You're good. How about you? Um, I don't have a lot of updates. I've been working with ADP to get our end of the year W2s going and haven't heard anything back from our engineer yet. I know that I signed the contract with them, so it could be a couple months before we hear anything about the silent crossing. Thank you for working on that. I appreciate the fact that you've been putting time and effort into the crossing. I would like to see that coming. Yep. Me, too.

Thank you, Liam. Kim, do you have anything? Um, just uh again continuing to work through um our audits and um getting cost estimates for our six penny projects. Um and today I did receive the exact form that we need to complete to get that access point to highway 30 from um the Helena lot that we closed on. So, yeah, it's a pretty straightforward form, so it won't take much at all to get that submitted. Thank you for doing that. I appreciate.

Yeah, no problem. For for everyone that doesn't know what's going on with that, we successfully did a land swap with Helena and the town now owns the property just north of the RV park. and the fire district 5 is interested in purchasing or swapping property for a portion of that land. And one of the things that would be important to the fire district is to have direct access onto Highway 30 off of the portion of that property that they want to secure for building the fire department. Now, the The building of a new fire department is contingent upon them getting sixth penny money to build a new fire department, which at the sixth penny meeting, it looked pretty promising that there that we will get that fire district 5 will get funds to build a new department. In which case, what the town was proposing to do was to trade their the existing fire department for a portion of the property over there on Highway 30 and Butler to build a new fire department. The fire department's currently on basically 4/10en of an acre. And the trucks in the department are double stacked. And one of the fire trucks is actually stored in the town maintenance department building on fourth. And so hopefully we can

get a new department that's big enough to house the the entire fire department and also keep the EMS in the same building because a lot of the resources between EMS and the fire department are shared. And so hopefully we can and so the town has an interest in in helping the fire department get a new facility put together because they basically house the the EMS, the ambulances and and a lot of the the fire department are both firemen and e emergency medical personnel. And so there's there's a an opportunity for a mutual agreement that would be mutually beneficial for both the town and and fire district 5. So that's basically what we're pursuing right now. If we can get all of the agreements to come together and make that all work for everyone, I think it'd be a really good thing. So that's basically the background on what's going on. Forgive my ignorance, but the town doesn't own the current property.

No, we do not. It's owned by Fire District 5.

Okay. One of the one of the things that I've pondered is when we upgrade the electrical system is whether we'll have enough room in this current substation to be able to handle the upgrade. And one of the things that possibly by doing the swap that we can do is that the town maintenance building that's rather dilapidated is right next door to the substation. We could potentially use that land. Yeah.

To move over and and expand the substation onto that and then if we swap with the fire department, we can use the existing fire department for housing vehicles and and more maintenance. It's kind of a It looks like it might be a good swap, but it's something that we'll have to put before the council and talk about and see if we can make this all work and see if you guys all think it makes sense, too. But it's something that I think makes sense to do.

No, I think that would be a great plan because, you know, we've already discussed the need for the land to uh build the new substation on. Um the the current west shop is far from airtight. Um we do have equipment that uh does need to that we don't use that often to keep in our east shop, but that does need to be it's got to be housed somewhere.

It's got to be housed as opposed to just, you know, outside. Um things like our water truck that doesn't get used that often. Um, and so I think it would make great sense to be um, in the building that currently houses the fire equipment and to have that land available to use for our substation. So, if everything goes through, this will be a a great six penny project uh, batch of six penny projects if if this ballot goes through. That was all I had on on that. Do

you have any idea what the cost of that new station would be? They they asked for 4 million and it looks like they thought that that was a reasonable ask. Ellie has a little would probably have a little more insight into that. The only real insight I had was a conversation I had with Gunner who indicated that he thought that was going to make it onto the ballot. And typically the safety stuff that makes it onto the ballot usually

goes through. You know, you can't count your chickens before they're hatched. But I I think it looks like it's probably something that will happen. And I know that um District Five has reached out to some builders and gotten gotten estimates on building a new facility there and that it's well within the $4 million budget to be able to build a new facility and any other questions. Anything from out there? No. Well, can I hear a motion to adjurnn?

So move. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries.