Council - Regular Meeting

Town Council meeting to order like to welcome everyone. Would you join me in the pre pledge of 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. First item on the agenda is the agenda approval. I move to approve the agenda. I'll second it. Hearing a motion and a second. All those in favor?

I opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. Next item is the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Hearing a motion and a second on the consent agenda. All those in favor? I opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. The new business and action items is review and adopt the pedestrian and ADA improvement master plan presented by Darcy Henden and Summit Engineering.

Welcome Darcy. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Can give you a brief overview. So, for about the last year, we've been working on a Do you want me to do this? Yeah. Okay.

on a pedestrian plan for the um town of Pine Bluffs. And this was funded partially through a grant from W dot. So, our task was to identify some areas of town that um didn't quite meet expectations for pedestrian mobility. Um, and we uh gathered a steering committee and tried to identify areas that they thought that needed some attention. So, we narrowed it down to sevenish. There's an eighth one that's sort of hidden in there that I'll explain, but um so we identified places in town and then I did get some survey on a few things because I needed to understand better um how much room we had to work with with kind of what improvements we could possibly make. So, um, and then we, um, did a cost estimate for all seven of those items and, um, put included in there some grant strategies, some places where you we've identified where you could get money for various things. Um, not all of the priorities qualify for all of the grant strategies. For instance, there's a safe routes to school grant that's administered through W dot, but the improvements say like on Main Street or Parson Street, that wouldn't necessarily qualify for the safe routes to school, but some of the other priorities that do function or center around the school probably would. So, um I'm going to not get these in the right order, but priority number one was near the swimming pool and the football field and the park, right? So, a lot of um the steering committee helped us identify that a lot of families are at the football field and then the kids run across the street to go to the park during games or maybe um crossing the street to get to the swimming pool and it's not necessarily the safest place to cross the street there. And um I should back up one step. The first thing we did was took an inventory of all of the

sidewalk in the entire town and identified where there isn't sidewalk, where the sidewalk is deficient or um where any of the ADA ramps at the corners don't meet current code, maybe there's low hanging trees or utility poles, that sort of thing in the sidewalk. So, one of the very first exhibits is how much of the town doesn't fully meet current ADA standards. So, um the eighth street area near the pool that was identified as the number one priority. So, we put some um plans together and some cost estimates to put in sidewalk around there and to put a rectangular rapid flashing beacon which is the um traffic control device where the folks push the button and then the light shines up and it's got the D diamond sign for kids to cross the street or anyone to cross the street. um and moving some of the crosswalks to make that um a more logical place whether the person crossing the street is going to the pool or between the um football field and such. So that was party one. Two was Parson Street um namely the area between like around sixth, fifth, 7th where folks are going across the street from the hotel to the restaurants and the bar and that sort of area. So um identifying the location for a some crosswalks there and I did speak with white dot so person is owned maintain that's on the w dot system they we do not meet the threshold for them to participate in putting any sort of traffic signal or where they would put in a rectangular rapid flashing beacon sign but they're not going to prohibit you from doing so. You just have to pay for it yourself. Um, and then that those all those plans if we were to implement that has to get reviewed by W dot because it's their road. But Taylor McCort, who is the district traffic engineer, said that he would be in support of that because you

guys have seen that there's a lot of folks crossing the streets there. Um, so as long as you install it yourself, they would allow that. Um, that one also included sidewalk that goes all the way to 8th Street. Um there's some approaches, right? There's there's there are places where folks can walk. Um sorry if you're really familiar with ADA, but if you're not, there's um rules for how much cross slope you can have, right? Because if you are in a wheelchair or maybe in a walker or can't see very well and you're used to walking on a pretty flat sidewalk and then a driveway approach comes up, there's usually a hump there where the 6-inch tall curb head, right, goes to zero so the vehicles can traverse there. But if if it's not designed correctly, then that makes it kind of wonky for someone who has low visibility or whatever. So there's approaches along the way that also need to get addressed so that the actual pedestrian route is an ADA acceptable path. So that's why some of those areas got larger because then when you take 5T away for the sidewalk, then it gets too steep for the vehicles. So there's some plans in there that show where those need to get addressed. Um, priority three is the schools around the schools. So, basically all of the um the crossings of any where any kid would use to get to school. So, um focusing on not just crossing to the school, but also how do they get from their neighborhood right to a logical crosswalk location to cross the streets there. So, there's a lot of kind of scattered ADA ramps and sidewalk improvements around the whole school. Several blocks around there. Um, four is the ball field.

No, Main Street. Oh, so Main Street right here. So, obviously there's some issues with getting folks that are um not as abled down Main Street, specifically at this corner right here to get up by the laundry area. So, um, that I did have to get some survey and try to figure out the best way to do that. So, a normal road looks like this, right? With the crown in the middle and then the sidewalks on the side. In order to bring this sidewalk up to an elevation that allows us to get in this door cuz this area here does not meet ADA out front of this door and neither doesn't. Really? Yeah. Correct. Yeah. here.

In several instances, our ad that's why our ADA entrance is on the back of the building.

Yeah. So, this area is a problem. And then um actually the ramps and the sidewalk or the the stairs that are on both sides of this building, they do meet ADA requirements, but not the sidewalk at the laundry facility. And obviously, you can't get from the street up onto the sidewalk there. So, what I did was um instead of the road being like this, right? It starts like that and then we kick it back up so that the water because the water flows to the gutters, the water is actually going to flow to the rear of where those vehicles are parked. And then that allows us to kick the sidewalk back up and raise it just enough that I can actually get 88 into this door and the laundry door. So I think it's appendix D is maybe explaining all of that in engineering terms. And um it is designed based on a survey. So, I'm I know that it will work, but those are not um construction quality drawings obviously, but um I do know that it will work. So, we can address um the ADA that's here, the laundry area in order to cuz that door is quite a bit higher than the door to this building. We're going to have to do and they call them bumpouts, right? And you've seen them like probably if you've gone to downtown Cheyenne where they um extend the corner into the travel way, right into the street and it kind of goes out where the cars would park and it creates more distance between the door and the sidewalk. So that allows me to get a pretty long ramp up to where that door is. So then folks would be able to traverse these whole two blocks, you know, from um north to south without having an ADA issue. and it solves the ADA issue into this building as well. So five is at the ball field. Sorry, I really should

rec trails.

The rec trails. So okay, so our steering committee, one of the reasons you want to make a community pedestrian safe, right, is to also encourage walking because that's better for your health. It helps folks get around town without getting in a vehicle. Um, it can promote walkability, which maybe if you're walking to the bank and you pass by like a cafe, right? Oh, I'll stop in there as well. So, it does help promote economic vitality to a community. And one of the things that the steering committee identified was it's not very easy to walk to the bluffs and to get onto the trails there. Um, there's obviously two ways to do that. One is through the um Oh, thank you. through the uh

rest area. Rest area. Thank you. Or you can go on um the east side on Beach Street. So, but that one is not as well known and it's not very clearly defined. So, if we can get folks to walk on a sidewalk to there and then put a trail head by where the town already owns some land where the well head is, then you could get up into the um wreck area. So, that was identified as a a priority for the steering committee. Um and then access to the wreck areas through the um the rest area

rest area. Yes. So, why not, interestingly enough, put ADA ramps when they rebuilt your interchange. I don't know if you ever noticed, they have ADA ramps there, but you can't actually get across there because they don't connect.

So, and it that is now illegal for them to do that. You're not allowed to have a place for a pedestrian, but nowhere for them to cross the street, right? Because if you're like maybe in a wheelchair and you get across the street, but you can't get out of the street and now you're in the street and have to go back around. So, they can't do that anymore, but probably that wasn't quite the rule then, but now. And so, you may be able to convince them to help you with some of this because of that fact. Um, but to get folks all the way down um between downtown and the wreck areas um entrance over there. And then the seventh priority was just around Second Street. And that mostly is um while kids are playing ball or families are walking that direction to create a sort of a trail system or a way for them to be able to get into that ball field area because right now there's no um ADA ramps or sidewalks to promote that. So um just that is a something that would be nice as amenity, but that was why it was number seven because it wasn't identified as the highest priority at all. Um, but then while we are doing that, and that's why I'm saying it's kind of hidden because in that seventh priority, we also said, well, let's just fix up all of the ADA locations on Beach Street so that you can get from the trail head, you know, to the ball field. And then also that's the swimming pool area, right? So, let's make that one continuous path. So, that is not just immediately around the ball field, but also addressing the ADA along along the um beach street completely. Um, and then one thing that we discussed was getting sidewalks and folks um to the to the Prairie View area. That is going to be a little bit um longer range plan is what they decided. So, it wasn't listed as a priority. We have to create a sidewalk crossing of the railroad

tracks, which is possible. We did talk to Watt about that. they have to put special um it's basically like a sidewalk on top of the rails so that you don't have more than a quarter of an inch gap because that's the rules for ADA. So W dot did say they'd be in favor of that as long as we put it where the crossing is now if you wanted to make a new crossing that's going to be much more involved between the W dot and the railroad and will take a much longer time. So if we focus it on where that crossing is now, then they said they would help you do that. But our steering committee, which did include Austin, did not identify that as a priority. So that is the plan in a nutshell. Um be happy to answer any questions. I know that was speedy through there.

So how did you uh what was the rationale for deciding the priority of each project? Well, we we met at our steering committee and then we um everyone kind of discussed what they felt was the priority and then um I made a map and sent it out to the folks on the steering committee and say why don't you guys rank these? So, it was kind of an anonymous and then we went they it was actually pretty close for everyone for sure. Number one um at the pool was identified as the first priority. Um, and everything only just varied by maybe one or two, but that's how we did it was and then we got back and we discussed it and if anyone needed to arm wrestle to like get their way.

The other question I had was as far as u I think it was priority number two. Um, what is what is white dot's minimum traffic in order to qualify for assistance? I do not remember that number, but I do know when I talked to Taylor, there was only one place in the state that qualified for that and it was somewhere in Jackson where they had a lot of and it because it can't just be like like Bon Pine Bluff Day or Frontier Days or you know it has to be continuous throughout the year. So I just wonder how how they establish that. I don't think they're measuring that. Are they?

I don't know. I will have to look into it because I don't know. It's in their pedestrian guide but I don't know remember the number. So, but it but it's a pretty high threshold. It is very high. Yeah. When I mentioned Parson Street to Taylor, he was like, "Yeah, there's no way it's going to qualify." So, if you had a festival every weekend for maybe the whole year,

one side or the other, we could get it to go. But I would say though, if W dot does decide, I know they repaved Parson not I mean not super long time ago, but if that ever does need to happen again because this plan is in place, then we could say we've already identified that we need pedestrian facilities on here and they would very likely pay for that to put it in. I don't know that they would pay for that rapid flashing beacon, but that's something they would certainly let you add. But they would pay for the sidewalks because it's been identified. I don't know if you want to wait that long till white dot red does that because it's probably not in their stip for the next 10 years but

I'm going to show my ignorance here. Um if we adopted the plan and we say we had funding for priority three instead of one or two. It's it's okay for us to proceed in that fashion. It is. Yes. Because it's based on funding and available funding and the grants that you may or may not be able to secure because of those. Yeah, certainly.

The other thing with the plan is now that we have identified different um say different corners that are not ADA accessible, but maybe the sidewalk at that corner is, then we can even work it through our normal budget every year to maybe knock out four or six corners a year just in our regular budget. I know that's not a ton, but um when you're talking about a long run like down Beach Street, we could certainly address those.

And there's a brief discussion in here as well about um how do you go about wrapping your heads around funding things like this? Right? So, a common strategy is if there's development action, then that developer is responsible for bringing up what's in front of their property to code. Um, but in order to do that, you have to define what the rules are. So, you would have to as a town say all sidewalk has to be five feet wide and all curb has to be this type, right? If you can um put that in your town code somehow, then it's you would be able to make someone accountable for that if you put that in your code as well.

What is the ADA width of the sidewalk? um three well three and a half is the bare minimum if you're going um like between a um handrails. But if you're going parallel to a street, it has to be four and they really encourage five. But there's like for instance on um near the bar on Parson Street, there's the curb and then they have a little retaining wall that's maybe only 2 feet high. That is 4 feet. You would be able to put it there. And because that does meet the minimum, right? If you have several blocks of four feet wide, you actually are supposed to give basically passing lanes so that if two folks in a wheelchair are trying to go by, they can pull over. Basically, that's part of the federal rules, but you can get away with four feet for a block length downtown for sure.

And that also includes no obstructions. So everywhere that we have we have a few areas where maybe the sidewalk is wide enough but we have a power pole right in the middle at a corner um that would need to be addressed. And on the eighth street plans, which I think are appendex B or C, um there's a couple of locations and I did talk about you can leave the utility pole rather than move it because in those instances you have the room and it's cheaper to just make the sidewalk wider around it, you know, as opposed to moving the utility pole. But that would be certainly up to you if you want to pay to relocate some power poles or not. That's why I did get a survey on ETH because I didn't know where the property line was. And actually the fence for the ball field is inside the public rideway. So there's more room there than um it looks like you have to put a sidewalk in

far away is that new shot. Oh, it's I think right up against it. Yeah, there's usually a lot of encroachments on public right away. What happens? Thank you, Darcy. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Put a lot of work into this. Yeah. I move to adopt the pedestrian and ADA improvements master plan. I'll second. Hearing a motion and a second to approve the ADA master plan. All those in favor? I

opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. The second item under new business and action items is ordinance 2026-02, the annual appropriations ordinance for the fiscal year ending June 30th of 2027.

Um, under your it was actually um under the workshop portion of your agenda. I have um the all the figures for the uh first reading of the um FY27 budget. We have made a few recommendations um for increases in various utility rates. As you are all aware, each of our utilities is a standalone enterprise account. It must be able to support itself in its entirety. And the same is also true of our airport. We have several departments that fall under the general fund. And the general fund revenues are made up of a variety of taxes like uh property tax, motor vehicle taxes, sales tax, cigarette tax, mineral royalties, gas tax, and things of that nature. um as well as a variety of charges for goods and services, whether that be fitness center memberships, uh recreation receipts, EMS receipts, cemetery receipts, or fines and forfeitures from the police department. Um all of those make up our general fund revenue. It doesn't mean that the fines and forfeitures that the police department collect solely support the police department. Um if that were the case, then you would certainly have a lot of complaints about all the tickets they were writing for citations, traffic citations. But um at any rate, all of those fees and taxes feed into that general fund. And the

general fund is comprised of our general town administration, our police department, streets and alleys, the recreation department, parks and common areas, the cemetery and emergency medical services. While we anticipate a slight reduction in property taxes um for the different residential properties overall it appears that our projected revenues will be a little bit higher because we are adding in property taxes from um adding in our new development out north. So, it's odd, but um until those property properties sell, the town will be paying property taxes to the town on those lots. Well, they'll be paying them to the county and we'll get our town portion of that. So um that's why there'll be an overall increase that started with FY26 because that's when we had the final plat for all those different properties. So um some of that increase will just be a wash. Um, we we anticipate some increases to things like uh some of our sales taxes. Um, and I think that overall our general fund will maintain a steady revenue stream from FY26 to FY27. With that said, we have had several

increases to expenses um just due to general inflation, whether it be to our liability insurance, to our um natural gas costs or uh to different um testing and compliance fees that we have to pay. information technology and cyber security of course increases every year. Um especially that cyber security component and as always there are increases to our fuel costs and things of that nature. Pretty much whatever you see as an increase to your own personal finances you see as an increase to our general fund. Um, something that we have not discussed before, but it's certainly open for discussion again, um, is whether or not we will be charging to operate our pool again this year. Um, I know that, um, in the past our governing body has been divided on that. While it doesn't um certainly doesn't pay to operate the pool on an annual basis, um it could definitely be any revenues for that could definitely be earmarked as uh going into a reserve account to pay for the pool resurfacing, which needs to happen every 10 years.

Did we do it like four years ago? Did we do it once? Uh I want to say, yeah, it was about four years ago. or five years ago 2021 and what was that about 80 100,000 uh what was how much was it the cost of doing I want to say it was about 200,000 way off sorry we cover the pool in the offse we do not Is there a merit in doing considering that

um we can I don't think it'll save that we keep the pool full um and while some of it evaporates off. Um, and then in the springtime we have to drain it and clean it. And I, you know, I mean, it would probably save us on some manh hours to clean it, but we would still have to, I mean, keep it full underneath that cover and all. Would probably have less dead squirrels. How many dead squirrels do you get? Six. 14. Higher than normal. I don't know. 14. We have a few every year. Just squirrels. That's just sad. Yeah. Or mice. It's just squirrels.

Yeah. It's kind of hard to tell at that point, but um I'm just squirrel. But yes, I mean, we could definitely look at at covering it for the winter months. They used to cover it, I believe, years ago. Yeah, they did. They did. Yeah. So, I just was wondering if there was any merit to it. If if there's not, then certainly there's no reason to consider it. Yeah. Probably more for like heating if you did it every day, right? Like that's really the only Yes. And I think that there'd be substantial savings in that cuz the covers for heating aren't that expensive. And the evaporation rate is, you know, when lights when we're getting down into the 50s and

absolutely they make we're losing energy covers that are designed to just keep the heat in during the summer months and that would definitely help um offset that natural gas bill which which is always we used to have one like it I remember them pulling it's been a while I'm assuming but I do remember that I'm assuming that whatever covers we had whether it be for heating or for the winter are probably just you know long aged out right dry rotted whatever. I wonder if you had a floating cover and it went over to the edge and you could secure the perimeter you probably keep the the critters out because they could run across the surface of

bubble wrap or you get more Yeah, that's basically what it is. It's like bubble wrap that's kind of all in the middle. At least that's my my parents's pool was that way.

So, but there are definitely some um some ways that we can look at uh improving our expenses. I know that the recreation department has also taken other measures uh to improving their uh the expenses but um for every improvement they come up with uh you know natural gas goes up a little bit more. So, um, but at any rate, I think that, you know, the last time that we did a, um, a fee analysis, you know, the I think we we raised gosh, was it 10 or 15,000?

That's what I was thinking. Selling the the ticket sales. And I know that some people were concerned that, you know, uh, families that couldn't afford it and all that, but I can tell you we had several people um, donate individual and family passes to the pool for Pineluff's residents. You know, um, several we had I know we had a couple of businesses donate um, a couple of individuals and then we also had a county commissioner that donated several passes. So, I think that um I I really don't we have never turned anybody away because they couldn't pay to enter the pool. What's the current rate? It's free.

What's that? Isn't it free? What last year? It was last year. Last free. We have a lot that come from out of town because we're free. I mean, exactly. Is it one of the pools in Cheyenne closed? Yes, the Johnson pool is closed. Um, I think they have that as a six penny project to rebuild it. That'll still be a few years at least. Well, probably. Well, I have really mixed emotions on the if people are going to use something, it's good if they have some skin in the game because I think they treat it with more respect,

but at the same time, it's it's a really neat benefit to the residents of the town. to have a pool that's free and so I have real mixed emotions. Can we look at a resident personal resident? They have that in other places. Someone once had told me and I would love to do that and they said anyone who lives or in Pine Bluffs or is part of Larmy too would get free pass. Yeah, you know how do you income they're paying sales tax property tax what someone had said once

you know if they're paying their town bill they're paying property tax necessary they're paying for the pool they're paying Mhm. I agree like you need to be a resident. Yeah. Yeah. And donate to who can like I'm more than happy to pitch in as well for those who can't afford a pool pass or to make sure kids aren't going out the pool. But it's there's a lot from out of town that come in because they're free. I see it on the Cheyenne Ransen race page like, "Oh, Pine Pool's free. Load load like load up van. We're headed out." Yeah.

Usually it's in the early part of the year that that's the case because the the attendance falls way off in it does. Yes. End of July, end of August. You'll look over there, there won't be that many people in there. Um but initially in the summer, early early weeks of the summer, Yeah. it gets loaded up. Yeah.

Well, it does. And you know the the if you also think of it in terms of those that live here and and those that don't you know it's those larger numbers uh are adding to that wear and tear not just to the pool itself but to the pool house the lockers the showers restroom facilities. We have to have more staff there. the more people there are, you have to have so many lifeguards where you know, you know, then perhaps it can be people who attend our school in Pine Bluffs because I know there's a lot outside who are still part of this community even though they don't live in town. That's true. But they also don't pay our property taxes.

I'm well aware of that. And usually I'm always been gung-ho for charging, but I guess I kind of view it as you charge for everybody, you charge for no one because I No, there's so many kids in our school who just live right outside town but are still here. True. Are participating in all of our events and school activities that True. I don't know. What did we charge several years ago when we did charge? It's like a dollar 255 or $2. I can't remember. I know. Yeah, it was a dollar.

It was a dollar something. And then we had passes for like a family was $100 for the summer and it was so very cheap. Individuals were like like if you just wanted to get a pass for your kid, it was like $25 for the summer or something. Well, they changed to the punch cards. Oh yeah. And I think the punch card was Oh gosh, it was like Where's 10 for 10 punches and $60 is stuck in my mind, but I don't know why. It might have been 60 for an a family

and 40 for an individual or something like that is what kind of bounces around in my mind, but are you texting her? I kind of I hear what you said, Dennis. I I uh it's a nice perk, but it would be nice if we were collecting something to kind of help offset some of the expenses we incur. Even if it's a trivial amount, like I don't know, a buck a day or 50 cents a day. just something that would maybe help offset a few of our expenses. And I'm all for a family pass or even a summer pass, too.

Broken down. I think last year, yeah, we had charged, but she had it ready to go.

I can ask her to attend our workshop. That would be good. Um and also um as an as an expense we have a um to the employee healthc care benefit there was an 8% increase. So to offset that increase, instead of the uh single rate uh employee having a $1,000 deductible, we have opted to increase that deductible to $1,500. Um and that would keep our rates pretty much the same um from year to year. So, it's uh not quite the same incentive to the employee, but I think the fact that it it uh saves a considerable amount to the budget uh just a little bit more enticing for us to take better care of ourselves and

I think that's still a very reasonable deduction. It it absolutely is a very I was I was in favor of that because I that's still as far as deductibles go on medical plans that's still fairly low. Yes, it is. It's very it's a still an excellent deductible and it pretty much leveled the the cost of the increase. So it absolutely

that's why I was in favor of that. Um and then we still left the stipens that we the town portion that we paid to the uh single plus one rate and the family rate the same. So there was there was no change there. Um and for budgetary purposes, um you will see the uh the proposed payroll per benefit uh per department uh tab on your spreadsheet and uh you can review that to look at the different wages that are being proposed. Um and those all feed into each of the individual departments. I wasn't quick enough to get us to go into exe add executive to tonight's agenda. So can I now request that that be added to next week so that we can discuss that and some of the blue cross changes and personnel

since we can't amend now to add it. So no

I'm requesting now next. Yes. Um, the other thing I just want to point out in the police department is that I did not budget for a K9 for this year. Um, you know, as you all are aware, our K9 handler will be leaving us for this fiscal year. And even if we had somebody that was interested in taking that position, um you know, by the time they we recruit, bring somebody on board, get them trained, find another dog, all of that. If we elect to do that again, um that it just is not uh it it doesn't seem to make sense to add it to this year's budget. It's something that we can look at in the future if we can even um afford to have that as an option again. Great. Um, our airport is supposed to be self- sustaining. Right now it is not. Um, however, with that said, our local match for projects could potentially be a little bit high. Um, it's just uh I I know that that is our local match for projects, but it may be the local match that is needed for the federal fiscal year. So, I might need to break that down a little bit further before I uh commit to that number. But at any even if it is a little bit high, it still isn't going to get us to break

even in our airport. When we when we're considering that local match, um a few years ago, we did the that like transfer of funds to Newcastle's airport. Yes. because we had it and we weren't using it. Is that like to do with this? No, I was hoping maybe like a friend could help us out. Yeah, that's actually our federal money. Okay.

Um and so normally for a project the federal covers 90%, state 6%, local 4%. for our big runway project that we have coming up. The state was able to support us a little bit more and so our local percent will be 2.5, but 2.5% of a $4 some odd million dollar project is still a pretty good chunk of change. Um, in this fiscal year, we will be starting with a design phase of it. In addition, it's also the the local match to um a couple of minor uh pieces left over of other projects, but uh that's so that's not the bulk of it. Uh we have requested match money on our ballot, so hopefully that patch passes and that will cover us for that runway project and and a little bit more for contingency in case it goes over. Um but we do need to uh somehow cover our shortfall and you know increasing hanger rent or fuel rates are not going to make a hill of beans a difference. I mean we can still look at that being a possibility. Um but but that won't make uh enough of a dent to get rid of this this shortfall. So, uh, while I haven't plugged it into this budget yet, I do believe that the general fund is probably going to have to help subsidize that.

Do I have any ideas of what we can do going on to possibly meet that shortfall or or short, right?

Close the gap a little bit. Um, annually we are usually able to come closer. We can usually get our budget to balance. Um, but we usually end up with uh a shortage at the end of the year. And um I don't know, maybe Alex can help weigh in on this. Um, isn't that pretty much an airport problem Wyomingwide? I mean, Cheyenne subsidizes the help subsidize that airport, don't they? No, they pretty much self self sustaining.

The the only way that uh Cheyenne is we have these things called MRGs and they're minimum rate guarantees that are paid to air carriers. uh that found its way onto the six penny tax one year

because those things come from mama and papa which are the city of Cheyenne and county paid theirs the city put theirs on the 1% and uh so that's where the support the outside support came from. Got it. Okay. Um So, uh, Cheyenne for at least manages to survive because it has like 75 to 80 leases and we don't have that out here. No, not at all.

We used to with one or two places there. So, there's no landing fee here. There's probably no way to get one. Uh you got fuel sales. U you know, you're pretty much stuck with maintenance and upkeep of a minor nature, you know, coming to rest on the town. And if it's a big deal, you know, then it's got to be grandfunded. So, and you know, we've fortunate to have people that are committed to it that kind of keep track of what's going on there and help charge for it. You know,

I wish there was a better answer for that, but um you know, there just really there just really isn't. most of the I mean we have some property that could be leased out there rented. Um and we have I think we still have is Mark is his operation a through the fence operation or he's on the airport. He's on he's on airport property. That's about where it ends right there. That is that and the crop dusting company. Yeah.

So, but that's that's pretty much it. So, yeah, one of the things that had been floated a while back was um I know this will cost something initially is putting in jet A. Yes. And the Air Force had said that they would fuel Yes. in pine if we had jet A. And the town paid to design the Jedi add-on. Okay.

And um we actually were going to initially use some uh unanticipated funds to cover the cost of that. And shortly after we released it for bid, uh the uh rules changed on uh fuel tanks, fuel storage tanks out there. And so what we anticipated as being less than a $300,000 project turned into over a half a million dollar project because of bureaucracy basically.

Yes. Because of now the new requirement for fuel tanks. So uh we were not able to meet that requirement. Uh but we have the designs. Um we can we can make that happen.

Um and we can get some partial funding for it. if since it's an add-on to the existing fuel station, but it is so far down on the Wasip because of requirements to uh resurface the runway, the taxi way, rebuild the apron, and then some other required uh projects that I don't uh I don't see any funding coming available for that anytime soon. By the time the funding comes available, we're going to be looking at more significant cost increases for that.

I know one of the things that affects the airport's revenue is how many takeoffs and landings are recorded in a year? And I think doesn't that affect what do contributes to the to the airport cost? I think that we were we had s significantly more takeoffs and landings than than we had previously been recording. I I was wondering where where we were on that threshold. So, are you referring to how they did up the 10%. Yes.

You know, I'm not sure about that. I'd have to check. It would be interesting to to look into that a little bit and see what that pretty much only comes up when there's a major project. Okay. Yeah, that won't affect our annual amount. It won't affect the annual. No, because I know when Mark a major project

when Mark has his new facility operational in Prairie View, he's going to pull out the manufacturing stuff that he has in the in the airport and he's going to focus more on on maintenance in that facility. And we could see an increase in traffic from from that. You know, it's an unknown at the moment, but Sure. And we can hope, you know, we can we can look into that to see if it will will make a difference in anything. Um, but need more rentals out there. Yeah, we do.

But it's going to cost money to develop that. Well, people need more hanger space. Get your construction crew together. Well, the FAA makes it difficult to have inside the fence operations. Outside the fence operations are they don't they're they're pretty Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah. I mean, hangers take a while to recover cost, but if they last long enough, you can pick up a few bucks that way. Having Having a maintenance option on site makes our airport very desirable for flying into and storing airplanes at if we had the facilities to do it. But we'd have to build more hangers to do that for sure. I mean there's always guys looking to have annuals done. I used I used to go to Alliance Nebraska and I mean it's ridiculous.

I think that shop got shut down. No lines. Yeah, there were some of the some of the surrounding shops were rubber stamping annuals and the FAA got a whole got wise to it and shut them down. So, there's a number of them have gone away.

In the meantime, Mark and his team, they've secured a number of um certifications now. They can do avionics. They can do they can do major overhauls. They can do a lot that wasn't there. So hopefully we'll start to see some some bigger things happen. It it really helps. I don't think there's anybody in Kimble anymore. Walt wit was over there for years and years and years. Everybody went to Kimble to get done.

You know, he did a good job. You you'd have brown screws in the white part of the wing and white screws in brown part of the wing, but nothing major. Well, I know that he just put on another avionics guy, so they'll be able to do avionics. They can do pedoatic testing now, which the nearest one was in Denver prior to he could probably pull a fair amount of business out of Cheyenne. They're gearing up for it. They're But he has a hanger in Cheyenne, too, right?

But but he's working on trying to secure a deal with Frontier Airlines to do their their maintenance in the in the Cheyenne facility, which would be huge. Sort of building more infrastructure. I don't see how the town doesn't continue to supplement the airport. No, absolutely. We have to supplement it pretty much every year. I wonder if there's grants or something we could get to for operating for like putting in hangers or whatever. I know that was a that was an absolute no for a while there and then we managed to come up with money to put in more hangers. So,

how that works, I don't know. Well, I I again I think that it's just something we actually have it on our uh capital improvement plan that we have to uh submit annually and we do that with Y dot and the FAA. Um unfortunately it it just keeps getting pushed because needed repairs like the runway and stuff come up before it. What other fun news do you have for us? What's that? What other fun news do you have for us? Airport's a tough one.

That's really the worst of all of it is is there at the airport and then um you know just uh working through um a few other other details um for a couple of the different utility accounts. But other than that, I think that you know, I think our general fund uh will be stable and um that we won't have to decrease any services that we provide to our customers. Thank you for this work. And Sonia responded with uh a family pass was $75, an individual pass was $40, or you could get uh punch cards. And uh punch cards were $10 each, and they were good for seven visits. Did you just sell the punch card here in the town hall or?

We sold them at the town hall. We also sold them at the grocery store um in case somebody wanted one on a weekend. Okay. And then towards the end we started making them available uh for purchase at the pool. I know that initially they didn't do that and there were some people that were frustrated because you know they were here for you know just the weekend or something like that. So um yeah the process approved as yeah but they were they were readily available.

So I guess I will we need to move first reading right? Yes. Okay. Um, I move to adopt ordinance 2026-02 on the first reading. Hearing a first and a second to adopt ordinance 2026-02. All those in favor? Opposed? Hearing? None. Motion carries. on to visitor comments. We have any visitor comments.

Hearing none, we'll go on to department reports. How about you, Dave? Really have anything to report either? I have nothing new either. Actually, nothing for me. Nothing as well.

I don't want to change a thing. Um, I only have one small thing. I just wanted to remind you all that our candidate filing for election starts May 14th and it only goes through the 29th. And that will be for the mayor position and two council members. So Dave's and Amy's. So any community members, you can come and town hall and I have the forms. So it's myself and Dave and Amy are the only ones up. Yes. Okay,

that's all I have. What about you, Kim? You have anything? Anything else? Uh um well in addition to the budget and uh finishing up the audits, we have uh you know the three different audits going on right now. But um I don't know if you all remembered about eight months ago the um Department of Audit public funds division had requested a listing of all of our credit card transactions. uh not just us but every entity that has every public entity in Laramie County uh from like July 1st of 2023 through May of 2025.

Oh boy.

Um and so uh we provided all of that uh again several months ago and they have come back with a sample request. Uh so we are working on that to provide all those samples and get them to the department of audit this week. Um and um in addition to that uh again with the budget and uh the north property uh sewer lines are are moving right along. So uh that project is on schedule. Um I would like to say that on the north property we have had an individual approach us um about lot 15 and let me grab the map and shut down. So, um lot 15 is this very small uh halfacre lot. Um, we were initially going to hold lot 15 to use as a proposed playground to put at the end of the greenway and um we have been approached by somebody that is interested in purchasing that lot. Um, we we had discussed a potential price for the lot and all that. Um, Since then, we've also had some internal discussions uh you know about the usefulness of that lot uh considering the height of Bourbon Street and the approach that would be needed to get in there. Um we are working on the zoning ordinance for this area, but because it's a commercial lot, I'm not quite sure how this would fall into play.

Um, I I believe that the individual that is looking at purchasing this would be interested in putting an Airbnb on that lot. So with that said, um I guess my recommendation is that if you are remotely interested in considering moving forward with something like that that we maybe ask for, you know, some kind of a plan like what would this look like? How big would this be? Would it be just the one unit? um you know making sure that it's not like and I and I highly doubt this is what it would be but if you know is this going to be a mobile home looking thing a tiny home looking thing a stick built what kind of a Airbnb would it look like? Um and you know you could you could consider it as possibly a good transition from the commercial into the residential area. um you know, how would parking take place at this Airbnb? You know, like I said, how much useful lot space is there? So, um again, if it's something you all would like to consider, we definitely can, but my recommendation would be to have more of a plan to understand, you know, what that would look like.

I would think that we'd want to see a pretty solid proposal of what they're intending to do. because it's hard to make a decision based on well maybe whatever. So I I would want to see a solid proposal. Okay. Um Alex if we were to sell a lot is that acceptable to do to see the plan before we sell it? I think in general yes we uh it's just going through the third party. Yes it is. So we don't need to worry about bids and that sort of thing.

No you don't. Yeah. Find out what you need to find out. What do you guys think?

I like that idea. We need to jump start selling lots and so I think it's worth considering whether this is a reasonable proposal or not. Um, with that said, for jumpstarting lots, in case some of you haven't noticed, on uh the different uh real estate sites out there like realtor.com, you're going to see a handful of lots that are listed for sale with a house on it. Uh we have partnered with another uh agent who uh is also works as a developer that would be interested in working with a buyer to sell the lot with a house on it. The house will not be pre-built. Um it will be uh there are just some renderings on there of what they are proposing would look good on a lot of that nature. So, we have not sold the lots to this other realtor. We haven't uh made any other deal. They're just uh putting another option out there for folks that don't quite know how to just purchase the land and then start the construction process on their own. Um so, this opens up another avenue for uh property sales and it also doesn't tie up those lots. So, if somebody really wanted one of those particular lots and they just wanted the land and they had their own builder, they could go that route, too. Great. And that's all I have. Our next meeting, um, I guess we'll have our workshop at 4:30 on Tuesday, May 26th. And then our regular meeting immediately following that at 6.

I will not be able to be available on sixth. Okay. So I'll mark it now. Okay. That it a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I motion carries.