Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat.

I now call the February 3rd, 2026 finance committee Meeting to order. Finance committee meeting to order at 6:47 p.m. Statement of investment policy review administrative services director's report, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I wanted to give a quick overview of our statement of um, investment policy and why it matters. Um, Wyoming law requires every city to have a policy regarding our investments and basically it serves as our roadmap uh for how we manage public funds to make sure that we're accountable uh for the community's money and that we're handling it responsibly, safely, and in a way that supports the long-term stability of the organization. Uh the policy was first adopted back in 1996 and it followed best practice guidance from groups such as the Government Finance Officers Association and the American Public Treasures of the United States and Canada. We've updated it a few times since then, but most recently in February of 2024 just to keep it aligned with our standards and our local needs. Um one section I want to highlight is section 6.0 zero in the policy and it gives the finance committee the responsibility to review the policy from time to time and that's really about making sure that it stays relevant and continues to work in the way that it's supposed to and this is something that I bring to the finance committee on an annual basis and so you can always look historically back on our documents and it's included in there as well the policy lays out four priorities that guide all of our investment um decisions of course the first one is safety always number one is protecting our public funds. Second is liquidity. So that's just making sure our money is available when we need it. And then the third is our return on investment, earning as much as we reasonably can without taking on unnecessary risk. And then finally, community investment, supporting our local economic activity when it makes sense to do so. So again, there's four priorities: safety, liquidity, interest earnings, and community investment. It also covers things like who's responsible for managing our investments, how we avoid conflicts of interest, what types of investments are allowed, and that's generally moni monitored by Wyoming

state statute. Um, how we handle our collateral, and how we diversify our funds. All these pieces work together to make sure we're being good stewards of public money. Keeping this policy up to date and reviewing it regularly helps protect the city's financial health and make sure that we're making thoughtful and well-informed decisions. And that is all I have to present on the statement of investment policy this evening.

Perfect. Thank you, Director Harris. Um, yeah, just to iterate, a lot of that, well, the greatest majority of it is controlled by state law. So, we don't have a great deal of say in that. It's not like you're day trading Bitcoin with public funds. So, uh, very important and, um, again, highly, highly respect the job you guys do. So, thank you.

Consideration of claims. Chair would entertain a motion for the approval approval of claims. Boy, I can't talk tonight. Your honor, so move consideration of claims to be paid in the amount of $195,937. Manual check in the amount of $30. Payroll and liabilities for 123 20226 in the amount of 530,662.75 for a total of7 thou $726,629.82.

A second. Have a motion by Councilwoman Johnson and a second by Councilwoman Brothers to approve consideration of claims to be paid in the amount of $195,937. Manual check in the amount of $30. Payroll and liabilities for January 23rd, 2026 in the amount of $530,662.75 for a total of $726,62982. All in favor say I. Oh. Is there any discussion or questions? No. All in favor say I. I. I.

All oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Is there anything additional to come before the committee this evening?

Thank you, Mr. Turno. Without objection, we will adjourn at 6:51 p.m. I uh now call the February 3rd, 2025 regular meeting of the Riverton City Council to order at 7:03 p.m. Uh Councilwoman Borders has agreed to lead us in the pledge of allegiance, after which I will give us the uh invocation. Everyone could please rise and remove uh cover 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. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful we are able to meet here together as the Riverton City Council and with uh our senior staff and with interested uh members of the community. We ask that it please bless those who are in attendance with health safety and with guidance from thee in their daily uh activities that they will be able to uh accomplish what thou wouldest have them do. We ask that it please guide us in those things and decisions that we make tonight that we will be able to make decisions that will better our city uh the members of our community. And we thank thee so very much for the guidance thou has provided for us throughout our lives. Please bless our city staff, our first responders, uh our military, our police officers. help them to be protected and guided throughout their work and ask that it please bless them to know of our appreciation for them. And we say these things in the name of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

All right. Council, uh, well, no. Miss Harris, could you please conduct the roll call? Yes, your honor. Council member Karen Johnson here. Council member Kyle Larson here. Council member Carla Borders here. Council member Mike Bailey here. Council member Rebecca Brothers here. Council member Eric Carr here. Mayor Tim Hancock. I am here. I declare we have a quorum. I'd entertain a motion for the approval of the agenda. So moved. Second. Motion by Councilwoman Johnson. Second by Councilwoman Borders. Discussion, amendments, modifications. All in favor say I. I.

Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. Council committee reports and council members roundt. Uh because we have children in the audience that have early bedtimes. I'm joking. Uh no. Because we have our Riverton Youth Council here. Uh maybe we could start with your report. Would that make sense? or do you want some time to listen to us yammer on?

All right, come on up and let's get a report from the Riverton Youth Council. And when you when you come up, if you could introduce everyone who's here from the council, just so the people who are watching know who uh is here. We all play bingo on the attendance of

Yeah, that's kind of funny actually. All right. So, I'm Royce Hancock, Capri Miller, and Caitlyn Bower. This is not our original lineup, so kind of surprising, but anyway, it's good to be back. Um, I think it's it's been kind of a strange month, but it it is definitely enjoyable to be back. And um, Riverton Youth Council, we're no longer like in the preparatory phase with a lot of stuff. for actually getting out there volunteering while also like um definitely trying to get more things done. Um so I'm pretty certain you all know how I do this. So you you council members know how I do this. So we started the year off with a bit of a reviewish meeting to know exactly what we needed to do and how. And then we got into some pretty extensive discussion on how to get some further things done. um we decided that it could be a potential for us to uh maybe have some way of helping with the ball gowns and badges um in March. So that'll be helpful. Um we had our members um Aurora Baldez and Hunter Masters. They attended the DUI task force meeting um and they said themselves they thought it was very wonderful and insightful. I figured this it was just a great opportunity and I will be able to attend one in the future. Um, very awesome. Uh, Masters helped with the, uh, women's five shot rabbit hunt and, uh, was just out there and was like, "Here, I know this obscure thing and I'm going to go and I'm going to represent the youth council." And that was really admirable of him. Um, but our big thing right now is go Riverton. We have direct access to a lot of the things. We're getting the weekly letters and um our big thing focus now is just how we can help collaborate with uh Mrs. Harper and just figure things

out and like editing and adding stuff on. Uh but anyway, I'll leave these guys to explain the rest. So, us as a youth council decided that we were going to create a city council like schedule of who would be attending and helping which currently was not fulfilled that we originally had. Speak into the mic. Can you get a little bit closer, Miss Bower? Okay. Um, bring it down to There you go. Don't reach over her head for Pete's sake. Of course you do. Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Bower.

Okay. But the people that we originally had scheduled to come today were not able to attend. So, me and Capri had to fill in for them. But hopefully for the rest of the city council meetings, the people that we have scheduled will be able to attend. And we also talked about how we should watch more of the city council meetings so then we can learn and apply them to our own meetings and not just with city council but maybe other types of meetings like the chamber of commerce meetings and other ones that we come across. We also still need to do more coordination with the rails of trails which youth council member Herb has been working with and we'll get help with youth council member Fabian. So that's about all I have.

Hello. Nice to see you all again. So, we've also been talking about how the library wants to get more of the youth involved and so we're trying to probably put some of that information onto our Instagram when it's finally like really up and running and and maybe attending some activities pro to promote how awesome they are. Um, and then as Royce was talking about a little bit, we've been working a lot with Carol Harper recently and mostly on their resources guide. We are currently working on contacting a list of businesses that we have on a Google sheet and getting their information that they need for the resource guide so we can help out um Miss Harper with that. So yeah.

All right.

Uh so yeah, that's pretty much it. Um thank you guys so much. We do appreciate the council um very much to appreciate like I noticed a lot of the time um we didn't really have as many people like or sometimes our le regular liaison wasn't there and so we had some other people fill in and I think that's great that y'all are you guys are you council people's I noticed you guys are there and you're just able to kind of see how things are going. So very much so appreciate it. Um if you guys do have anything in particular you would like the youth council to work on and uh we're here. I would say if you're interested in uh helping out with ball gowns and badges uh probably the best person to get in contact with would be Brett Johnson. Um Councilwoman Johnson may have his contact information

and could provide that to you. No, I don't know. We'll find out. I'll provide it to you. But, uh, he would be a good contact there. The other thing I would note is I've looked at your minutes and agenda and that kind of thing, and I would say whoever it is that does the minutes just does a phenomenal job. Thank you so much. I've noticed that a couple of times, Miss Bower. I was reading through them and I was like, these are just well-written minutes. And I even told I was talking to your mom and I even told her that. Did she tell you? Yeah, she did. Good. I raved about it and she good. I'm glad she passed the message along.

So, uh I think you're doing an excellent job. Um and uh we're well served by the Riverton Youth Council. And um as we uh come up with other ideas or things we'd like you to work on, we'll uh communicate with you. But if you want to work on balls and badges, I'd say get a hold of the president of FCF. I think he's the president right now, isn't he? Yeah. You got an end, your honor. Yes.

Um I we're really excited. Uh President Hancock and I have already been talking about a few ideas, but one of the things that I think we're going to do is um just like we are setting our city goals for the fiscal year 2027. I think that one idea that we're going to do is have a few of the RYC members sit in and watch that and then have them set goals that might mirror what they want to do. Um, I thought that that would be a good idea. What do you guys think? So then, you know, they're kind of thinking of their own ideas. Um, so think about that because we'll bring that up in tomorrow's meeting. Okay.

And the person who's going to be uh working with us on that goal setting session is back there too. So that'll be good. Mr. Nichols, who's our FCAG administrator. And if you wanted to borrow one of our staff members for your goal setting session as well, Mr. Misho does pretty well at it, too. We'd loan him out anytime for a small stipen. Said we couldn't have a budget. Nice one. Uh, anything else for the youth council? Thank you guys. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. And I'm sorry I was giving you a hard time. I just had to laugh. You're trying to help Miss Bower out and you just have your arm completely over her head and just had to give you a hard time. All right. Thank you. Thank you guys. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Okay. Well, uh I guess would let's hear from uh Councilman woman brothers first.

Awesome. That's great. Um thank you. So I had uh three meetings actually during in the last two weeks. Um the first meeting was the new um rendevous activity center meeting. So um that was on January 27th. Um it was a long meeting but really good. We set our bylaws. Um the main concern of course was funding. Um so but thanks to Kyle and Mary Axom uh they're getting you know Mary got the meeting minutes done and Kyle you know he was just got all those bylaws and just kept us going and yeah it'll be really interesting to see how that shakes out for the community. Um and really fun. Um the next meeting was uh rec board meeting which is super cool and important meeting. Carlo is there. Um and that was on February 2nd. And so we awarded more funds this year. So what we're doing is people from the community came and um asked for grant money to essentially beautify and um make the community better in different ways. um a lot of sporting things and everything. And um I'll tell you that this year was a record year for money. Uh and no other year will be like this year. We already looked at it and we will never have enough money to do this again. Period. But uh there will be a lot of really phenomenal huge projects done this year and it was really exciting to see this amazing cool projects that the community wants to do and how awesome it's going to look. Um and then uh of course then we have the RAC meeting coming up tomorrow and then like

I said we've got some really cool new ideas. Snow Angels is up and running um with all of our non snow and but you know we've got it there. It'll be there for next year whenever we do need it. Those are my meetings. Thank you, your honor. Appreciate it. Thank you for your report and for your hard work. That's uh great news about the uh board. Oh, it's so cool. Yeah. Uh Councilman Carr, let's go to you next. Oh, you surprised me. reverse alphabetical order.

Uh I did not have any meetings uh since our last meeting, but I and also we will not be having a planning commission meeting this Thursday. It has been cancelled. Uh no agenda items. So um but I do want to just speak a bit about the weather. Please make sure your down spouts are functioning and getting water away from your homes. Uh with the unfro or the yeah thawed ground as it is when we do start to get precipitation events, especially in winters like this, uh that moisture can get right to your foundations and cause settlement. So please make sure your downspouts are functioning. PSA advice

PSA knowing is half the battle. That's right. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Johnson. Uh I attended the work session meeting last week um and was very pleased with how that went. And beyond that, I was a freezing to death in Florida. I It was warmer here than it was in Florida. iguanas were falling out of the trees and yeah, so made it back in last night at 10:30. That's all I have. I would say I feel sorry for you, but I don't know. It was a good time. It was just very, very cold. It was not what I expected. Well, you didn't go far enough south. Didn't go far enough.

It didn't matter how far south you went, it was still cold. Pretty bad. All right. Well, thank you and glad you're back and appreciate your report. Anybody who's been thinking about moving to Florida, keep that in mind. It was warmer here than in Florida last week. Oh, man. I was going for a sunburn and aquito bite and was dangerously close to frostbite. Oh, man. All right. Uh, Councilman Larson, your honor, I had no meetings this last period of time. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Borders.

Your honor, I as well as um Miss Johnson and several other people went to the um special session last week. Um I attended the pause board meeting a couple weeks ago and uh everything's going really well with that. Um let's see, what else did we do? Semiquentennial meeting. um that is going off really well. Plans are starting to happen. I just want everyone to make sure that they reserve the Fourth of July in Riverton because we're going to have a huge party and uh we're going to need lots of help and volunteers and anyone that wants to do that can get a hold of Cindy at the chamber. And um let's see what else. The rec board last night was pretty awesome. We had a lot of really good uh applications and luckily we were able to fund practically everybody. So, they'll be getting those letters. Uh the only other thing I have is I want to wish my daughter Courtney a happy birthday today.

Y we won't say how old she is because that's going to date me. And that's all I have. All right. Well, thank you, Councilwoman Borders, and happy birthday, Courtney. Hope you're enjoying it. Councilman Bailey, last but not least. Yes.

Um I again just attended the work session last week. Other than that, I didn't have any other meetings since we had met for regular council meeting. Um force committee is this coming Monday at 11:00. Um again, they're working on the priorities for the coming year on what kind of projects. Again, they're in the middle of uh Riverview from Adams to Riverview um redo. They've done a bunch of the utility work this fall and obviously got a lot more done than they expected because the weather cooperated. And then the spring they'll get back after it and get on that. That's a shared project between the city and the county about $4 something million and the city's a little over half of that. Um, so that'll be a good improvement and they're going to do some other pavement improvements, slurry ceiling like we've done in the past and all of that. So, and then I wanted to mention um a previous city councilman, Gus Becca, passed away on the 16th of January or 18th of January. Um,

probably one of the most pleasant, wonderful men I think I've ever known. Um, serviceoriented. Yep. Very serviceoriented. He had owned multiple businesses, you know, World War II vet. Um, he had a flooring store downtown where the Ranger is now. Um, and he actually worked for me for about 10 years. He quit working for me when he was like 84 or 85, I think. And again, he lived to a ripeled age of 96. So Oh, wow.

Wonderful guy. So, thank you. Thank you. My condolences to uh Mr. Becka's family. I I had heard that he had passed as well and I think had a funeral last week. Yeah. And um appreciated that uh Mr. Butterfield actually was able to attend that. So um Oh, that's nice. But really uh really good person and very uh I I think how you said it, Councilman Larson. Serviceoriented and somebody who didn't have to toot his own horn. No, he did. Whatever he was doing. No, he's a good guy. So,

all right. Um city administrator's report, please. Thank you, your honor. A few things to work through. Um, we will have some of our council attend the Wyoming Association of Municipalities Winter Conference next week. That will be um February 11th through February 13th. And we look forward to their participation. And then also um the opportunity to coincide that conference with the kickoff of the legislative session, which will be a budget session and a a short session this year. Um, Wham is uh very engaged in uh working with legislators and um monitoring bills as they drop. So is the legislative liaison committee that works for Wham. And it just seems like um this time of year comes very quick and the session will be fast and furious as there will be many bills that drop but the most important one is associated with the budget for the bienium. I'd also like to remind folks that there will be a work session scheduled a week from today starting at six o'clock. This work session will be the annual goal setting for the city council. And um rather than meeting in the council chambers, it's planned that that meeting will occur in the bullpen area of city hall.

Are we going to have a moderator? Yes. Uh, Councilman Larson, the uh, we're going to have in keeping with a tradition that was started with Mr. Misho, we're going to have our FCAG administrator, Tim Nichols, who will be moderating the discussion. Oh, cool. Thank you. So, appreciate him being willing to do that. And, Mr. Chairman, we're very grateful for that. And Mr. Nichols provided me some information just prior to the start of this meeting that I will share with you um later tonight or early tomorrow in preparation for your work session. And I think I already warned him it's like hurting cats. If not, I am now. And we have homework too. Gee,

sometimes we do.

Um uh police department informed me that uh last weekend the DUI collaborative task force was in Riverton. From that uh coordinated effort, 12 arrests were made. We appreciate our chief and uh the other law enforcement agencies that came into town and for that collaboration and ensuring that we have safe streets. Um the police department will also be um active this weekend for the Super Bowl and also want to make people aware that WRTA and safe rides will be available and hope that people enjoy the festivities safely. I appreciate the work of our community development department and am excited to uh announce that a temporary um certificate of occupancy has been granted for the Amazon building. Uh many folks that have been uh north of town near Walmart at the Eastern Shawn Business Park have seen that facility rise and we're very excited with that addition and Amazon's relocation to our community and appreciate the work of our department as they've supported them through the construction process. Uh it was already mentioned that the Riverview Road project is one that is supported by the optional 1% tax and Mr. Mr. Tolman has informed me that uh with the benefit of good weather and uh that the ground is thaw uh there will be a recommencement of some utility work this upcoming week and um folks will engage with some traffic control like it had before. So uh be sure to plan your route accordingly and then also just to be safe as workers will be on the shoulder of that roadway improving the water utilities. The Urban Systems Committee met today and discussed its priorities for the use of those funds. As a reminder, this is a program that utilizes federal dollars

that are made available through the state of Wyoming um for urban areas and we we have an urban area uh designated for Riverton and its surrounding unincorporated uh areas. Um, the urban systems group has prioritized Airport Road as its number one priority for the use of funds that have been saved in the urban systems account. Um, there's roughly $200,000 that are allocated annually into that account. Um, and I mentioned from the state of Wyoming with federal funds. It takes time to save enough money to do a significant project. The account balance is roughly 2.3 million and the committee is now exploring ways to put that money to use on our roads and again are looking at improvements to airport road. It may be that those funds are used in in a phased manner. There may be possibility to partner with tribal entities to improve um much of that roadway. So we will keep you posted as that committee continues its work. Finally, I want to highlight our public works department in their efforts. As you uh are aware, the department applied for funds through the state loan and investment board through the state revolving loan fund. These were um projects that will support the acquisition of a new vector truck and then also uh improvements to utilities associated with Main Street. Um the office of state land investment have reviewed our applications and are recommending funding and also we received some good news that the principal forgiveness portion of our applications may be larger than what we anticipated. Mr. Tolman will go to Cheyenne and represent the city as um the top five elected officials in the state consider these two applications. But we are encouraged with what we're

seeing so far out of OSLI and appreciate the support that we are receiving from the state and from SLIB officials for because both of these projects are are very critical um and combined will result in multi-million dollars coming to the city of Riverton for improvements. With that, your honor, I'd be happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Butterfield. I noted that you did not share that Christy Peterson celebrated 25 years with the city of Riverton just recently, right? Is that because she didn't want that shared or your honor? Um we are so proud of our employees and Christy Peterson being one of them. Um her 25-y year tenure has been very valuable. Uh it's a challenge to know uh which employees to bring forward and recognize. We had several employees that reached milestones like that. For example, Sergeant Charlie Marshall was at uh a 30-year mark. And

only 30

only 30. And uh what what we do is we um allow our department heads to recognize their employees in a way that they feel is appropriate for their department. we uh we offer them certificates and then lapel pins that denote their years of service. So um I think it's it's something that's very well worth mentioning about Miss Peterson and we appreciate her service and she was recently recognized in the board of appeals meeting um by her department head because it it is such a a valuable thing to have a long tenure employee. Well, and I I said that a little bit in justest I but I just appreciate her and any chance I get to visit with her, she's she's just a a good individual to work with and appreciate that. Okay, so a couple of things. First off, I had received uh mayor and city council co care of a Riverton city administration an invitation to celebrate uh Jerry and Lori Kinsler after being in business for 50 years. Want to celebrate their retirement. I'll uh if we could I'll have this uh emailed to everybody, Mr. Butterfield, all the uh council members and everything. and um they want an RSVP. So, we'll get that emailed to everyone. But I uh I've known Mr. Kinsler for quite a few years. Anybody that's lived here would probably get to know Mr. Kinsler because if you walk in his store, you don't walk out not having met him. He's And he likes to chat. I I don't say that in a negative way, but you go in there and if he's in a mood to chat, you'll walk away having learned something new about him probably that you didn't know.

Uh so he and his wife really appreciate uh their many years in business here. Excited about uh some new opportunities that we have other people jumping in that I'm sure uh Miss Olsen Rooden is going to share today. But we just did have a uh ribbon cutting yesterday for uh Sweetwater floral and things. Uh they're wanting to take up the uh baton, so to speak, with uh floral arrangements and that sort of thing. I didn't get to attend. I had prior engagement that I had agreed to, but uh that was great news and glad we were able to do that. Um, we're going to hear tonight from uh the uh committee regarding the uh now what we've been looking at is a 3/4 cent uh funding uh for uh economic development that would go towards uh transportation and ambulance. So it would go towards ground transportation uh air service and ambulance for Fremont County. We'll hear from them later, but just to be aware that's something we just visited about in FCAG and uh the resolution for that will be going around to each of the different communities for passage. We didn't have it ready or advertised for tonight, but uh two weeks from now we'll have that resolution for consideration. If we get the uh sufficient uh passage of that from the governing bodies in the county, then that will go on to the voters in November for consideration. So, just be aware of that. Um, and we'll discuss that more tonight. But that's that's what we've been talking about with FCAG. The um also have an agenda item for TAD committee members. Let me just see if there was anything else that I needed to

bring up before I get to a fun email that I received and I wanted to keep uh Mr. Bailey engaged. So I didn't tell him what it was about. Just to try to mess with him, I guess, for nothing. Keep the excitement level high. Keep the excitement level high. Trying to keep him awake. That's what it is. See if there was anything I missed. Your

honor, while you look at that, can I ask um Mr. Butterfield a quick question? I just do you have any idea what kind of employment opportunity that new Amazon complex is going to be bring bringing to the area or how many job creations that might have? Yeah, your honor, Councilwoman, I have heard that number, but I don't have that ready at this time. Mr. Misho, do you have that off the top of your head? Um, your honor, uh, Mr. Butterfield, I do not have that number on the top of my head as well. I looked at the, if I remember correctly, I had to do a little bit of digging and looked at uh I think it was Gillette and Casper to see how many they had employed. And if I recall correctly, it was 20s or 30s.

Okay. But that's just off the top of my head. So, I probably should have done what they did and said I don't know. I was just curious. Yeah, Mr. Chairman or your honor and Councilwoman, I'll see if I can follow up and get that number again. Okay. Thank you.

Uh but the email that I received uh was from um Brian Lamar uh who is a public affairs officer for the 21st TSC in Cowser Slatter, Germany. And he wanted to let me know that Sergeant Briana Plush recently was selected as a hero of the week for her dedication to the 21st TSC mission in Europe. Uh so uh this is uh what he had shared. Meet Sergeant Briana Plush, a 31K military working dog handler with the 131st Military Police Department, Combined Military Working Dog Detachment Europe 18th Military Police Brigade. Sergeant Plush and her military working dog Edy represent their unit well during various missions such as providing support at checkpoints, clearing areas for dignitaries and leaders. She also assists in facilitating training among the dog teams within USAG Bavaria and helps others achieve better bonds with their canines. No matter how difficult the task, Sergeant Plush always remains positive and boost morale for the unit and those around her. So, I shared a couple of pictures and I will tell you I could see why she boosts morale. Every single picture, she's looking very excited for a soldier saying anything about soldiers, but I've met some soldiers that don't always have smiles on their faces. I've met some police officers that same way too, Chief. And by the way, I want to tell you about one of the officers that I've been trying to get to smile and he just refuses. But um it was really good to have them report on uh this and I I did a little bit of research into Sergeant Plush, what she's been up to, some of what the military working dogs do. And um a lot of what she does is making sure that we have safe areas. you know, they're kind of going before we might have a unit come in and making sure that it's a safe area for them and people that they're

going to be associating with and places where they'll be are going to be safe. And it was a it was a really fun thing to get this email and I just wanted to recognize her for her hard work. And I was impressed and excited to see that in all of the materials that she has, she's very proud to be from Riverton, Wyoming and always has that indicated on everything. And I just was not expecting that kind of an email this week and I wanted to share it. And that's cool. Definitely want to congratulate Sergeant Plush and appreciate her hard work. So, um, and I think that was it for me. I don't think I had anything else. Can you think of anything I missed, Mr. Butterfield? No, your honor.

Okay. Communication from the floor. Citizens comments. Anyone in the audience wishing to address the council regarding an item that's scheduled for a public hearing will be given an opportunity to speak during that public hearing. If you want to address the council on something that's not currently on the agenda, this would probably be the best time to do it. If you want to address the council on something that is set for an agenda item, when that agenda item is called, feel free to just get my attention, come up, and uh we'll make sure you're recognized and have an opportunity to speak then. Whether you speak now or whether you speak later, I just ask you come up to the podium, identify yourself by name and any organization that you're with. Uh if you're a part of a group, I'd ask you to split up your time uh 10 minutes for a group, split it up between you and the other members of the group. But if you're an individual and just speaking here yourself, I'd ask you to uh limit your comments to five minutes. uh regardless of what set of circumstances you are addressing the council. I'd ask you to address all comments and questions to me as the chair uh refrain from uh direct going off onto an issue that's not under consideration. So if you're going to be coming up and speaking while we're discussing some agenda item, please keep it to that agenda item and don't go off on different topics. Um I would ask you also to refrain from making comments of a personal nature, reflecting on the character or conduct of another individual, personal criticism, ridicule, name calling, fighting words, other language which might be disruptive to the orderly uh uh discussion here. So long explanation, but if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to speak, please feel free to come up to the microphone and identify yourself. I think I think this is working and it we'll make sure that you're notified when you uh you're at five minutes here and I'll let you know if

you've got about a minute left. Miss Olsen wrote in always goes way over five minutes. Actually, you usually are right on if not under. They're not stable.

Thank you. Uh, good evening, mayor and council. Uh, a couple of things. Uh, the wayfinding sign. I don't know if anyone I know you've noticed around town, but I just noticed the visitors center and the chamber has a sign right past the post office if you're heading east. And there's a pole on the other side of the street in front of uh overhead doors. sign's not up yet, but the poll's there. So, I'm super excited. If you look at our Facebook page, you'll get to see a picture of of the one by the post office. So, this is exciting. Um, and I reached out to Helen at the Wind River Visitors Council uh to show her the picture and she too was excited. So, um I was going to get with the youth council tomorrow. I've got a couple of things I was going to see if they're interested in. Um, so that'll be kind of exciting if they're looking for a couple of projects. Uh, we had an after hours last week uh at Sweetwater Floral and Garden. Well, floral and things at Sweetwater Garden. It was a great attendance, a lot of people, very very successful. It was with Wind River Realy as well. So, that was good. And then in the top flyer in the packets I sent around uh that is our lunch and learn this Friday. Uh so what that is is Wyoming workforce out of Cheyenne who does the presentations on the grants and different funding that they do for businesses. they are going to put on an uh put on a presentation, but it is going to be virtual, but we'll have some uh PowerPoint packets and whatnot. And I think it'll be very beneficial uh to any businesses that aren't familiar what

they have to offer uh for helping with employees and some uh grant type things. Uh so I encourage anyone everyone to come to that. Uh, Los Amigos is going to be serving lunch. So, that will be that will be fun as well. Um, as you may see as you walk out tonight or you walked in, uh, we've got our postcards at the utility desk where people sign up for utilities, it advertised h um has them come to the chamber for their welcome bag. So, we're really excited about that to put out um the welcome bags with different items in those for new residents. And in your packet as well um is our new board of directors. So, we had our annual meeting and um our new uh we have two new board members. We had four open positions. Two of them were reelected. Uh Devin Keller Hall and James Bunker. Um, and then our new one, uh, new ones are Christina Mills from the school district and Jerica Little from Hampton in. So, we've got a very wide variety on our board. I'm pretty excited about that and see where that takes us. A lot of times people don't know who's on our board and so I try to get that information out just so you know who's making the decisions and you know what's going on. Excuse me. Um, I'm working on the visitors guide as well. We're uve got we have a small prototype and so I'm uh excited with that. That's coming along. Hopefully we'll see some more of that and it'll be complete by May. So, super excited for that in the visitor center. And then last but not least, um, is our

250. I put snuck that in your packet as well. This is kind of a a rough draft of what we hope to have happen. Um, we did move it to July 4th. At first we were talking July 3rd and now it will be on July 4th on Saturday. We're going to have a parade at 10:00. And then we're going to end up at City Park and have um food from 12 to 2. We're hoping to find the funds to put on a a free hot dog feed um and some dessert. We'll see how that goes. Um and then at 2:00 we're going to have all kinds of activities. And the activities listed are just kind of a rough draft. What we're asking is service groups, businesses, families, church groups, whoever would want to take on one of these activities at 2:00 or any part of it and just take that one one thing on to help us out. Um cuz we are just a committee of seven, so we can't possibly do all of this. So, we're going to keep pushing and and hopefully uh get that information out. I've already gone to Rotary. Um they're talking about it. I went to Quanas last week, talked to them about it. So, anyone that wants to do it and then also have a float. Um, if you want to have a float, that's some suggestions on the back. So, um, please if you have any questions, reach out to the chamber. Uh, we're in our planning stage and I think things will start falling into place. So, any questions for me tonight? That was a lot in five and a half minutes. You did well, sir. Any questions?

Looks like you have a good board. Yeah, I'm happy. Some uh some new members there and and that's exciting. And new president, Mr. Herd and Yep. Miss Doyle is the vice president. Y great news. Yeah. So, we're I'm excited about it. You know, it's always good to get new blood in there and see what we can do. And I like everyone to know who's who's behind the chamber and what you know who those people are. So, and it sounds like so what you're looking for for the uh semiquincentennial 250th uh centennial, right? Well, not 250th. Yes. Centennial. 250th anniversary.

Quinn Centennial. Yeah. Um, you're looking for uh organizations to really take the bull by the horns with an activity or a business, an organization, whatever it is, and say, "We're going to handle this." Yes. Maybe something like JobCore would say, "We're going to do this." Right? Or uh, you know, 307 Thrift would say, "We're going to do this." I'm just volunteering people that I see in the audience. or the youth council will you know take on something and yeah or the rendevous uh the um oh what's the name of it Mr. Delgado River City Ronda River City rende right

anyway so we're looking for an organization that will say I'm going to do this thing kind of like what we might do with the downtowners even when they're doing the um when they're doing the fall harvest festival there's like this organization is doing the cakewalk or whatever it is exactly so yep do you have somebody that's in charge of the parade for example yet or are you still looking for that? Um, no. We do one of our uh well, a couple of our people on the committee. So, Mr. Misho and uh Councilman Borders, they're kind of our top two people. There's a couple other people that are pulling in to do that that have parade experience. So, uh yeah.

Great. And Mr. Misho knows he's going to probably need to get a um permission from W dot to be able to do. We've talked about that. You talked about that. Yeah. and I've uh already reached out to an insurance company about insurance. So, well, good. Sounds like a lot of fun. And um yeah, I was gonna say the the um historic the Rendevous Historic Society would probably be perfect for some oldfashioned games. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Going to volunteer them. Yeah, I'm I'm just volunteering them. They're not here. So, no, I will I will be hitting them up. Yes. Perfect. and a good deal.

Yeah, should be should be a lot of fun. So, we're looking forward to it. Oh, and the city of Riverton is 120 years old this year. That is a very good point. So, that's an added bonus that we're going to tie in. Already talked to the museum and they're going to um have a float. They volunteered to have a float. They're also going to have Pop Logan's popcorn machine at the park. So yeah, I'm starting to get people that want to do this or that. So I think Mr. Butterfield would volunteer to be just do about anything, including like a parade marshall or Okay. He's good at that. Be an honor.

Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Unless Mr. Nichols wants to be a parade marshal. I can't I can't come to this podium without being tempted to volunteer for something. Yes, I try.

I'll do Thank you, mayor, members of the council. I just want to provide a brief update on WRTA. Um I can go through the writership numbers, but why waste the five minutes um on writership's up? We know that um safe ride uh concluded January with 152 passengers. So significant increase there. Um we continue that trend. But what I really would like to talk about is we've had the opportunity to process our NTD report which is our national transit database which compiles all the data that we collect annually puts it into one place. But as you can imagine with federal government it takes a long time to actually get caught up. And so we're looking at numbers from 2020 or federal fiscal year 2025 um and comparing it to federal fiscal year 2024. When we looked at those numbers, what we saw um was was pretty noteworthy. Uh our annual cost or our annual vehicle revenue miles for our demand response off uh service offerings reduced 35% from 138,356 miles in federal fiscal year 24 to 89,931 miles in federal fiscal year 25. cor correlating with that meaning our miles per vehicle reduced um proportionately to 35% uh from 23,59 uh to 14,988 miles per vehicle. Now we put the the information together with some cost allocation of our total annual budget and cost for that uh where it significantly reflected our efforts uh was in our cost per vehicle revenue hour meaning the cost of the vehicle operating in service pro pro or when service is being provided. That's the revenue hour. uh went from federal fiscal year 24 at $150.76 to federal fiscal year 25 to $38.34 which reflects a 74.6%

reduction. So everything that we'd been doing um it it actually was such significant transitions that FTA uh threw red flags and required justification. So I had to send in kind of an explanation with the numbers and and reflection of why got audited.

So a little little tiny bit. Um but uh significant numbers there uh just from 24 to 25. Um what that reflects mostly is a rebalancing of our service and an identified um opportunity cost of where our time was being me uh uh where our time was being spent and where it could be better served uh to more people. um increasing vehicle productivity evident in there and reduced co cost per service hour significantly. Um finally just a quick update that uh after our application I believe was in April of last year uh and we were awarded the USDA funds that granted a study uh CTAA will be in Fremont County uh the 17th through the 19th. So um we will be touring them around meeting with uh uh stakeholders. Uh my plan is to hopefully commandeer about 15 minutes of your time on the 17th if possible uh to have them meet with you initially. Um and yeah uh just a reminder that study is uh based on sustainability of both financial uh and modal um service delivery. So they'll be evaluating sustainable revenue sources to what it will take WRTA to operate and then also evaluating all of our service delivery and redesigning based on sustainability. So um yeah, that's pretty much my update for you this month.

You still have another minute if you want to filibuster. As a record, I'm going to leave on a high note.

Thank you, Mr. Nichols. and good news about CTAA and we'll look forward to visiting with them when they're here. Anyone else in the audience? Good afternoon. So, I'm here told you I I would make it to two months in a row now. Um so, I'm here to just give you guys a little update on Wind River JobCore. I don't know if any of you guys have heard, but um the president did sign the um the law that consolidated the appropriation acts of 2026. Um so we have funding for another year. Um and the my understanding of the the wording of part of that is that it's going to make it more difficult for um Department of Labor to just try to put us on pause or anything like that again that it has to go go through Congress.

Miss Martinez Watson. Yes. Because we know who you are. Oh, I'm sorry. Audience may not know if you could just tell us your name and uh the organization you're with, please. Andrea Martinez Watson and I am with Wind River JobCore. I'm the business and community liaison and workbased learning coordinator. Thank you. Sorry.

Sorry. Um with that great news that um was shared with all of our campus staff and students today, um I wanted to let you guys know that we are up to 114 students as of today. Um, from June 1st of last year to January 31st, we have officially graduated 74 students. 49 of those students are in full-time trade jobs, 12 of them are in apprenticeships, four of them are in college enrollments, two of them are military enlistments, and three of them are in advanced training. Um, I have currently out of the most recent graduates that we've had in December, January, and now, I have three that are pending um, apprenticeship acceptances. They're like second on the list for their apprenticeship program. So, most of our apprenticeship programs in the state of Wyoming do not start accepting new apprentices until like end of March, beginning of spring. So, they're just patiently waiting to hear hear back from their unions. Um, out of the 114 students that we have on center right now, we have 94% of them are residential students. So, they live on center. 25 of those stu 25% of those students are female. So, our female numbers are kind of going up a little bit, which is a good thing. And not all of our females, of course, go into our soft trade, which is our medical foundations class. We're seeing more and more of our female students getting into the hard trades like carpentry and heavy equipment operating, um, electrical.

And then I wanted to share with everybody that yesterday we had our national groundhog job shadow day and it went out very successful. We had 54 students off of our center. So almost half of our student body um going off center. Security was not super happy with me because they were all going out at the same time at shift change. But um we had 54 students that went off center. Um we had one, two, three, four, five, um five employers and businesses that helped us out with our um job shadow day yesterday. WRTA took on some of our HM and HCD students and we're extremely grateful for them giving that giving us that opportunity. We had um Homestead Assisted Living took our medical foundation students. Um Hoffman Electric took a group of our electrical students that are getting close to the end of their trade. And then Contango, um, before I get to Contango, Woodridge Apartments took two of our BCT students to help on with their, um, facility maintenance workers that they have there. And then Contango took 26 of our students yesterday and three of our um staff members on for a a tour of the facility and explaining to the students that are in the welding and the um petroleum trades how that you know they we can be helping each other out. Now I want to go ahead and end that with that we have picked a graduation date. Graduation is scheduled for March 20th. Um we are pending approval for elected officials and media to come and visit center and as soon as we get confirmation uh we will provide you all with an update. Any questions? I finished before one minute.

You did very well yet. Um what are you going to be taking on for the semiquentennial? I don't know yet. I'm I am going to be meeting with um the other leadership staff to see what we can do. I would love for us to have something going on with that. I'm just going to shake people down. I'm trying to get you volunteers. I mean, um told you're on it. Shame is a good way to get people to do things and catching them off guard. Yes.

I ran into this is for um Miss Watson and Miss Rhoden. I ran into the owner of Curry Rail Services the other day. I promised him I'd throw out his name. He owns um a business in Shosonyi, but he's very interested in hiring several individuals from Riverton and specifically um from JobCore, I believe, and he wanted um Miss Rhoden to, you know, tell him about some um job fairs and everything. But, uh, I want to give you his information because I was like, "Oh, I need to put you in touch with with, um, Miss Watson." Um, so I'm really glad I saw you tonight. Anyway, he specifically is hiring welders and everything. And I was um, and he's really excited to grow his business around here. Funny enough, he's like, "Why don't you have an Italian place?" And I was like, "I do. We do. Peret. I do." I said, "We do." Perets. So,

you're taking credit for I did. I was like, um, I was like, "Get on over here." and eat at Prett. So anyway, um but so I'm going to give you um don't leave without getting his information or get me yours so that I can get it to both of you guys because he said he had several jobs um open and wanted to hire people from Riverton, but Okay. All right. Yeah. Anything else?

Thanks, Miss Watson. All right. You've tried to stand up three times and I think I've interrupted you every time. Hello. Um, I'm Ted Mcool with 307th RH Thrift, owner of the building at 412 East Main Street, and I'm here with Tracy Cooper. I'm Tracy. Um, I'm representing the downtowners tonight, but I own Liberty Trade and Guthri Jewelry at 413 East Maine.

And tonight we're uh under the pretenses of parking. Um, we've been in business at 307 Thrift for 4 years and almost Yep. And we have struggled. The top five things, one of them is being parking uh over the years. And since the sidewalks have been redone and the 2-hour parking signs have been reallocated somewhere else, I don't know where, but we'd sure like to have them either address or the idea of possibly put up something that would allow the 2-hour minimum parking um on the curbs possibly. Um, anything else would you?

The problem with our parking is that we have business owners and and employees that park in front of other businesses and um quite a few of us have elderly people um that need to get into our business. Yeah, the majority of our business is 50 and old older typically or 40 40 and up. And to have them go all the way around from the I would consider the cusal parking lot to this to this area here is because there's no street parking available. This year has been very nice to us because we didn't have to worry about the snow and the ice, but

summer has been nice. If you guys have anything to do with that, thank you. We could do a continuing resolution that we have uh warm warm weather. Warm weather. Thank you. They'll appreciate that. Whatever good it will do, but we could do a resolution. Okay. Okay. So, your your concern is parking on Main Street, making sure that you have Yeah. parking spaces. Yeah. What's happening is uh for extended up to sometimes six hours a car will be sitting there and uh we need loading and unloading of the because of the retail business that we have uh okay mattresses um

400B piano. If it's customers that's fine. We we're all for them parking there. But when it's business owners and employees, we do have a very nice parking um spot that we have been working on with the city and um if there's any way we can convince them to go to that parking to let our customers and sometimes that that that that's too far away sometimes because of like I said the the Oh, yeah. People over 40, it's hard for them to get around some. Well, for me, I stood up three times. She didn't come to the podium. Yes. Yes.

Your honor, I have a question. Do you guys have a suggested like streetto street ideas for us so that we could, you know, Well, since the sidewalks have been uh redone and the river has been poured in in into the decoration of the sidewalks, the two-hour parking has been removed and uh my understanding is f and the metering has been removed and so it becomes a parking lot in itself at the curb. Okay. And it's all it's pretty much all of Main Street, but there is no

there is no public parking from the Cusal parking lot all the way past the city park. And in the fifth street area, which were all condensed in that Fifth and Maine, um there's a lot of activity, including uh a business owner here also on Fifth and Maine that will soon be opening uh a restaurant potentially uh with the impact Yeah. And the chamber issues

the the impact of that parking is overwhelming and um including the recovery center of substance abuse that's next to the cedar um that's that takes up all 30 30 cars a day potentially with multiple meanings. So that that does create its own problems. And so if we can find a solution, if we have a workaround other than the two-hour parking, um maybe that's something we can address in the future.

I appreciate the feedback and I think that's something we can continue to talk about different ways that we can address that. I know it's different than when I was a kid when we had the meter and I certainly not looking for metered parking. Yeah, I don't think that that's the answer. We could find them maybe. I don't know where those old meters are, but we could maybe find them and reinstall. Just want the signs. Yeah, we just want the signs, your honor. But I see I see what you're saying though about the signs.

I I'm just wondering, and not to put the chief on the spot, but I wonder if we could put some parking enforcement into the mix. Uh we used to have that. Um I can't think of her name. Debbie uh Hayes, she used to go around with the chalk and mark tires, but the resource officers could help facilitate the enforcement of the two-hour parking or if there's another solution that presents itself. We're open for that. The city has been great with the parking lot that we have taken over. I've I've noticed a U-Haul truck parked there the last last few days, but um they you know they stepped up and they've helped us keep that clean and keep the

you know the people that were living in that parking area and it is a long way to go. But yeah, it it works behind all that for that area, but that doesn't work for continuing us all the way down all the way down to federal. Okay. Well, we can keep talking about that and some different uh possibilities and awesome. Um, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

Anyone else? Might be a worthwhile thing to put on a future agenda. I'm not sure when we want to have that discussion, Mr. Butterfield. But

your honor, we'd be happy to look into that. Riverton Municipal Code 102040 already addresses time limit on parking and there are provisions that we can explore with you as the council um in response to this question that's been brought forward. So, we'd be happy to look into it as staff and then bring it forward for your consideration. it would I know that I think it was I don't remember if it was last year or a couple years ago the planning commission kind of had a little bit to discuss uh parking and that sort of thing and maybe we could revisit and discuss that as well. So okay, thank you. All right. Well, we're just rolling right along. Uh consent agenda. Um, administrative services director, if you could please read the consent agenda items by title only.

Yes. Minutes of the January 20th, 2026 council work session. Minutes of the January 20th, 2026 regular council meeting. Minutes of the January 26th, 2026 council work session. Minutes of the February 3rd, 2026 finance committee meeting. Finance committee recommendations from February 3rd, 2026. Approval of the municipal court report for the month of January 2026 and bylaws of the Riverton Rendevous Activity Center Committee. Thank you. Any items requiring further discussion? Councilman Carr.

Thank you, your honor. The finance committee met at 6:47 tonight and recommend consideration claims to be paid in the amount of $195,937. One manual check in the amount of $30. payroll and liability for January 23rd, 2026 in the amount of $530,662.75 for a total of $726,629.82. All right. I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved. Second.

Councilwoman Borders with the motion. Councilman Bailey with the second. Discussion, amendments. I don't know if anybody looked at the minutes and the bylaws for the rendevous activity center which I loved that they adopted that and the logo even. I'm excited. Good work. Looking like got a good start. So,

your honor, in regards to that, they're going to be discussing the the ice hockey rink, correct? Yes. Um, I know that there was a a post that was circulating um with discouraging that they're discouraged about the the the hockey kids not being able to play this year because of the lack of ice. Um, and I did plan on attending one of their hockey meetings just to get a better understanding of what their challenges are that they're facing. I don't know whoever's on that committee if they could attend that as well or at least be made aware of it.

It could be a good idea. If you could let uh I think in terms of the rendevous activity center committee that's uh councilwoman border uh councilwoman brothers and uh councilman Bailey maybe uh if you could get them the information about the next uh ice I'll share you guys the information that I received. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. The adverse side of us having nice weather this year is that it didn't freeze ice because they don't have a chiller. They only have mother nature to do that for them. So, and an open uh wall. Yeah. In the shade at least, but it Yeah,

that's part of the problem with the continuing resolution for uh nice weather, right? We'll reconsider that. So, now they're going to blame it on us, man. All right. Uh, all in favor of passage of the consent agenda as presented, say I. I. Any oppose? Say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. Next up, we have mayoral appointments to ad hoc 2026 TAD committee. Uh, Mr. Butterfield, if you could give us this report.

Yes, your honor. Uh, much of this information is in your packet, so I'll be brief. Essentially, you have opportunity to uh select a promotion committee to review the applications and steer the recommendations of award for the 2026 TAD program. As a reminder, uh the TAD program receives 25% of the total annual revenue generated by the lodging tax in Fremont County. And the funds are basically um allowed for towns and cities to promote the assets uh that are in their specific area and um bring people to town and promote tourism. As a point of reference, uh for the 2025 period, $79,000 of TAD funds to 14 community entities were awarded by the city council after the recommendation of the previous um committee. The committee recommended $7,000 be reserved for a new opportunity fund and that stayed in place throughout the 2025 year. Of the 79,000 that was awarded, the city reimbursed $73,36849 to 12 of the 14 entities that received funds. The two that were not uh reimbursed um centered on the fact that they didn't submit uh reimbursement requests. As we look uh to the future, there is currently $28,79623 in the account that has been set up and is accounted for separately of other funds uh for the TAD program. And we estimate that an additional $100,000 will be earned through the 2026 calendar year into that uh fund. So, with that bit of background, uh, mayor, you now have opportunity to appoint members of the city council to serve on an ad hoc promotion committee to review the applications and make recommendations of

award for 2026.

Thank you. Um, I was basically intending on asking for a coalition of the willing, I suppose, if would call it that. Um, we've had a couple of different people that have served. I know Councilwoman Johnson served last year. Um, Councilman Bailey served last year and I think Councilwoman Borders served last year. So, if those three council members want to continue on the ad hoc committee, I think that would be excellent. Uh, anyone else that would want to jump in, if we want to swap that around, we can. But any thoughts? Anybody that's really been itching to serve on the TAD committee that wants to do it again?

I would do it again. Good. If I'd do it again, too, as long as someone else doesn't want to try a turn. That's fine. Okay. Well, we'll uh if I'd entertain a motion then to confirm the appointment of uh Councilwoman Johnson, uh Councilman Bailey and Councilwoman Borders uh to review the 2026 TAD uh program applications and make recommendations to uh the city council. So moved. Second. Councilwoman Brothers with the motion. Councilman Bailey with Councilman Bailey Carr with the second. All in favor say I. I.

Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. Thank you for being willing to do that. And I didn't want to just put the same people on there. I wanted to have a little bit of discussion, but appreciate you being willing to step up, your honor. Now that they've volunteered to do that, I'll let them know that there are over 20 applications that they'll have opportunity to review. We had great response from our community. You didn't bring that up first. Yeah. dirty. He told me about that and we elected not to uh lead with that. That's right. Your honor, do we have any idea the time frame that we're looking at? How soon we need to meet?

I think we were wanting to get you meeting as soon as you can. Yesterday. Yes, yesterday. Yeah, we had you scheduled for yesterday, but Okay. All right. Up. Up next, we have resolution 1540, Riverton rendevous balloon committee terms adjustment. Deputy city clerk's report, please.

Thank you, your honor. Mayor and council, before you tonight is proposed resolution 1540, which would amend the appointment terms of the Riverton Rendezvous Bloom Committee by establishing a staggered two-year appointment system. The committee was originally established in March of 2020 2011 and renamed in May of 2024 at the direction of city council staff sought input from committee members regarding potential changes to appointment terms. At their January 14th meeting, committee members expressed support for moving from a one-year term to a staggered two years terms to improve continuity and stability. To implement this change, committee members volunteered to establish initial one and two-year appointments beginning in 2026, allowing for smooth transition. The proposed dagger terms are as follows. Michelle Hower, Carla Kelly, Andy Samson, and Luke W. Walker would serve one-year term expiring December 2026. Jerry Bash, Kelly Davis, Pat Nulan, and Ryan Preston would serve two-year terms expiring December 2027. There is no budget impact associated with this action, and staff recommends approval of resolution 1540. Thank you. Um, if you could please read resolution 1540 by title only. Um, oh, Miss Harris, could you do that

since we heard the report from Mr. Batista? Certainly. Resolution number 1540, a resolution of the governing body of the city of Riverton, Wyoming, amending appointment terms and establishing staggered terms for the Riverton Rendezvous Balloon Committee. Thank you. I'd entertain a motion to adopt resolution 1540. So moved. Second. Councilman Larson with the motion. Councilwoman Borders with the second. Any discussion? The members of question, your honor. Yes, sir. Did we ask the members if they were okay with

that? Was that was my question, too? I was going to say, are we were they okay with the ones that have the two-year term, were they okay with that? And the ones that have the one-year term, were they okay with that? Yep. This is everybody that volunteered. Perfect. Good. Good. That was Councilman Carr's question last time, too. So, I was going to follow up with it for him. Thank you. He's on the ball. Any other questions, comments, or concerns? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. Thank you for putting the work into that, Mr. Bautista, and for serving.

Always a fun event. All right. Consideration of ordinance 260001 second reading underage persons and bars title 5. Uh if everyone may recall at the uh January 20th, 2026 regular council meeting uh we had a motion by Councilman Carr. Uh second by Councilman Bailey to adopt ordinance 260001 on second reading. We had some discussion that resulted in uh Councilwoman Johnson moving and it was seconded by uh Councilman Carr uh to table the consideration on second reading until the next regular council meeting. So if we wanted to move forward with this, we would have to have a motion to remove from the table ordinance 26001 on second reading. So do we have a motion?

So moved. Second. Councilman Bailey with the motion. Councilman Carr with the second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. And then I guess we'll I suppose we'd have to read by title only again. Ordinance 260001. If you could please read uh ordinance 260001 by title only. Miss Harris.

Yes, your honor. Proposed ordinance number 26-001 and ordinance amending title 5 business licenses and regulations chapter 5.04 4 alcoholic beverages, section 5.04.010 definitions, and section 5.04.020 sales established establishments generally of the Riverton Municipal Code and repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict therewith and providing for an effective date. All right, I'd entertain a motion to adopt ordinance 26001 on second reading. So moved. Second.

Councilman Bailey with the motion. Councilman Carr with the second discussion amendments. I apologize I wasn't here for our work session. I mean I was just virtually voice in the cloud. Uh your honor, I uh have a motion. I move to amend ordinance 26001 section 5.04.020. 020 F2 by changing it to say not less than 51% of gross sales.

Okay, we have a motion to modify as indicated. Do we have a second for that? Second. Okay. Motion by Councilwoman Brothers, second by Councilman Bailey. Is it clear enough where we're talking about there, Miss Harrison? Mr. Butterfield. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. Okay. Any other um discussion on the motion to amend? All in favor of the amendment say I. I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. All right. Now we're back on the main motion as amended. Any other discussion?

Just point of clarification. Is this in line with the I thought we had discussed to strike I think it was G F G F. Yes. When we were in the work session, we had discussed that might make sense. Um so I would move to go forward with that and strike F alto together as an amendment. Okay. So we have another motion for an amendment which would be let me just get it here to remove I think it was FNG actually I think it was

well and I think the discussion was that F3 now I need to open it up. We had discussed removing G completely. F is actually the part of the original and I think we had discussed striking F1 and F2

as well as G because F1 and F2 were the ones that were talking about a commercial kitchen not less than 60%. and then um indicated that the limited light retail licenses clubs um and then striking G I guess it would also be striking H2 is what we had discussed was F1 F2 G and H is that your motion then yes thank you sorry I got confused on that one well and I it was a lot it Mr. Bailey did very well at keeping us all in order and getting us out of there in a timely manner.

Did your honor, I'll second. Okay. We have a motion to strike F1, F2, G, and H in the proposed ordinance, which would actually serve to strike, F1, and F2 of our existing ordinance too. Um, as it is in the municipal code. We have a motion by Councilwoman Johnson, a second by Councilwoman Borders. Discussion on that. Uh, your honor, explain what that does. Sorry, I'm trying to figure I'm trying to catch up.

No, that's okay. What we had discussed was so first off, um, some of the complaints that had been made about this were the the difficulty in enforcing it. So had had feedback that it wouldn't make sense to say, "Oh, we're going to allow 21 year olds or someone who is less than 21 in the bar when the commercial kitchen is open." Officer would be going there and he's like, "Okay, is the commercial kitchen open? What time of day is it?" Right? Are they being served food? Where are they sitting? And so with some of that uh being discussed and frankly at the meetings when we had discussed it I don't think there was anyone that was in favor of

right those modifications as I recall

it was just uh negative feedback towards it. So we had discussed that if we removed F1 and F_sub_2 basically we would be to the idea of if you have an organization that has most of its receipts coming from something besides alcohol. they would be able to have minors there already the way we have it in F. And so it gets us where we were wanting to, which is we would still allow minors in locations where most of the money is coming from something besides alcohol.

Your honor, Councilman Bailey. So, in this amendment, are we saying we're going to strike F or are we just going to strike F1, two, three? Because F is the one that says permit somebody under the age of 21 to enter in the license where alcoholic beverages are dispensed in an establishment provides adult entertainment or is primarily for on premises consumption where the primary source of revenue from the operation is the sale of alcoholic beverages. Right? So that means somebody that has an on premise retail license cannot let anybody under 21 period.

So correct it's F1 that I was looking at. So F1 F2. Yeah. That would I guess I want to make sure that we leave F

and and delete one, two, three. Correct. The idea was to keep three but to delete F1, F2, G and H. So that it would be in the for establishments where most of the sales are not related to the sale of alcohol for on premises consumption. They would be allowed to have individuals that are under 21. And I guess for some clarification too, the difference between on premises and off- premises consumption isn't necessarily in the license itself. The license itself would allow either, but our code requires if you're doing on premises consumption, that has to be a separate area for than for off- premises consumption. So if you're going to do on premises consumption, there has to be a delineation between on

Yeah. So off premises is package liquor, pick it up, take it away, right? On premises is serve the dispense the beverage and be consumed there. And if you have that license, you have to have it a delineation between the two because I had I wanted some clarification on that. I had had someone who had brought that up regarding u one of our licensed uh establishments. But then this does not say anything about a commercial kitchen which we just did the definition of. So it's sort of irrelevant at this point if we do that. That's a good point. We'd have a it's kind of like

the commercial kitchen doesn't matter anymore if you take all that other stuff out of there. Your honor, if the council approves this amendment, we would recommend you propose an additional amendment to remove that commercial kitchen. Okay. remove the kitchen or just the reference. Excuse me for clarification. The reference the definition. I can include that in my motion. Okay. Uh so we had a motion previously for removal of F1, F2, G, and H leaving the commercial kitchen in place. But now you've you've added to your motion which was also removal of the definition of commercial kitchen.

Correct. That was your motion, Councilwoman Johnson. Would you add to the second? So, to be clear, the motion was for those changes as delineated. Is that clear enough, Mr. Butterfield? Your honor, I'm sorry, Miss Harris and I were conferring over a question. So, did did you just do a friendly amendment to bring in also the definition? Yes. And both the maker of the motion and the second agreed that that was their motion and their second. So, commercial kitchen would be removed.

Very good. So, your honor, the the amended the amendment before you, just for clarification, includes the original paragraph F and then as what's proposed in your packet, it keeps what is currently three, F3, and F4. So, that addresses limited retail license clubs and then also the um off premises and I do believe that is consistent with what you had discussed in your work session.

Right. So to be clear for anyone watching, anyone who's voting, the motion is for removal of F1, F2, G, H, and the definition section for commercial kitchen, leaving paragraph F, paragraph F3, and F4. I would say probably would remember those to be F1 and F2. But actually, usually for legislative stuff, they recommend just having a notation in there that it was revoked by this ordinance so that any references to three or four don't have to be modified actually. So just

so if this passes, F would stay in place, which says no one under 21 can be in the business unless they sell more than 50% of their sales are non-alcoholrelated sales. Correct. Correct. Yes. So that's saying sort of takes care of the 50% that we just changed also, but that's fine. Yeah. Mhm.

So when in the work session we had one business owner that's going to have other things not food which so and again this is sort of taking the whole food concept out of that equation also. So, as long as a retail liquor license on premise sales license holder sells more than 51 50% of their products are non-alcoholic, then they can allow people under 21 to be in the in the business. Correct. Correct. Okay.

Which makes sense with people that have, for example, a restaurant that happens to have a package liquor license, but they operate for all intents and purposes as a restaurant. Any other discussion on the amendment? Clarification. Everybody's good on it. Councilwoman Brothers. Yeah. Okay. All in favor of passage of the amendment as indicated say I. I. Any oppose say nay.

I vote I. Motion passes. Now back on the main motion. Uh those in favor of passage of ordinance 260001 on second reading with the two amendments. One amendment that kind of became moved by the second amendment, but uh say I I. Any oppose say nay.

I vote I and that motion passes as well. All right. Next up, ordinance 260002, second reading, underage persons and bars title nine. Uh again, February 20th, I'm sorry, January 20th, regular council meeting, uh Councilman Bailey, uh moved, seconded by Councilwoman Johnson to table the consideration of ordinance 260001 on second reading until the next regular council meeting. And this was kind of lumped along with that. Uh, so we would need a motion to remove from the ordinance, I'm sorry, remove from the table ordinance 260002 on second reading for further discussion.

So moved. Second. Motion by Councilwoman Johnson. Second by Councilman Bailey. All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. Miss Harris, just to make sure we're all on the up and up, if you could read us. Ordinance 260002 by title only, please.

Yes. Proposed ordinance number 26-002, an ordinance amending Title 9, public peace, morals, and welfare. Chapter 9.16, offenses by or against minors, section 9.16.010, 010 persons under the age of 21 frequenting saloons or houses of ill fame of the Riverton Municipal Code and repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict therewith and providing for an effective date. Thank you. I'd entertain a motion to adopt ordinance 260002 on second reading. So moved. Second.

Councilman Bailey with the motion. Councilwoman Borders with the second. Discussion. I think we basically changed saloon or house of fame licensed liquor establishment for on premises consumption. So I guess with this are we saying we're okay with our miners being at houses of ill fame. That's going to be the thought we took that out. Just as long I don't know if we have a good definition of that. Just as long as the revenue meets our guidelines. Oh jeez.

As long as it's 50% or more non-l liquor. Yeah. Stop. Just stop. you're going to cause jeez. I do think that the discussion that we had had uh when we talked about this was that the idea of a house of ill fame uh being something that's a bit vague in terms of I mean okay a hundred years ago probably when this was first discussed would have been understood to be a

brothel or something like that. Um, considering it's not legal to run a brothel in the city of Riverton, nor for anyone to visit it regardless of age, it didn't seem like it was quite necessary to have that language here. So, that was the discussion. I just want to be clear for any of the media people out there. This is not saying that it's open season and now miners can be at houses of ill fame. You better hope you're not misqued. I can see the newspaper tomorrow.

So, um do we have any other discussion on um on this uh ordinance? Call for the question. Thank you. Always there for me. Councilman Bailey. Oh, just real quick. Do we still have exceptions under 50420? Yes, that's actually the ordinance that we've been talking about. And so the only exception there would be the two exceptions. It would clubs and and if the majority of the receipts come from something besides alcohol. Perfect. And your honor. Yes, sir.

So, we had talked about them sort of self-certifying at license renewal time. Is that do we need to do something on that or is that your honor? Excuse me, Councilman or Mr. Butterfield. Forgive me. I I did not mean to interrupt. I think that's something we could handle administratively with the application. I don't know if that's something you needed to include in your ordinance. Okay. So, that can be handled just administratively that that's taken care of at the uh initial licensing period,

your honor. I believe so. Um and just for those that are in the audience and those watching, what was discussed was um the enforcement and accountability side of um how to define um whether or not the revenue was primarily from the sale of alcohol or something else. And uh what the council discussed was at the time of application, an applicant for a retail license would be able to um provide some type of attestation that they were a restaurant where their primary source of their revenue would be from the sale of food or whatever else or they were a retail store that sells fly fishing gear but happen to have a retail license. So the discussion was let's cover that on the front end rather than put the enforcement on to uh the administrative services department or the police department to go in after the fact and try and and prove

right

um whether someone under the age of 21 could be there. Do we need to and I but I think the question from Councilman Bailey is do we need to do anything with the ordinance to make sure that that's clear for liquor license holders the public anything like that or your honor we'll take your direction my thought was this was something we could handle administratively obviously the the application time frame is already closed for the licenses that are moving forward those are going to come to you at your next meeting um but it could be a question you ask of the lences as you uh look at their renewals. Um but then moving forward as we utilize the um application form that is um for the most part prescribed by the department uh where the state excuse me what's their name

Wyoming liquor division. Thank you. Liquor Division. Yeah. So from part of the department of revenue. So they enough they prescribe much of what's in that application but we could add something that would allow the applicant to denote what you're looking for. What might make sense then is we come at a future meeting with what would be recommended I guess is the application modifications and then at that point if we think that we'd need to make changes to have that be clearer but

I think it's pretty clear as it stands the application needs to be submitted to the city it needs to be uh sent then to the department of revenue to the liquor division and they have to approve it. So, if we make that modification administratively, we might be good. And if not, then we can discuss it later and just go and we've got a year to make sure we feel comfortable with that for the next time. So, okay, Councilwoman Johnson, I I think you're correct. I think this year in the renewal of the licenses, it would just be nice to ask and see where everybody stands on that at that time. it will give us a general consensus of what's what to expect and feedback as to what we're looking at.

But I I I think just for clarity for owners also, I think it's nice to have that in writing for them so that they can they they know what to reference and they know what's expected of them. Okay. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. All right. Public hearing and consideration. Ordinance 26003, first reading. Berlin edition reszone. Mr. Misho, do we want to It's 8:41. Actually, before we do this, do we want to take a brief recess? Five. Yeah, that would be excellent.

Let's do that. We'll stop right there with your report, Mr. Misho. And we come back, we'll just start with you. Um, why don't we go ahead and take a brief recess? It's 8:41 now. Let's go ahead and come back at 8:50. So, we will be in recess for 9 minutes. Thank you. Yes. Uh before you tonight, we've got ordinance number 26-003. It's the reszone petition for Berlin's first edition lot 2 block two. Um also known as 105 West Adams. And so for for those out in the public who are wondering where that is, it's West Adams. It's in Berlin's first edition, which is one of the first editions subdivisions in Riverton. It was filed in 1918. And um this subdivision is located just south of Main Street and just uh southeast of the railroad tracks along Adam Street in that area. The city received received a reszone petition from Tyler Goff of TNT Renovations for this and he would like to reszone this from C1 to R2. Um there's also another uh piece of property lot one which is just to the

east of lot 2. It is a commercial uh zone as well. I contacted them and they said they would not like to reszone at this time. Um, but I did look into the past and that that lot on the corner was that building was built in 1921 and it was a grocery store. So that's kind of interesting historical tidbit. So the owner would like to do this because he'd like to consolidate three lots into two and build some residential family housing for Riverton. In order to reszone, um, the city has to follow some pretty specific requirements according to our Riverton Municipal Ordinance 17.04.050. And we did do this. That includes the filing of an application from the property owner, a notification of all the property owners within 140 ft of the pres proposed zone change at least 15 days prior to the planning commission meeting. A posting of a reszone um sign on the property with at least 15 days notice prior to the planning commission meeting. And the public meeting must be also po posted in the local newspaper which it was posted in the Riverton Ranger on January 7th. Now the city did receive one response that was objecting to the reszone. It was from an owner on the same block, but it provided no explanation. I attempted to uh follow up and visit with that owner and I received no response or further clarification. But I did want to let the council know that. As stated previously, the uh Riverton Municipal Ordinance 17.04.050 requires this and section D um requires that the Riverton Planning Commission um approved this first. They've approved it and they're recommending approval from the city council um tonight. And I'm also recommending approval from

the city council as well. And with that, I'm open for questions, your honor. Thank you. Um, your honor. Yes, sir. Council Larson, you say you that you got one notice and with no reasoning on it at all and you con tried to contact him and there was no reply back. Um, your honor, Councilman Larson, that is correct. Okay. Um, Miss Harris, if you could read Ordinance 260003 by title only once you've finished your drink.

Yes, your honor. Proposed ordinance number 26-003, an ordinance amending the zoning district map of the city of Riverton, Wyoming, designating the reszone of Berlin's first edition, lot 2, block 2, city of Riverton, Fremont County, Wyoming from commercial district C1 to residential residential district R2. Thank you. I'd entertain a motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Second. Councilman Larson with the motion. Councilwoman Johnson with the second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay.

I vote I. Motion passes. I declare the public hearing is open. Hearing will be conducted in accordance with state statutes and other applicable laws. I'd ask those individuals wishing to address the council approach the podium and identify yourself for the record. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak about this item? I see none, sir. Could we close public meeting time? Second. All right, we have a motion to close the public hearing by Councilman Larson, second by Councilman Bailey. Those in favor say I. I. I.

Any oppose? Say nay. Motion passes. Declare the public hearing closed. I entertain a motion to adopt ordinance 260003 reszone request petition for Berlin's first edition lot 2 block two from C1 to R2 move motions by Councilman Bailey, Councilman Larson, and Councilwoman Johnson. We have a second. Second.

Second by Councilman Carr. I think I know where this is going. Any discussion? Um, I guess just wanted to clarify and I I should have looked this up before today. I'm used to when we think about zoning, I tend to think about any uses that are incumbent up in R2 are included in C2 is usually what I've thought about. So, in other words, if you wanted to build something that's residential, you could do it in a commercial zoned area. Um, but I guess part of the point of this is saying going forward they'd like it to continue to be R2. Could you clarify that? I mean, the zoning as it stands now, I don't think stands in the way of the proposed construction. Am I correct there, Mr. Misho?

Um, your honor, um, partially. So, uh, yes, because of the restrictive, uh, uses of the different zones. But that being said, um, the owner would like to consolidate three lots into two. And so, what that would mean is that one of the lots would be 2/3 commercial, C1, and one-third residential. And I just don't think that works to have a lot with split zoning on it. Well, I think you're right. Yes, sir. And this ordinance that we have in front of us is just changing the zoning. Correct. It is not changing the lot sizes and that will come to us in the future. Correct.

Your honor, Councilman Ba Bailey, that's correct. So, in order to to do the replat, which has also been approved by the planning commission, the zone resoning has to be approved three times by the city council. Then and then after that we can get the replat approved because the replat can't be approved with two zones in one. So So that will probably come to us on the same night as third reading. Okay. Uh Mr. Mayor, Councilman Bailey. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Just clarifying how it all works.

And this proposed change is as it stands, we have R2 and then we have a C1 and then we have a C1. And so this is already just right on the border so to speak and it's just moving the border in terms of where we have a C1 and an R2. Is that right?

Your honor, that's a great question as well. Yes. This the whole block is zoned R2 except for the two lots on the northeast side. And so if this if this happens and it only leaves that one lot um as a C1 on the northeast corner for the whole block. Any other questions or comments?

Okay. All in favor say I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. I don't think we have anyone here. It was the petitioner, but first reading's done. Two more to go. All right. West Main Street Waterline Consultant Selection. Thank you, your honor, Mr. Tolman. Thank you. Sorry.

Oh, you're a little early there. Uh tonight, um city staff would ask the council to recommend um us to begin contract negotiations with a top rated firm in accordance with the professional um services selection policy for the design coordination um specifying and then providing bidding services. Um and this would be for the West Main Street waterline uh transmission waterline project. So this project was first um recommended for completion in the 2023 level one water master plan study. Um since this recommendation, city staff has then worked uh to find u funding partners and then to assess the feasibility of the project. Uh while doing that uh there was a level two technical study or technical report produced and then that was submitted to Wyoming Water Development Commission which then helped um to provide funding for this project. uh the and then a furthermore a grant application was also submitted um as we discussed earlier uh for a grant um and also for a loan and also a grant application um to secure funding. This project then will occur in accordance with the uh white dot overlay project of West Main Street. So with that staff began advertising for a firm um in beginning December 13th and put out requests for qualifications. Uh the RFQ deadline was January 7th. That was moved to January 9th to provide a little bit more time. And then during that time um so there are specific guidelines that were put out um and uh staff received uh five statement of qualifications. Um there was a selection committee that was then put together in accordance with the prof professional services manual. The they these members were on the of the the members on the committee, excuse me, which were city staff and also

community members um they ranked the consultant. They're ranked on five basic parameters um for a total of 400 overall points. The uh parameters um worth 20 points each were uh the first parameter was the detail and completeness of the submitt and the overall quality of response. The second parameter was the understanding of the proposed project familiarity with the area and awareness of construction conditions. The third parameter rated the each consultant on qualification and performance record of the consulting firm and then the individuals that were also involved. The fourth parameter um looked at the successful completion of similar improvement projects. And then the fifth parameter was looked at the capability to meet the proposed project schedule. Being that this this is a tight schedule to meet the white dot um um um project parameters um for this uh um to be able to put into their um project this fall in the bidding portion of their of the white odds project. Um when the individual scores were uh put together um you have your in your packet the total scores two firms then came to the top. Um that was Jub Engineers who's currently working on the riverview project for the city of Riverton and then HDR Engineering out of Lander. Uh Jub nudged HDR by about two points. they scored a 382 points out of 300 out of 400 points and then HDR scored 380 points out of 400 points. Uh the next high firm was at a score of 373 points and that was Smith engineers. Um they were the engineer that uh that produced the level one studying the technical report for this project. So it's pretty competitive. Um next staff moved um with the top two engineering firms and moved to a a portion of the selection process that was the uh the interview portion.

Um that portion there was a different set of parameters with questions to answer as well and another committee was put together. Um the interview was put together in um in and rated in in put together in such a way that they'd have between 25 and 40 minutes for an interview and then another 20 minutes for questions. Um and then they they addressed questions in five areas related to the project. Um there was uh uh the panel of three uh city staff members that rated the consultants on that parameter and then those scores are listed um in your packet as well. HDR at that point scored a 20 a score of 276 points out of a total of 300 points. JUB engineers scored a total of 258 points out of 300 points when everything was combined. HDR Engineers um had a total score of 656 points out of 700 total points. JUB engineers had a score of 642 points out of 700 points. Um with that, HTR was considered the most qualified firm. And if um city uh if if the council agrees, the city staff could then move forward with the um the uh um contract negotiation phase uh of the selection process.

Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, um Mr. Tolman and thank you for going through uh the process that you followed and uh appreciate the hard work of city staff and others that were part of the selection committee. I'd entertain a motion to uh give consent to begin contract negotiations with top rated firm based on the two processes that were followed HDR Engineering for design contract services for the West Main Street water transmission line project. So moved. Second. Motion by Councilwoman Borders, second by Councilman Carr. Discussion. All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. All right. Thank you. Expect see some good stuff coming out of that. Thank you. Posted. This is a great step forward. I really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. And and as I said, thank you. you. I know it's not easy to consolidate all the numbers, get all that sorted out. It's it's it's hard. So, well done. Verizon Tower ground lease expirations and renewal proposal. Mr. Butterfield, this has been a long time coming. Let us know what's going on.

Thank you, honor. There is a lot of information in your packet and my goal is not to repeat all of it. However, I will stand for questions as we work through this topic. To hit some of the high notes, the city of Riverton approved a lease with Cellular Inc. Network Corporation doing business as Verizon Wireless in 1996 for a tower that's located just off of Airport Road on Griffy Hill. This agreement has been amended several times since 1996, and the current status of the lease will expire March 31st, 2026. Page 86 of your packet does show an image of the lease area and then also the assets that are on the ground lease which includes two towers and a support building and some other um assets that Verizon utilizes business. It's also enclosed with a a chain link fence. In anticipation of this expiration, uh staff began working with representatives of Verizon Wireless in 2024. At that time, uh an offer sheet was brought forward by the Verizon representative to uh amend the lease to add additional terms. There would be four additional 5-year renewal terms. And the proposal also uh included an annual rent of $8,68055 with also the possibility of a 7.5% escalation clause at the com commencements, excuse me, commencement of each renewal period. I should note that this um annual rent offer is really just in line with the escalations of the current lease. So, it took the terms that are existing today that would expire March 31st and proposed that they

just continue forward um for for a number of years. As denoted in your packet, the city of Riverton currently leases ground to Verizon Wireless for two cellular tower sites. The first is the area I just mentioned off of Griffy Hill. The second is off of Main Street near our reservoir on Main Street Hill. In 2018, the second site off of Main Street was amended and Verizon gave a power of attorney to ATC Sequoia LLC or American Tower for that agreement. As part of that, the ground lease was renegotiated and annual rent was established at 20,000 a year and it also include included a 3% escalator over the course of several months as staff worked with representatives ver representatives of Verizon for the Griffy Hill expiring lease. It was staff's intention all along to bring the expiring lease up to similar terms as the uh comparable ground lease off of Main Street that I just referenced that was renegotiated in 2018. I'd like to note that in your packet on page 88, I did prepare a sidebyside comparison of both of these lease sites, which include um when the leases were approved, the dates of the amendments, the purpose of the amendments, the annual fees, and the escalators that were um included in those. Also to the right of that comparison table is also a table that denotes the uh annual fee amount for each of the sites. As staff continued its negotiation with

Verizon and again this was um an intermittent negotiation that took place over the course of several months. Uh Verizon responded in email on May 1st, 2025 that it would be willing to increase its original offer letter to $15,000 a year with a 10% rent rent escalation every five years. that was their attempt to uh meet what I was um requesting on behalf of the city and that was uh something more attuned to a $20,000 a year lease. Shortly after that offer was uh provided via email, a new Verizon Wireless representative took over the account for the expiring lease at Airport Road. Um regular conversations with that new representative took place last month and staff reiterated to that new representative um the city's desire to seek similar terms and really lease the ground owned by the city um on similar terms as the 2018 renegotiated site on Main Street. Uh the representative um shared some concerns with what the city was uh proposing at that time and communicated that the two sites in the eyes of Verizon do not necessarily have the same value to the company especially as it considers uh its evolving network, its business model and new technological advancements. In brief, they said the two sites are too different to draw a straight comparison in their eyes. They also mentioned that since power of attorney was granted to American Towers, it really wasn't an applesto apples situation from their vantage point. Staff maintained that from our vantage point, we're leasing ground for the same

purpose and we're seeking uh compensation similar. Um, and unfortunately we weren't able to move much further in that negotiation. And with the expiring lease now coming up quickly upon us, Verizon prepared a new offer sheet that's included in your packet. And this new offer sheet essentially repeats the first offer sheet that was provided in 2024. Um, at that time I had referenced the email that was received in May that I've already explained and the new Verizon representative after conferring internally um, communicated that Verizon at this time could not honor the previous term that was um, offered in that email in May 2025. That's understandable because it is a stale offer and it would have to be um, reconsidered by their group. Verizon's also gone through leadership changes from a corporate level and have gone through some some changes over the last six months as you read the news. As you as a council have now opportunity to consider the ground lease site, the expiring lease and the offer sheet provided by Verizon, I included a table in your packet that lists uh what I would say informal information that I was able to receive from the YOCMA network. Um, this was just through informal communication over email and I listed the cities that provided information to me. You'll notice that it includes carriers that are um different than Verizon and so I don't know if you can strictly apply that to this situation, but it is similar in the sense that the public ground is being leased to a private entity for a cellular tower site. Should the city of Riverton and Verizon not come to an agreement on a lease

extension or a new lease, uh the current assets that are uh located off of Airport Road on Griffy Hill will have to be removed and the site will need to be reclaimed to its original condition um at the expiration of the lease on March 31st, 2026. Council, your decision tonight is to accept the terms as offered by Verizon Wireless to reject them and allow the lease to expire and require the removal of the assets. Or you could propose uh alternative terms for Verizon Wireless to to consider. Um I did provide a table also in the budget impact section of this report that shows the um proposed annual rate but then also the escalators that would occur at each of the renewal periods. So you'll see the um revenues that would be received from this ground lease if it does continue. Again, there's much more information in your packet. I hope that hit the high notes and your honor, it's now your decision to as a council choose how you want to move forward with this ground lease.

Thank you. I'd entertain a motion to consider the offer sheet from Verizon Wireless to extend the terms of the expiring ground lease. So moved. Second motion by Councilman Baly, second by Councilman Larson. Discussion,

your honor, just for clarification. So the new round amount year or annually 86855. This is for this site on Airport Road. And the one here in town is generating 20,000 a year. Correct. Yes. This is uh and and the difference that they say is that they are subleasasing the one on Main Street. So they have a revenue stream from it. And um that's part of the reason why they had told Mr. for Butterfield on sand.

We're not going to be paying the same amount from the one on Main Street. On a completely separate has nothing to do with it note, I would say that uh Verizon stock is traded at closed today, highest that it has in the last four years. Not that that has anything to do with anything. They can't because all the money they're saving on leases. That's what I was going to say, but No.

Any other discussion? Has the new AT&T store been informed that there's a tower for lease? I don't think they have. They put a new one up. And I will say I think um and and so this is a I'll just be blunt. This is a difficult decision, right? We can play a little bit of hard ball and we can say we don't see a difference. The the the uh the space that you are using is the same. Um whether you subleasase it or not is really nothing to do with us. It's just the footprint. Yeah.

Um and say no, we're going to stand by what Mr. Butterfield had said, which was what we feel is fair considering the increased eight years ago or not? Yeah, eight years ago. Well, didn't he say he'd talked to other cities with similar footprints? I mean, it's universal,

right? And that's uh one of the exhibits that he included for us was cellular tower ground lease comparison in September. Um Jackson 20K annually with a 3.5 increase uh for Verizon there. Powell 13,000 a year. So um pretty comparable I think to what we're seeing in other communities. I would say ground is ground. what they're doing with it is up to them

and to be equitable. I think we, you know, we should have a standardized unit rate for ground leases, but ground is ground regardless of what they're doing with it. That's kind of where I was at. I was like, the rate that we get,

do we have other leases for um any cell phone towers? Uh Mr. Butterfield. Your honor, we do have other ground leases. Uh not necessarily cellular towers to my knowledge, but we do have other communication companies that lease ground from us, and I do not have that information to provide you a comparison. Um, the comparison right now I'm providing is for the Verizon cellular tower sites,

but I do think it it's seems almost nonsensical to say that we would say let's just keep going with what we're doing with this one, but we're going to have a 120% increase for the other one. I don't think I'm right with the number, but I just made it up. I agree with Councilman Carr. Land is land. What they do with it is up to them, but we need to be comparable to what it is being offered to everyone else throughout the state. Your honor.

Yes, sir. It could be argued that the airport site is worth more than this the city site because of its, you know, I'm not a cellular engineer, but I think up on top of Griffy Hill has got far more coverage elevationwise, line of sight wise than the city, the one by the city water tank. Um, now whether you know they're doing the math somehow, which we don't have privy to all the numbers. So, um, but those other sites that are on Griffy Hill, what are we do? We know what we're getting. Is that the question you already asked? Is those other sites on Griffy Hill, do we know what we're pay getting for those?

Your honor, I do not have that information in front of me. Um that is something I could bring back to you. But um for example, Fremont County utilizes Griffy Hill for its communications um especially as it relates to emergency communications. So that point was was raised with Verizon that typically our communication companies prefer that elevated position. Um, and as a point of reference, the the least footprint for the Griffy Hill lease or the airport road lease is 50 by 50 give or take. Um, the site that I'm comparing to, that's the other Verizon Tower site on Main Street where the water reservoir is, is roughly 40 by 40. So somewhat comparable in the actual footprint that they're occupying. So in terms of the value to them, it's higher, it's larger, and they would think it would make sense for us to accept less for it than the other one.

Um, now here's the thing. If we decided we wanted to play hard ball with Verizon, then uh we could lose and we could all of a sudden lose that revenue stream and we go from having 20,000 a year to zero. No, we go from having 8,000 a year to zero to zero. We already got the 20. So, but then again, if you kind of take it on balance, we have the one that we did get the 20 on and maybe that balances it out. Make it a flat rate across the board. any kind of land lease or towers and I think it makes sense to be consistent

with the information we don't have. I would move that we table this to our next regular meeting and maybe see if we can get there's a half a dozen sites around Riverton that some are fairly new. I I guess I don't know if we have the ability to get those costs, but we might to maybe let staff do a little more research and find out what some of these other sites are renting, you know, leased for so that we have a comparison and make sure we're, you know, in the ballpark, okay?

We're not trying to take advantage of anybody, but we have a responsibility to the citizens to get as much as we can fair market value per se, of those sites. So, when did you say the lease is up? Well, hold on. We have a we have a motion to table this until our next regular meeting with a request for some additional information by staff. Do we have a second? I'll second. Have a second. Motion to table is actually uh not a uh um discussable discussable discussionable discussable motion. So, let's address that first and then we can uh

Okay. to some of the other stuff. So, we have a motion to table this until our next regular meeting. Do we uh Well, all in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. I vote I. Motion passes. When is the lease up, Mr. Butterfield? Your honor, the lease is set to expire at the end of March. Okay. So, we have some time. A little bit of time. Yeah. Okay. Well, that is tabled. We'll come back. Uh, is it clear enough the request of staff to find out about some of these private sites? Because I think in terms of what we have, these are the only two cell phone tower leases that we have.

Your honor, I'll Yes, it's clear. I'll see if I can get information. We don't have a right to receive information from private land owners or private exchanges. we can ask um but it's not that we would have public right to that information. I can provide you information on the other ground leases that we have. I can tell you right now that the uh lease that I'm using as the comparison the Verizon tower lease which is now um managed by American Tower is the highest um annual rent for a ground lease that you have in the city. Um, the city has negotiated ground leases for like Wyoming.com and some other communication companies that are significantly less, but uh, those terms aren't up at this time and uh, right now we have a comparison for Verizon's tower leases and that's what I used as we were negotiating this.

Okay.

All right. Well, that sounds good and we'll do what we can to get that information. It's not completely comparable, but I will say I I mean the annual rent uh at 8,600 when you look at things like Casper, 3,000 a month, which is a lot more, anybody keeping track, 3,000 a month is a lot more than 8,600 a year. um 3,000 a month in Cody for AT&T and Union or I'm sorry 3,000 a month for AT&T and Union was 32,000 a year. I I just 13,000 a year and pal

I I mean I I think Mr. Butterfield holding the line on this has been doing an excellent job. We've talked a little bit about it as we've been going forward and I appreciate him trying to do what we've been trying to tell him to do, which has been to make sure we're being wise with city assets. City assets, community assets. Yeah.

So, thank you and we'll come back with a little bit more information and make a decision there. But appreciate your hard work on this, Mr. Butterfield. Okay. Hey, Brownfields and Land Revitalization Program consultant selection. I just want to note that in the back there we have Mr. Nichols who's falling asleep because we have him near the end. Okay. I I'm just having to tease him. All right. Brown Fields and Land Revitalization Program consultant selection. Mr. Misho.

Your honor. Thank you. Yes. So, the just as a uh recall to the council, in 2025, the city of Riverton applied for and received an EPA Brownfield grant for $500,000 for a communitywide assessment. We were one of only 47 communities in the country that were selected for this grant. And there is no local match. So, there is no city money that has to be matched for this. Um these grants are designed to inventory, characterize, assess um and conduct a range of planning activities with the output being a redevelopment plan for an area. And for this specific grant, the target area that was identified is uh from Maine south along the federal corridor. In order to begin this project, uh the city is required by the EPA to hire a professional environmental firm. And so the city of Riverton advertised an RFPQ request for proposals and qualifications in the Casper Star Tribune on December 2nd, 2025. Additionally, the city emailed a list of professional consultants who have performed the environmental service contracts in the past throughout Wyoming. The deadline for these proposals was January 7th, 2026. The city received two proposals, one from heirs WWC and one from Tetrate Tech. Both proposal documents were reviewed for completeness and they were both complete. After that, we had a three-member panel review the uh two different proposals. It um included about four different uh uh different criteria and the heirs WWC proposal was a clear leader after the assessment by that panel. Um the panel and I recommend to the council that the city hires heirs

WWC um for our professional consulting firm for this. and if selected then we can begin working on the contract. Okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Misho, I'd entertain a motion to select heirs WWC as the consultant for the communitywide assessment. So moved again. Motion by Councilman Bailey. Second by we'll say Councilman Carr this time just to maybe mess up what Miss Harris has already written down. Any discussion?

If I'm not mistaken, errors also assisted with the application process too. Correct. Um, yeah, your honor. Then they they were also uh um the firm also helped us with our master plan in 2017 as well. Good group. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any

oppose say nay. Motion I vote I motion passes 422 East Maine expiration of conditions of sale. Mr. Misho again. Uh thank you your honor. So yes uh 422 East Maine that's an empty lot on the north side of East Main Street and um the city sold this lot to Brown Sugar Inc. on February 26th, 2019 for $52,000. Um, typically cities in Wyoming are allowed to sell property valued at $500 or more by uh public auction, but in this case, the council also used a provision in the state statutes that allowed us to sell it uh to Brown Sugar for economic development purposes. And included with that with the deed, the city ex exercised two provisional requirements listed on the door, the warranty deed. Um, first of all, that Brown Sugar, Inc. would apply for a building permit to construct a building on the deed premises within 18 months of the deed. And second of all, Brown Sugar, Inc. would obtain a certificate of occupancy for the building within 18 months of the date of the deed. These terms expired August 26th, 2020, which we all know was uh right in line with uh everything that was going on with COVID. So, at that time, there was a request for a first extension. Um, again, there were a lot of circumstances beyond Brown Sugar Inc.'s control at that time, and so the council granted an 18month um, extension to Brown Sugar, Inc. that expired February 18th, 2022. Um, on December 4th, 2023, the city of Riverton received a request from Brown Sugar again to extend due to a number of factors. And um the city did give them another uh I want to clarify this from the notes that I gave to the council was

a 48-month extension that ended February or 36-month extension that ended February 19th, 2026 and maintained the same requirements as the original agreement. And so now we're at the expiration date. Staff has met with the representatives of Brown Sugar a couple times this year. The representatives are here tonight. Thank you for joining us. And um so there hasn't been uh there hasn't been a building permit or a certificate of o occupancy um from our department for this. Um I would like to note something that does get lost in the mix of all this though. Um, and that is a very limiting factor for this lot. And that's that they the water supply is very limited to them. And so, um, if they want to build a building that has, uh, sprinkler, uh, fire sprinklers in it, it has to be under 5,000 square feet. You look at one story, twotory. It's a very limiting factor for them. And in the times that I've the several times I've discussed with Brown Sugar, Inc., this is a factor that cons continues to keep coming up and up. So, I did think I should share that one factor with you tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Um, I'd entertain a motion. Your honor, I would move that we wave the performance requirements and the time limits associated with the warranty deed for Brown Sugar, Inc. Okay. I have a motion to wave the time limit requirements and requirements for performance. It's a motion by Councilman Bailey. Do we have a second?

Second. A second by Councilwoman Brothers. Discussion.

Your honor. Just just so I'm clear on this. So, we've granted two extensions already. 36 months in the last one. So, we're looking at a total of seven years on this where there's been issues going back and forth as to why or why not and and if this expired February 19th of 2025, can I get clarification on Your honor, I' I'd be happy to clarify. So, when uh it was last brought forward to the council, the staff proposed in resolution that three-year extension that would have expired in 25. The council, however, when adopting that resolution went to four years. And so, um, I apologize for the the information that is a little confusing in the packet, but it was, uh, actually adopted by the council in its last resolution is as a 4-year additional extension to the 18 months, which totals to the date of 2026 when it will expire. I hope that clarifies that.

It does. Um, I have had a couple of different people come forward. They have interest in this property as well. Um, and I think a big portion of it has to do with the parking downtown. Um, they are looking at utilizing that space for additional parking for um the commerce that takes place downtown and the lack of parking thereof. Um, as they spoke about earlier, I think that this needs to be opened up back to the public. Um, another proposal that was uh, brought to me on it was beautifification of with the possibility of seating area, downtown, restrooms, that kind of stuff, whether they were serious about doing that or not. Um, but they had full plans drawn up for it. Um, I would like to see it be considered. It's It's sat vacant and empty for a very very long time. And I I And this is of no disrespect um at all. Um, but I think seven years there has been plenty of opportunity to move forward or at least get a building permit at the very least. and and that has not even been accomplished yet. So, I would like to see somebody get a hold of the property and actually beautify it and use it for good intended purpose.

Your honor, Councilman Carr,

uh having a little bit of history with the property, uh the right of reverber clause was added because we sold at a discounted rate. uh it did not go to auction and so that was what would be considered a good deal because we were looking forward to or at the time the economic the potential economic impact of having an establishment fill up that lot. Um I I think where I have issue is I I believe at the time we sold it for what Fremont County assessed the value at which is typically about I'll just use round numbers about 15% less than actual market value today. So and that was at 52,000 today. The county values that property at $84,000. M

so I think the issue that I have is and through no fault of of the current owners they have had issue or trouble developing the property but at the same time for having sat on the property for seven years now that increase what is that percentage increase it's an 86% increase in in assessed value, not the actual market value. So, I I guess I would be in favor of more so amending the length of the the agreement. Uh but having an option to still take the property back or just immediately exercising the right of title and coming up with some equitable solution for the current owner and the city. But at some point through sheer inactivity, the value of the property has gone up 86%. Well, who sees that? It would be the current owner, not the city when we had sold it at a lesser value seven years ago. Well, and one of the things that makes this difficult is the process that was followed at that time was in recognition of wanting to have it done quickly, equitably, and support expansion. So the idea was if we have a property owner who's willing to jump on it and get something built here

uh at follows because we had discussion about does this fit economic development? How can we ensure that it fits economic development? And one way that was discussed at the time was if you have a reversion clause that would ensure that it fits economic development because we're saying you've got to develop it. Yeah.

Now, I can understand the point about there's a benefit to the property owner with the increase in the price, but that benefit is basically limited to if they sold it. Now, let's imagine that they did. If they tried to sell it, the city could exercise its right at that point as well, saying that that's not economic development as had been agreed upon. So, they don't get to have the benefit of selling the property. Now, the proposal from Mr. Bailey to say, "Let's just release the time requirements, remove the requirement for performance," could have the property owner turn around, sell the property, and enjoy the benefit, and the city gets nothing than an empty lot. Not that I'm criticizing it, I'm just saying there's there's a lot that goes into this. And I agree with I I really appreciated by the way the the summary and the explanation that was prepared by uh Miss Henry in terms of things that they've tried to do to get things going. I've known all along. I mean, I was part of the council when we made the decision. Mr. Bailey was part of the council. Miss Borders, uh Councilman Larson was part of the council at that time. And I think we've all been very willing to say if somebody's willing to use it, we'd rather have them use it than have the city revert and say we're going to just keep it as an empty lot. But we've never had discussion with anyone saying, "Wait a minute, we like the idea of parking here." So that's kind of a a new thing in terms of this discussion that we've been having for seven years. Um, it just makes a complex situation.

But how is that economic development? A parking lot. Yeah, that's a good point. Your honor, I'll say a little bit about parking, too. I would expect you to.

So, it doesn't to answer the question that it would be negative economic development to have a parking lot there. What we want, especially in our downtown area, is densification because that increases the property value of everyone around. It increases the revenue from sales tax all the way around. Where we don't want parking or more parking would be our parking oceans up and down federal and we've had that discussion. But uh yeah, the downtown area is exempt from the parking maximum structures that we instituted back in 2018 or 18 2019. U but yeah, the a parking lot would be negative economic impact.

No one at the parking lot has come forth and said to Brown Sugar, "Hey, I'd like to buy that." Well, and that's yet they're free to use it and they love using it for free. It's a good point. But I will say that if somebody came to Brown Sugar and said, "We want to buy that as a parking lot." The cloud over the title because of the right of reversion Oh. makes it difficult to use it as a parking lot. That's right.

And I I guess if I if I can I'm I'm seeing it a little bit differently. I I I get where you're coming from as far as economic growth, but I think that opening up our space to more commerce and people being able to have places to park to go down and shop and share our our stores and um new businesses opening where his his parking is going to be limited as well. Um I think it has the potential to grow so to speak. I I'm also looking at it on a beautifification side of things too. it it's kind of an oasis store in the middle of town, right right dead center in the middle of Main Street. It would be nice to see that cleaned up with a a nice paved lot and maybe some flower pots or whatever if somebody has has the ambition to do that. Um, on another side note with what you said with the property value of it going up or the estimated property value of it going up and where we have to be mindful about how we come up with money to fund other things, this is an opportunity to exercise that right and come up with some additional money for the airport too. Can you can that be transferred to that if can it be sold publicly? 8. If it's valuated at 83,000 and we only got 52 out of it, you're right, can you do that and get an additional 30,000 to put in somewhere else? I I don't know. I'm just

in theory, yes. But part of the reason the city also was willing to jump on this at the time was because we had an interested buyer where I don't think we'd necessarily had people that were saying, "Hey, I'm really excited to do something with this empty lot." So yes, could we sit there and and if the city exercised its right to reversion, we would be able to say that now belongs to the city. And by the way, there would not be anything paid, as I understand it, to the current owner unless we said that we wanted to exercise the right of reverter and make some sort of payment.

Your honor, so they did pay for it. Okay. And at the time, we did not have a long line of people standing here going, "No, how about me?" And so, the city was very happy to get rid of this off of our plate, in my opinion. So, it isn't like we gave it to them for free. We they paid $52,000 for it. And whether that was a good deal or not, there's no way to know. But I would venture to say if you put it out for bids, you might not have got $50,000 offered for it at that time. And then you could also ar argue that if we took it back and gave them their money back, we could put it up for sale and we might not get anybody to come and offer us any money for it. Okay, it's a 14,000 foot lot and just for the city to pave it, it would cost paving costs give or take $5 a square foot. Okay, so that's another $75,000 to pave it. Okay, who should be paying for that, right? Or you could develop it and then you got waterline problems and you know downtown was built 100 years ago and

Yeah, but how long do we look at it unincorporated and just a mess in the middle of town? I mean, it's been seven years and there's been no been no economic growth or build or or even a a building permit obtained. There's been no forward motion on it whatsoever. We've we've got to we've got to look at progression here. Well, and I do think that the the information that they had sent had indicated forward motion on it. Miss Henry, if you'd like to speak, this would be fine. Feel free to come on up.

I just really want to say one thing about this lot, too, because um I don't know if anybody's aware that um it is under EPA regulation, too. So, it's not a clean lot. So, I don't know if anybody needs clarification under that, but you do have to pay a fee every year to EPA for this lot. Like, it's not a clean, pretty, has all the water, everything to this lot. So, I do think that it has its hiccups. I mean, Gary already kind of touched on that, too. So, it's not the easiest lot to develop. So, I am going to kind of, you know, curb a little bit of the I do have current plans going. I still am working with an engineer and an architect. Like we're on our, you know, third, fourth, fifth plans. I do have full architectural plans that I could pull and build at any time, but right now interest rates are high. Building prices are high. You can all probably admit that it's probably not the best time for me to build right now. I purchased another building. I have purchased a building on Broadway. I purchased another building on Third Street to build my roaster into. So, I already am investing into Riverton. I'm currently invested into Riverton. I want to invest on this lot. It's just I haven't figured out the right project to put there that's going to work with the limitations that I have on the lot, but I really also don't want to lose the money that I have invested into this lot.

That's my two cents. if you um and I mean can you understand though the concern that I could see someone raising which would be if we removed any reversion on it that you could just turn around and sell it and make a profit now theoretically again

yeah no I do see that and I mean even if you guys wanted to put something in there that said I can't sell it that would be fine too my this is my situation too on a financial aspect is it doesn't lend and I I think I explained this in my proposal. You know, it doesn't lend as an asset to me. Like, it's it's kind it's not like a lean, but it's kind of a lean. So, I have issues with it when I can't count it as collateral. Like, I can't use it to back anything. So, even though I have all this cash, like it's cash. Like, I don't have a loan on this. So, I put a lot of money into this and so I can't get that out right now. So, it's kind of tying my hands up, too. So like right now, you know, I'm needing extra equipment. I'm needing extra product. Like I can't even put that as collateral into anything. So

that makes sense because of the because of the title itself. They would say, "Well, wait a minute. We don't want to accept this as they can't accept it because at any point the city could just take that property from me." Mhm. Even though the idea would be I'm getting a loan to do exactly what the city wants me to do with the property, which is to develop this area. Yeah. And if I do that, the city isn't going to take it. Right. That seems a little bit nonsensical, doesn't it? So, I'm just saying to the banker lately, have you? Far too often.

And yeah, so that's why I'm not proposing just an extension. I need some kind of correction in the language because it's causing me some complications on the financing side. Your honor, however you can. Okay. Think about that. Thank you. I appreciate it. Miss Henry, I have another interested party asking if we can table this conversation until the next council meeting so that they can be present. Okay. So, I move to table the conversation

till the next council meeting. Well, that it would be to table the motion. The motion Well, wait a minute. Yes, we had a motion to wave the time limits and the requirements for performance by Councilman Bailey, second by Councilwoman Brothers. The motion now from Councilwoman Johnson is to table that motion in discussion until our next meeting. So, we can do that with a pending motion. That's the point of the pending motion. So, we have a motion to table this. Do we have a second on that? Second. Second by Councilman Larson. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Nay. Nay.

I vote I. Um we'll table this until our next regular meeting. Uh eyes. Do you have those? I have eyes from council member Carr. Bailey. Orders. No. Council member Carr. Mayor Hancock. Mayor Hancock or Lson and Johnson. Can I have Naz from Brothers and Bailey? Okay. That's not that sounds like a law firm. That would be fun.

Thank you for being here, Miss Henry and other interested parties that are here. Appreciate it. I hope everybody understands this is weird. And and and I say that in all seriousness because the whole purpose of this, we have to stand by the fact that this has got to be economic development going down into the future because that was the whole purpose of it when it was sold. I mean, I think seven years ago, if you had asked us if if this reverter makes sense so that we can have this as economic development, we probably would have said that doesn't seem like that makes sense. But we're where we are and it's with the way the title is, it's it's we can't just sit there and say don't do that because then it's like we're removing the fact that seven years ago we made a decision about how this was going to be sold that it had to be under economic development purposes.

So without a bid, right? That's part of the problem. Without a bid. And there was a willing buyer at that time with the structured that we put on it. We didn't put a gun to anybody's head. At 52, you can have it. I'll take it.

So, it just it gets it gets hard. So, I hope everybody understands we're in a little bit of a it's weird. And I I love the idea kind of of just saying let's just make things easier and and and make it make sense. But at the same time, I'm also like theoretically, not that I'm accusing anything, of course, Miss Henry, but theoretically, if you could turn around and make a profit, that would be theoretically a profit off of the taxpayers, right? Because it was economic development purposes. We've already had a lot of people that have been concerned about like the halfsent and things that happened with that that made people feel like they were able to make a profit off of the taxpayers. It gets hard. So,

they also weren't standing there with $53,000 in their hand either. That's right. So, well, and I don't know that the city wants to take this little albatross back around our neck. I think that has been a common consensus when we've been talking about this. So, anyway, I just I guess I want everyone to be able to see it gets a little complex and we'll keep talking about it and visit more next time. All right. Consultant service agreement taxiway D project design. Public works director's report, please.

Thank you, your honor. City staff would ask the council to approve task order 2025-01 for our Dura Group, Inc. This would be a contingent upon FAA approval of an independent fee estimate to begin the design of taxiway Delta um which will be rehabilit rehabilitation and lighting upgrade project, excuse me, rehabilitation. The paving surface of this taxway is just 20 years old now. Um it was first put in in 2006. This is the taxway for the crosswind runway um for um for the airport project. Um the upgrade would include rehabil rehabilitation of the pavement but also then would include an LED system, a lighting system with new conduit wires, lights and cans, um grounding and connectors as well. So the council al already approved resolution 1539 which is for AIP funds um zero uh 24-065 and 24-066. Um that was put together with the help of our dura group um for in amount of 2 um roughly 2.8 8 million. Um the city would match that at 2.5% or or roughly $71,000. Um in order to complete this project at this point, however, um bidding on this project will need to occur in April. This project started with the fiscal uh year beginning in October. Um our Dura has done their best to put together um the grant. Then now also a fee estimate um with a scope of work that's included in your council packet. Um they would they prefer to begin geotechnical work um drilling uh into the um subsurface and finding out what's there and then surveying in December. Um obviously that's been delayed a little bit. Um but they um with the approval of this task order tonight, they could they could

begin that work um with with FA approval. Um and that approval would again come from the independent fee estimate um that FAA is requiring. Um this approval uh then would also um allow Ardura to begin work roughly about two months late. Um in any case um that would help him to continue uh to get the tax project um going. Um, this money isn't budgeted and I want to let council know of that as well, though it though it is in in the budget. Um, we haven't begun the work on the self-s serve um fueling station up at the airport. Um and probably before the next fiscal year, all that would be incurred is just the design work of this project, which is about um 394,000. Uh not not about it is $394,939. Um there would need to be a budget amendment done at some point to uh bring in uh these amounts into this fiscal year. Uh the only match from the city when you when you consider the actual engineering fees is $9,87348 um which is um in act it the funds are there. It's just not not budgeted. So I need to make the council aware of that. Um thank you. I'll answer any questions on that. All right. I'd entertain a motion to approve the task order for our DUR group contingent upon FAA approval to begin the design of taxiway delta. I just was calling it D, but we'll fancy tonight. Rehabilitation and lighting upgrade project.

So moved. Second. Motion by Councilman Bailey. Second by Councilman Carr. Discussion amendments. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. JC FKS presentation. Mr. Butterfield. Thank you, your honor. Uh, if you'll just give us a minute, we'll turn the TVs on and tilt them your way. Do we have popcorn provided? If not, why not?

I think if we're ever required, you know what, um, Miss Harris, I think every fiscal quarterly fiscal health report, we should have popcorn. Maybe people will stick around. It might make my report more entertaining. Yes, indeed. We have a popcorn maker in the I know we do. We used to have popcorn on Fridays. Do we still do it? Okay. Oh, that was when I was the city prosecutor. Where am I? When we're not here, obviously. Well, that's what I was going to say. I don't tend to be here on Friday that often. It's a nice way to end. Need to speak to HR Fridays. Yes.

Discrimination. That's right. I agree. Anybody curious though, my son did not appreciate me teasing him for reaching over your head to fix the mic. It just was funny to me to see the the height difference where he's literally reaching. That's amazing. The nice thing is is he doesn't have to approve you doing it. I know, right? I know. Doesn't matter. It won't be the last time he doesn't approve of something you do. Yeah,

he had to text me and also said to get a drink of water because apparently I'm sounding pretty parched. That's hilarious. Mr. Butterfield, you ready to roll? I am. Thank you, your honor. And uh we do have a member of our committee here as well. And we have Mr. Nichols. So definitely invite them to correct anything I say and they're more than welcome to stand up.

Okay. And you are welcome to take a nap at this point, Mr. Nichols, if you'd like. I'll go through this quickly in the sense that I think you you've been kept up to speed on the work of the committee, but there are important decision points that are coming before you. Um, if an optional sales tax is considered and supported by you as the governing body to go to the people, a resolution has to be adopted by you. And that needs to happen in the next I would say 2 months. And uh that's actually cutting it very close. We were at the county commission meeting today. Um county clerk Miss Freeze was going to look in the deadline of when the resolutions have to be filed for her to then bring it forward to the people as a ballot initiative. And right now we're working off the assumption that it's near the end of March, beginning of April. But she will give us that firm deadline. The purpose of the committee was to explore how to maintain the core services identified by FCAG in Fremont County. Those core services are air service, ground transportation, so public bus service, and then also um ambulance service, ground ambulance service. in order to maintain those services and and meet the financial threat that is um before them for a stability standpoint and a continuence standpoint. The committee has explored the idea of this optional economic development tax. The optional economic development tax has to be proposed in quarter percent increments. And that's important as you consider what you're potentially going to adopt or not adopt as a as as a tax proposal.

The potential ballot language is here listed and this is what you would be moving forward by resolution. I think it's important to show that it does denote the 3/4% upon the retail sales but then it provides the purpose as well. This is required by statute. It states the net proceeds of the tax shall be used for economic development only to support emergency medical services like ground ambulance, commercial air service, and public ground transportation. The current proposal is to have this come forward in the primary election rather than the general election this fall. I mentioned that uh the mechanism by which this goes to the people is through resolution. It's not the only mechanism. It is possible for a petition to come forward from qualified electors of Fremont County. 5% of the qualified electors have to bring forward support of a ballot initiative. So the county clerk could consider that option. Before that option is considered, there's another way to do it and that is by resolution. Resolution first with approval of the county commissioners. That's a a requirement and then also the majority of the other municipalities in Fremont County. So county commissioner resolution and then a majority positive re resolution from the other municipalities. Uh the committee has prepared a a draft resolution of support for the municipalities to consider. Uh Mr. Solers has reviewed this on behalf of the city of Riverton and I know the other governing bodies will be

considering a potential resolution um over the course of the next month. You'll notice that um using our current format, this resolution again by title states what it's for. But then this was recommended by our attorney to explicitly state that the um funds would be used to exclusively support ground ambulance, commercial air service, and public ground transportation. And I think that's important to reiterate because of the previously defeated economic development tax where there was an optional component to support other economic development activities throughout the county. That is not going to be included in this proposal. It is only these core services. Unlike the previous tax, you as a governing body will not be u gathering together with a citizen committee and yourself to choose how to disperse the funds of this economic development tax. The language here is very explicit that it will go towards these three services and these three services only. You're Kyle.

Councilman Larson, does those three does that mean that each one gets a third or does that mean that this one gets 70%, this one gets 15% and this one gets the remainder?

Your honor, Councilman, that's a a perfect question to segue into the next portion of this presentation. And the answer is no. it would be prrated by the need of the the service to ensure that it is able to move forward. I like this uh graph and this was presented to uh last month but I think it helps answer the question that has come forward from community members and also elected officials as to why a 3/4% tax versus a half% tax. Um particularly if the defeated half% tax had 30% that went towards ground and air transportation and 70% of it went to other economic development activities. Why couldn't that 70% portion be used to support the three core services if that makes sense? A question has come forward and the answer is um from the model that has been uh worked over by this committee a half percent does not generate enough proceeds to support the three core services using I I would say conservative estimates and I think that's smart. Um we're using numbers from fiscal year 23. We do not know what the economy will do in two years, but we can look backwards and be somewhat conservative. So using that benchmark, a 3/4% optional economic development tax would bring in roughly 6.5 million. That's shown at the far left bar of this graph. The other orange bar that's kind of in the middle right, that's 4.4 million. That's what the half% proceeds would be. So you're looking at roughly 6.5 and 4.4 as the money that would be generated from the tax. I wanted to show the breakdown of what

the services uh um how the services would individually use the the proceeds. If you look to the bar graph immediately to the right of the orange graph, you'll notice that at the bottom, this is for the ground transportation side. There's a million that is estimated to be allocated of the 6.5 towards public ground transportation. That would include WRTA. It would include the senior centers. It would include any other public ground transportation provider. The 2 million would go towards commercial air service and then the majority of the funds generated would go to support ground ambulance. It's estimated right now that that is 3.5 million. I will say that that is based off of the estimates that the committee was able to generate. However, we need information from the county commissioners to confirm that because currently the county commission holds the contract with Frontier Ambulance to provide emergency ground transportation services in Fremont County. they have uh been involved in this process but um they are the ones that would be best positioned to answer that question. If you look to um a breakout of the services and how to fund those services if 4.4 4 million was generated from the tax. You'll notice uh WRTA reduces excuse me I shouldn't say that bus service um which includes WRTA and others the available funds for them would reduce to roughly 650,000 air service um to make things work as best we can would reduce to about 1.75 million and then the ambulance would still receive the largest proceeds of the tax amount of the proceeds of the tax at roughly 2 million,

which is about what was paid last year by the county commissioners to Frontier Ambulance, but the expectation is this year that amount would likely be higher.

Correct. Uh for the contract with Frontier that's expiring, our understanding is the county was paying 1.8 million for that. However, there have been significant discussions throughout the county as to the level of service offered uh to residents of the county by the ambulance, whether there are enough dedicated ambulance to provide service to all areas of the county, whether the assets are being invested in, meaning the the ambulances themselves. And we know that they do need to reinvest in those. And then also the number of paramedics that are available to support that service. Therefore, um the 3.5 million is proposed to support the service with the ability to improve the service. So, I hope that helps show uh what would be received and how it would be used if you as a governing body chose to do a 3/4% option that the people could then choose to support or not or half percent option that the people could then choose to support or not.

Councilman Bailey, Kyle, can you tell us what we've been spending per year on air air service support? Uh, Councilman, thank you. That's that's a question that's very valuable. We're spending roughly 1.8 million. Okay. So again, this is this is getting us about where things were at last year, but it's meant to last for four years, right?

And this would be this proposal gets everybody close to that, but it doesn't allow for things like if you were at a half cent, for example. We've got some of our ambulances that have I think somebody said some of them have 300,000 miles on them, which is just when an ambulance is getting broken in, I guess, or broken down or broken down. So, bad thing to talk about, but things being broken inside an ambulance, right?

Yeah. It's not a good day. But it's certainly I mean as it stands right now the way that things have been working with the county commissioners is they provide that 2 million in funding but they're also providing the buildings the ambulances I guess that's the proper plural of ambulance ambulance C I am Ambulances um and in terms of having a capital improvement plan going forward. Yeah,

1.5 million goes a long way towards that. Ensuring that commercial air service has room for growth over the next four years. 2 million helps with that. So that's kind of where the 3/4 cent I think came from is it's more comfortable for um the fact that this has got to last for four years and the fact that we have to be keeping in mind that there's capital improvement built into that for the ambulance. Your honor, Councilman Larson, Kyle,

what's the service area of the ambulance? I mean, there is so much room for an open sewer pit full of money just flying out. And I I dare even open that can of worms. But what is our service area for the ambulance? Fremont County. Fremont County. You're councilman. That includes Duboce which is which does not have an ambulance barn like oh does I'm sorry but not an ambulance in it.

That's that's where I was going to say we don't we have an ambulance barn but not an ambulance there that's sitting there waiting for people to call and get an ambulance in Duboce. Am I mistake? one your honor and I think so don't get a heart attack with your buddy

as it as it relates to the level of service that Frontier Ambulance provides at a contract to the county commissioners it does cover Fremont County there is a dedicated ambulance and crew in Dubo which you think if you think of it how else would you provide service to Dubo with how remote it is from the other population centers of the county. Shosonyi has that same problem and so does Pavilion, but they do not have a dedicated ambulance or ambulance facility barn in their community. So, um the um people best uh positioned to answer questions about ambulance are your county commissioners. Um there's a lot of discussion about uh improvements and possibilities moving forward. And I do believe that this economic development tax um empowers uh the opportunity to improve. Right now, we do know that the Fremont County Commission is dealing with reductions in revenue as it relates to property tax, which by the way is their primary source of revenue, which is different than us. and they've had to make decisions about which core services they will fund. Libraries, roads, ambulance, all of those services, sheriff department, jail, that they are making decisions similar to what you are making as a governing body. But the property tax um changes that are recently have recently been adopted and are also proposed to be adopted will impact their ability to fund core services. So, as they look at levels of satisfaction with ambulance service currently, opportunities to improve, what their contract is currently that will expire at the end of this fiscal year, and how it will pivot moving forward are all things that the county commission must answer.

Councilwoman Johnson, just and I know you said to refer to county commissioners on this, do you know what they were paying when they operated the ambulance service themselves? just a ballpark figure. Your honor, I'm sorry. I do not have that.

You don't? And and I as I've got a lot of feedback on this. Um and I think you start losing support for this when the ambulance is included in it. I think there you I'm hearing a lot of support as far as for the airport and ground transportation, but whereas the ambulance service is based out of Tennessee and it local tax dollars go into that. What does the $3.5 million cover? What What is that? What is that going to be funding?

Your honor, and councilwoman, I I think that's a very valid question. I think voters should know exactly how their funds are being used. Um maybe it's because I'm so involved with air service, I can show exactly how that's being used because we have a contract with the state and with Sky West that details what those costs will be for the next four years to establish the cost as it relates to ambulance. I think your committee um or the FCAGS committee worked very hard and the 3.5 million number comes as the total cost to provide service at the current level does not take into account revenues generated by the service. This number also is validated by a study performed by the department of health that it is a 3.5 million venture in cost to provide ambulance service here with um and please correct me. Lisa is at six.

We did analysis based off statewide. You're going to have to come up here, Lisa. I know you don't want to. She's so mad. Yes, she does. Uh we to get to that number, we did a statistical analysis based off of the statewide data that was provided by Lloyd Larson to our committee. And so that was assuming six ambulances and it was using data from across the state or what we could see from other counties.

What I thought was impressive is you guys did all this leg work and you got an estimate and then you got some numbers from Lloyd Larson and lo and behold you were right close to the numbers that he had provided which was impressive and showed that you had done your leg work. We had three people approach it from three different ways and we're within pretty pretty close margin. But the point I guess is is that one of the things that's interesting good bad or indifferent is that due to so what what we have right now is a situation where Frontier has not provided at least to the committee as I understand it may have provided at some point to the county commissioners but has not provided to the committee the money that it has been making. So being able to say this is 3.5 million, that would be the cost of doing it, that's not assuming what you would be making, what you would be getting back from Medicaid or Medicare or any of your people that are getting ambulance services,

which I understand that. But what I'm asking is is what does that $3.5 million? Does it get us additional ambulances? Does it get the the the uh the crews increased wages? Does it replace it? What is that 3.5 million for? Well, if that's covering the cost, then you would be looking at anything that you're getting from the consumer or from the insurance companies is going to be something that could go directly to those things, which would be upgraded ambulances and ensuring that our crews are being paid sufficiently. But it's not like we have an itemized list of this is what the ambulance needs, this is what it will cover. It's just we need $3.5 million in order to operate. Your honor, with no

Excuse me. No, go ahead.

If I may, I believe that question is is very critical to this initiative and that does need to be produced. It has not been produced yet and I think that needs to come from the county commission. What we have been able to work through is um the service level gaps that are currently in the county with only six peak time ambulances. Off peak it's four. And when you're covering a county that's larger than some states, it it's not sufficient to meet the emergency medical needs. Providing funds to support uh emergency services, I think, is important and it improves our quality of life. Knowing that there's a service gap currently, but not knowing exactly how the 3.5 will be used is is the next step that needs to be taken. I think it will support uh in my estimation growth in the number of ambulances provided and then there's an ability to invest in capital. But I I the committee has batted this around and what I think we've landed on is it's important that the county secure a contract or a level of service that meets the needs of our county. I think they're having a hard time ensuring that level of service with the funds that they have available to them. this uh economic development tax secures the core service and improves the core service. I would say there's work still to be done as this moves forward to the vote of the people to define how the funds would be explicitly used for our ambulance. So I think it's a valid question. The county commission has to be the entity to answer those questions

and they'd be the ones that would be able to say that. Kyle, would it be fair to say that this 3.5 million is similar in nature to the revenue guarantee for air service where without something like that, we would not get anybody to bid to come and do ambulance service in Fremont County. If they had to totally bear the cost all on their own, your honor, I I think Lisa could help answer that. And she's been highly engaged in the ambulance side of this discussion. I'm just kidding. But I I would say I would think so, but I I don't know

without real numbers in front of us to look like we had for air service where they came to us and said here's what we have to have. Any company could come into Fremont County today and provide that service if they felt that it was lucrative to them. But yeah, they're in a chance in hell that that's going to happen. I don't think

well and I think if we look over the last 10 years at least with the evolution of the how ambulance has been provided from the county from third party providers through contracts with the county I think we see that there are challenges in providing service to a a land mass as large as ours that is also remote from each other your honor and another point is when the county ran the ambulance service. It was mostly volunteer, not entirely, but mostly volunteer paramedics. And that that's I can get into that one, too. But going going back one step, um

there's there's a couple things. We're in a weird unfortunate time frame for the county, too, to a certain extent. They're in a position where they have to be uh setting out their RFP right now. Um trying to predict Yeah. trying to select their contract and their provider going forward. So, they're going to have to have a time frame for that contract without knowing if that's in place or

without knowing that they have that secured and with with all the knowledge of Yeah, man. It'd be sure nice if we could improve these services. But, yeah, we we don't know what money we can do that with. Um, the other thing that I personally have been struggling with through the whole of it is, um, I would really like the county to tell me, um, what they think they did have a capacity to pay towards ambulance. You know, we have the threat of no property taxes and we have the the threat of the property taxes reducing and those are real things. Those are challenges for them to handle. Um, so it it's one of those things that I've been kind of looking for some comment as to what what do you think you can sustain before you start dropping your level of service to the county? And um what was presented at the count the commissioner meeting today was actually um in my opinion something that helps me with that decision also as a voter um because they they have a hard time answering that question too. That's a very specific question that um they have like he like you mentioned they're paying for a lot of different services. So that money could go somewhere useful. It's it's not not necessarily just going to sit there. Um but from the other perspective that they brought up today and that we've talked about in our committee, it is a sales tax. So some of the benefit of using this or paying for this service from a sales tax is that it's it's more equitably applied to the people in the county. So this is this sales tax applies to everyone whereas property taxes apply to the property owners. So

there is a benefit I this was just there's a benefit to having a city administrator and by that I mean if we want to sit there and have an educated discussion about commercial air service we're not going to be as good at that. Kyle will be very good at that. So would Brendan.

And there's a benefit to that when you don't have a county commissioner, when you don't have a county administrator. Not a criticism at all, but it's a little harder because some of that history and having dealt with the airport for more than a decade now and knowing exactly what's going on. Now, we have that a little bit with Commissioner Allen, who was not there today, Chairman Allen. Um, but just something to be said for having someone that has been able to work there and is familiar with it that helps with some of the discussion and streamlines it a little bit.

And if I could to your point about the volunteer service, that's very true. Many of the ambulances in Crowart and Dubo and uh, Coner, they were manned by volunteer crews. And at the time that that system changed and they took it to an RFP in a private company, the the regulations from the state and the the level of service that we entered into changed as well. So it is extremely unlikely we're ever getting back to that original cost of a service because there are regulations from the state that dictate your licensing as a provider for EMS services. that makes it all the more difficult for people to volunteer their time to serve on those ambulances,

which is interesting because ambulance service is not mandated by the state. Nobody has to have it. And so my my my concern is that there's, you know, the request for $3.5 million that we want voters to support. And don't get me wrong, I I support law, fire, and EMS like no other, but you we have to be able to articulate what that money is going towards and and and ensure that that's what it's going to. And it would also I think for me be helpful to say you're going to have guaranteed services in Duboce in Shosonyi in Atlantic City Lander Hudson you know all of these these small rural outlying areas that that re well Hudson for example that you know they have to rely on Lander's ambulance to get there um same for Shosonia but well not now that I don't know how they're actually operating now but um requiring are asking everybody to pay for a service that they don't use is going to be a hard cell, I think. And I support it. I support you guys. Um, but I I I tend to lean um that I think ambulance service needed to be separated outside of this.

Mr. Butterfield, just a note here on the resolution. Could you go back to it real quick? I just was looking at that and it was funny because the way you said it actually brought it to my mind. You said, "Oh man, glasses doesn't help to remove them or put them on." All right. You said purpose uh net proceeds of the tax shall be used for economic development only to support emergency medical services. And I think you said something like such as ground ambulance or something like that exclusively support ground ambulance.

Well, that's our resolution. But the the language in the ballot initiative says emergency medical services and then has a parenthetical grand ambulance. I guess what I would say is if that's not intended to go to air medical services or something like that, it would probably make sense just to say support emergency groundbased medical services rather than having the parenthetical. Just a thought. I've read that about four times now and um that's the first time with the way you read it. It was kind of like you almost said for example ground ambulance and I was like the idea was that this was going to specifically go towards ground ambulance not other medical services and ground ambulance is one of them. So just something to keep in mind as we go forward when we're looking at the language.

That's that's something we can change for sure. Ground or air, your honor. Well, I think we we're specifically wanting to exclude air. I mean they actually have sufficient profit such that they are not being supplemented by the county. They are operating at risk here. So does that mean I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you. I've been waiting to ask a question for 10 minutes. You're good. Go ahead. Thank you your honor. I am just wondering have there been any sort of feasibility studies? Do we know do we have our finger on the pulse of the community to know what kind of support there is for this? Mhm.

So your honor, councilwoman, the task given to the committee was to explore funding key services. uh FCAG um I believe the members of FCAG posited that there were three core services that should be explored. There have not been surveys performed countywide as to uh what the people feel. I I think that's potentially what the ballot initiative is for. They have their voice at the the ballot box. There were um studies performed in the community as part of the defeated economic development tax that addressed some of the pulse of the community for those that participated. Um I wouldn't feel comfortable digesting that information here, but I could provide that information to you. Um I there is opportunity for a political action committee to be formed. Should you as a council feel this is even something worthy of the community to consider that political action committee could engage in uh I think what you're uh getting at is a survey to get the pulse of whether or not people supported certain services or not. Your honor, I I can just say for myself, I feel like ambulance service is critical. Um it it's a tough thing to provide, but I don't think you're going to find many people that don't want that service

because if if you need it, you don't think about it till you need it, but you want it to be there. So, just my two cents. I appreciate it. I'm sorry. I sometimes you're right here and it's like my blind spot. So, that's okay. I speak up eventually. Just whack me if you're wanting to speak. Well,

your honor, I I suppose that this is very helpful feedback for us, but it's it's critical discussion for you because you will be the governing body for Riverton that moves forward or does not move forward a resolution to support a ballot initiative. And it's it's entirely up to you as the governing body to choose if you would like to move forward with this proposal that's worked through FCAG for three core services or not. You could say we are only really invested in air service. That's the only one we want to move forward. The risk to that is you have to get the county commissioners to agree with that resolution and a minimum of 50% of your peer municipalities to agree with the resolution. Otherwise, it's dead in the water. So you you are um facing a a bit of a time frame here where you have the entire month of February and some of March to figure this out amongst yourself but also ensure that there's at least a majority of cohesive thought with the other governing bodies and then the critical is the county commission. They have to support it. If they do not support the resolution, then you go the alternative route of getting 5% of the qualified electorates to propose a ballot uh question.

Council Daily, how quick is the county willing to because if if they don't approve it, we can't even go any further. Do they have a timeline of when they're thinking of looking at that? There's going to be discussion of the resolution, I think, on the 10th. Your honor, we're on the the agenda for next Tuesday with we were with them today as well. If they don't approve it and we have to go to a petition scenario, that takes time also and we're going to quickly run out of time to get it on the primary ballot.

Your honor, that is correct. And that's um to hit the time frame for the p primary. There's also a time frame to hit the general. And then there are also provisions to just hold a a special election to consider a ballot question. So that there are still uh several options for you to explore. Um I agree that anytime the people of our county should be asked to tax themselves, they should know exactly what they're taxing themselves for. And the questions that are coming forward are critical. I I can speak definitively for the air service side of things that if there is not an alternative funding source brought forward, then um the funds we currently have to support our minimum revenue guarantee or our contract will exhaust this upcoming fall. At that point, there will be no ability to match the state funds to secure air service unless you as a council choose to find other monies and other governing bodies do the same. But there is a risk at play for the sustained commercial air service. I know um Mr. Nichols and other public ground transportation providers are also communicating a risk for their level of service. So I I I think we have quantified those services. There's still work to be done to quantify ambulance, but FCAG and I believe the committee has felt that ambulance is a core service that should be secured so that the quality of life in Fremont County is one that we all enjoy and hopefully are able to not receive service from one day.

But if my kids fall from the treehouse and have a critical accident, I I would very much appreciate an ambulance to arrive. Yeah. Yeah. Your honor. Oh, go ahead. Oh, no. You go first. Okay. Okay. You're in my blind spot. Bring a flag. Um, so if this were to pass, say in the general, how soon will you be collecting revenues and be able to start dispersing those?

Uh, your honor, Councilwoman, that's a great question. uh if it's passed at that primary um it's built in that you'd start collecting at the start of the uh calendar year and then it takes about two months for the monies to return from the department of revenue back to the municipalities. So vendors remit goes to the state state returns and then they're used in the the municipalities as will will be outlined in a memorandum of agreement. Okay, Mr. Bailey.

So, in my 65 plus years of living in Fremont County, I've never had to ride on the ambulance. My wife got lifellighted with our first child to Denver, but that doesn't count because that wouldn't be covered anyway. And I've been in the hospital one time for some minor surgery, but guess what? I still want them there because one of these days I might need them. Yeah.

Well, and I think economic development and this was part of the discussion at the very beginning is is this something that can fit under economic development and you talk about economic development. Quality of life is huge. Yeah, this is a quality of life, safety, ability to I mean, people look at communities and they look at does it have a good hospital? Does it have a hospital at all? Oh my gosh. Yes. Didn't have ambulance service. How many people would want to move here? Your honor, how many people would want to move away?

Just a quick question. Is it statutoily required that we use the wording economic development? That's what I was fearful of. It would sound so much better if it was essential services. Oh, that's a good point. We could say economic development to provide essential services. That's a good point, too. Yeah. If we could add that, I think that would be a huge benefit. If we could strike it all together, it would be even better. But it's too vague and there's too much residual resentment from the original economic development.

People don't understand that it's it's statutoily required. Go ahead. What were you going to say? Uh the other point I was going to make with this sales tax is a big user of that EMS service is the tourist people that come to recreate in the area. And at least with the sales tax, they're also contributing to the to the funding of that service as well. Anything else to add, Mr. Butterfield? Did we kind of There are five more slides and I think we'll skip them.

Oh, your honor. I think the the critical question is what do you want to see in the resolution that you will consider? And then also we we have to ensure that the other governing bodies will consider it as well, at least the majority and the county. So keep that in mind as you wrestle with what you as the governing body want to do. Once you choose that, then the other five slides, which I'm not advancing for some reason, come into play. And a lot of work, this is the most important. It just shows how the funds will be allocated. 54% to ambulance, 31% to air, and 15 to ground. So um we thank you so much for this opportunity to discuss it. feedback is so helpful. Um there are uh definite provisions that state statute gives you as a governing body, a municipality to raise revenue and it's very restricted. You have some optional sales tax options. You're using that right now for the 1% tax. You then can use an economic development tax in quarter percent increments. you then have opportunity also to explore what's called a spec tax or a special um purpose tax. Those can't be used for operation. So it it doesn't quite fit the need here. You also can explore some property tax districts as popular as property tax is right now. But the problem with uh creating a district to support any of these services is your ability to apply mills and the assessed valuation in the county does not generate enough money to cover the cost of the services that were in the graphs I I showed. So it it was explored by the uh committee. I think every revenue opportunity available to municipalities

were looked at and the economic development tax is the one that fits but also provides the revenue that can support the services. Councilman Larson,

see what is not being mentioned here is that for since 2000, Lost Cabin has been flipping the bill. Okay. Lost Cabin has been putting out a huge amount of revenue and property tax and its gas source has decreased. When I moved here, they had to back it off to get gas into the line. They had to cut it back because it would force everybody else's gas back into their wells. That's no longer the case. It's been sold three times and each time it's been sold, the property tax on that big beautiful gas field has decreased and that has paid the lion share of Fremont County's valuation and service for all of these services has come from Lost Cabin. It's no longer available. And that's why if you want the quality of life, which is important, you need to belly up. And I think you know some of the discussion and there's a lot of questions that we can answer and go into the details. The the question though right now I think for the council is

would we be supportive of a resolution? Yeah. Would we be supportive of it at 75.75% not 75% 75%. Or 5% and when the county is going to consider this in a week. To me it would make sense for Riverton to consider its resolution at our next regular meeting. and kind of see where the county ends up. But I think we would want to jump on it so that we can answer quickly for is there a need for a petition or not?

Is there a need for a special election or not? And where are we going there? So to me, I it's kind of like the idea of the possibility of amending the winter visitors council agreement. we need to step up and consider it immediately so that other people can decide what they're going to do and start at the max so that we have time to regroup if needed.

So I would say to me what makes sense is the 75%. And I hope there's one thing that I want to say about this too, and it's just something that came to mind when I've been looking at some of the concerns people have expressed over, oh no, we don't want Riverton to lose its library. Sounds kind of odd, but this kind of thing ensures that Riverton doesn't lose its library because what you're doing is making it so that the county commissioners have the funding available for the ambulance so that they're not sitting there. They can reallocate some of those funds to other things that they're losing money on.

So, it's just something to keep in mind as we're discussing this is there's a lot of things that tie into it. and um of course the property tax reductions and everything tie into it and there's a lot of discussion and changes and moving and shaking. So thank you for making it very clear to us Mr. Butterfield. Um anything you wanted to add? Well, thank you for your time. So would the county be the one that puts theou together or is that FKG that's going to do that? I know the person that wrote the sample resolution and the MOA and he's not very smart, but they have it in their hands. It was me. They they have it already.

What? But but I'm see if this passes, is the county the one that sort of administers it? Does it go back to the county and then they say here you go or is it FKAg that gets it? So, the proposal is right now, and there's a lot of different ways we can do this, and this is we could get into the weeds on this, so to speak, but it's 10:45.

Um, there's two ways that this could go. First off, one would be that all the funds go to FCAG, then FCAG would distribute them out to the individual entities. Of course, the problem with that is Mia could tell us anytime you have transfers, it just it complicates things. A direct transfer from each of the individual municipalities and the county in the percentages indicated would be the wisest move. So, it would be kind of like the way we did it before. Lander would say they're going to send this percentage of the proceeds to the city of Riverton for air service, this percentage of the proceeds to FCAG for ground transportation, this percentage of the proceeds to the Fremont County Treasurer for emergency medical. So the MOA would be you're going to send this percentage of everything you collect and you're going to send it to this entity much as we might have on the screen. We're going to send it to five entities and then they're all going to send it back to the appropriate one.

No, it will just be sent directly. So, Shosonyi will collect theirs. They'll send 54% of it to the Fremont County Treasurer, 31% of it to the city of Riverton, 15% of it to FCAG and not hold on to any of it. So, you got the county and five five municipalities. So, you got six people all getting money and then sending it back to whoever. Okay. Right. And it's

that's some good bookkeeping. Well, and your honor, I think it's important to note that if the people want to approve this tax, state statute shows where it is remitted from the department of revenue to the municipality. The the method by which it gets to the services is through this memorandum of agreement. does Shosonyi no good to keep all this money that's restricted by a ballot initiative and ballot language because then they they grow the fund without spending it unless they have a commercial air service provider and an ambulance. So it's not that governs this. It's the municipalities. It's you as the governing body. You receive the funds on behalf of the people that vote on it and then you along with your peer municipalities decide through a memorandum of agreement where you're sending your proceeds to support the services. And right now it would be all municipalities receive but really three entities receive as the end user to pay their contracts. We we use it to pay our contract for air service. FCAG supports ground and county as it stands right now would be ambulance. The MOA can be amended if another party chooses to come forward and run the ambulance in the future,

which there have been people that want FKAG to do that, which whoever uh you know would be the mayor next year would be able to have all sorts of fun with that. So Tim's going to get his EM em EM he's going to be an EMT too or Sam. Nope. Hey, you did great. He's not doing anything from midnight to 6:00 a.m. The Wi-Fi is great. I am wondering about the plan to educate the public about this once, you know, you decide what avenue you're going to take. Will you be doing some media

or something so you can let people know what the plan is so they know what they're voting for? meeting. I think that this committee has been doing their best to try to keep to their mission which is to figure out different options for the core services. And I think Mr. Butterfield had indicated that probably that would be something more likely that would happen with a pack which may or may not have some of the same members. We'll see how it goes. If you get your belly full, uh Lisa can definitely sir on that. I cannot as a government employee government employ government cannot promote lobby for

I can inform and not lobby you have members of the Fremont air service team that have a vested interest in h how the revenues are going to support their mission but I I think to answer your question councilwoman is a political action committee will have that role and I do know that there are stakeholders currently in the county soliciting interest from professionals

that could support a pack and then do exactly what you're saying. Inform the public of what's on their ballot and then the public can make an informed decision. It's really what the people want. Do they want to continue these services and do they agree with the information? If they don't, then they vote no. Hopefully, they're informed enough to make that decision as they see fit. I just think it's really important just to back of what Eric said. you know, economic development, people have a bad taste in their mouth and so it's just really important. Essential services. Yeah, Essential Services.

Uh, you mentioned there was support from the air team on promoting it. I believe that the EMS providers also have expressed an interest in helping communicate the need for it. Good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lisa and Kyle and Tim, who somehow was able to get away with being a silent partner in this presentation. I guess so. Thank you also for presenting to the county commissioners today. Sounded like that was a lot of fun. Your honor, I like this meeting a little bit better. Oh man, I did get a chance to visit with them beforehand and

there were only three county commissioners in attendance at our meeting. So it was a little hard. Yep. Is this working or not? I don't know what happened. Let's try it. If it's sleeping, I can just go through my report. Anyway, all right. Miss Harris, quarterly fiscal health report, aka our popcorn report. Yes. Right. I do think we'd have more people that would stick around for this if we served popcorn. Definitely. Also might be if we didn't put Mia on the very end. Yeah. I offered for her to go first. Did you?

Yeah. Oh, that's I actually don't mind closing out the meeting with with the report. So, I don't know what happened. Um,

there it goes. Okay, so Max start the timer for five minutes. Just kidding. Um, so tonight I'm just here to present on um the status of our finances through December 31st. Um, I just want to give a brief overview, but in the interest of time tonight, I'm not going to go through a lot of the in-depth of our budget. Um the presentation is available out online um under the finance department's website page if anybody would like to see it. Um so I'm just going to give kind of a high level preview of this. Um I will I will just state for members of the public that that the general fund um is a 12.1 million budget. Um we cut our general fund by 11.3% last year. Um so it was just about $1.5 million. So even with the reduction, it still remains the city's largest budget. Um it supports core services, some essential uh core services uh that benefit all of our residents, including our police department, uh streets and alleys, parks, uh municipal court, our IT department, etc. At the close of the second quarter, the general fund was in a positive position with revenues exceeding expenditures by $90,6967. Our revenues are performing well. Our sales and use taxes are about 7% over what our projections are for this point in the year, which is roughly a $195,000 estimate. So, we're performing well there. Um, there were strong performers in three different categories. Rocky Mountain Power, uh, paramutual commission that the city receives, um, and that's from the historical horse, uh, betting. And then also our interest earnings. We budgeted $25,000 for interest earnings and we've earned $61,000 um at this point year to date. I try not to be um I try to be conservative when

we're budgeting interest because we can never guess what the market is going to do and I hate to budget expenditures against that. So um on the expenditure side, 10 of our 18 cost centers are at or below their budgets. Um a few of them are ahead just uh timing due to operational things. um mayor and council, we paid our WHAM dues and memberships in the first quarter of the year. Um our municipal court, our prisoner housing costs are kind of through the roof this year. Uh definitely under budget in that area. And then our annual software and insurance expenses in the administrative services um realm also will balance out later on as we move throughout the year. And then IT maintenance and trainings. And then also our parks department is exceeding a little bit, but that's based on seasonal spending as well. I mean, you approve the budget to start July 1st and that's their heavy time of the year when they're doing most of their spending.

Still mowing.

That'll level out. I know. Oh, capital is 25% expended and uh completed purchases include network upgrades, HVAC improvements at city hall, which that is also a grant reimburseable project and we're still trying to get that wrapped up so we can get that done this fiscal year. Uh police vehicles, fleet equipment, and then we did purchase a secure record storage for our victim witness department this year. And then overall the general fund does remain stable with revenues outperforming our expectations and expenditures tracking within our normal expenditures. Um the airport fund um this is a a a fun report to give you tonight. So we have a total of $6.43 million with $5.7 million in the airport fund dedicated to capital. At the end of the second quarter, the fund showed a deficit of $2.25 25 million which is expected due to timing of grant reimbursements. So in having to deliver that news to you this evening, I went ahead and conducted an evaluation of where we sit now in February. And since the second quarter closed, the city has received $3.79 million in reimbursements. So as of today, the fund still reflects a current deficit of 596,000. Um but we do have 362,000 in additional grant funding that we are expecting and um once those reimbursements are received the net the deficit will narrow and then keeping in mind that we did budget that we were going to budget transfers from the general fund to help offset the costs of operations in the airport fund. So um all that being said we are within perfectly within what we have budgeted for. It's just a matter of timing with that. Um, our enterprise funds continue to operate um on a fee for service model and they are designed to be self- sustaining. Um, the water fund closed the second quarter with a positive balance of $281,000.

Um, major projects included the Spruce Street water line tank rehab and then key equipment purchases. This fund is performing well with several large projects on the horizon that will require careful planning as as you just approved the West Main Waterline project for 2027. So, we'll need to prepare ourselves with that um as well and just hopefully keep our pricing structured enough that we can keep up with the cost of these capital projects. The wastewater fund um let's see that's uh that closed the second quarter with a deficit of $388,000 largely due to the timing again of capital expenses. We're doing some major improvements at our wastewater treatment plant. Some of that is grant funded and again it can be just a matter of timing of receiving the reimbursements. I know I do have an outstanding reimbursement um through the WCDA that I'm waiting to receive in to help support the water and the wastewater fund as well. And then the sanitation fund closed the quarter with a positive balance of 168,000. Uh capital purchase include a street sweeper which I understand is on its way. Correct. Um replacement containers which we purchased auger replacements and then a sand oil separator down at the public works department. Um this is performing steady and it's well positioned for future equipment and planning upgrades. Um across all enterprise funds, our operations are stable. revenues are tracking as expended and capital projects are progressing. The last fund that I want to report on is the air service fund and you've heard a lot about that with Kyle tonight. Our air service fund reflected a negative balance of $72,000 in expenditures over revenues. Keeping in mind that when the council approved the budget, you did approve a cash transfer of $1.8 million. And that is money that we currently have in the bank and in our reserves to cover that. So, we have the money. I just need to make the transfer to do it. Um in closing, our um our general fund is stable. Enterprise funds are

progressing and airport and air service funds continue to advance major projects um supporting reimbursements and supporting the airport fund with some supplemental funding. We will continue to monitor and report on these quarterly. And with that, I would thank you for approving our budget and and leave the floor open for any questions that we may have. Questions for Miss Harris? as always. Thank you. All right. Are you are you enjoying the format of this presentation? Oh, I forgot to slide all these through. Um, sorry. They're in your packet. And and if you would like me to switch it up or do something different, I'm happy to take suggestions for that, too. So, I think it's the consistency is nice because

seen it the same. It's helpful to be able to see and understand it every time. I agree. And, uh, you hit the highlights. I don't know. Anybody have any feedback? This is good. Can't read it from here, but we know what we're looking at because that's why I put it in the packet and I I think I try to do this for the benefit of the people in the on the public that are watching, but I didn't do a very good job of it tonight. It's out on our website again if you want if anybody wants to view it. And anybody can call at any time and feel I'll feel free to answer any questions that somebody may have regarding our finances. I do enjoy having it in the packet so we can kind of follow along. Yeah, because I can't see.

You can't see that? Me neither. Yeah, it's got to be. The TVs are great. We just need bigger font sizes that are used with it. That's Yeah. Well, I'm trying to squeeze it all in a PowerPoint presentation, too. So, yep. That's available out online anytime anybody wanted to view it. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good job, Miss Harris. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Yes. So, move we don't have an executive session. Executive. We could have one. What? We could have one. We can think of something. I think we have a motion to adjourn, which I think is also a non that's chairman's pro. Chairman's prov

we have a motion from uh Councilman Carr, second by Councilman Larson. All in favor say I. I. We are adjourned at 11:02