Galovich takes seat as Hot Springs County Commissioner

At the January 3 Hot Springs County Commissioners board meeting, Tom Ryan and Phil Scheel welcomed newly elected commissioner Paul Galovich.

During the 2023 reorganization, the commissioners elected Tom Ryan as Chairman and Phil Scheel as Vice Chair. They also decided to keep the meeting dates and times the same, the first Tuesday of the month at 9 a.m. and the third Tuesday of the month at 3 p.m. However, the January 17 meeting will be at 1 p.m. to allow for county employees’ travel time for an event in Cheyenne. 

The commissioners appointed the Independent Record as the county’s official paper.

They also discussed their special areas of responsibility. Commissioner Galovich expressed interest in working with the Senior Center as his choice of responsibility. Also, they passed Resolution 2023-01 to set the county holidays for 2023. The commissioners then filled out their Public Office Disclosure Statements.

T-O Engineers Brian Clarkson and Maddie Ross provided the Geographic Information System (GIS) update. Regarding work completed, they said they added asphalt patch, move, and gravel pit tracking features to the Road & Bridge Maintenance Applications. They also made revisions to the Road Maintenance application to improve the performance of field data collection. Regarding septic permits, they started scanning documents from 1977 to 1984. This included processing and uploading septic permit files to cloud storage. These files were then returned to County Planner Bo Bowman.

Work on all these items will continue as well as mapping land-use changes for the Planner Land-Use Change Application. They will also obtain additional county road easement and right-of-way documents from Cody Stewart, begin mapping descriptions, and add to the Road & Bridge Department application. And they will add GIS layers to the Hot Springs County Open Date and HSC GeoHub as approved by the commissioners. 

Frank Davis gave the maintenance report and said that the courthouse roof supposedly had a leak. However, after Reed Roofing did an inspection, they determined the water to come from condensation, not a leak. Regarding the Annex/Public Health building, Davis said they got the mini splitter to help keep the IT room cool and they have a backup plan for if and when the main system goes down. They also have proposals for repairs on the compressor for the IT room, and the heat exchanger for boiler #1. 

Regarding the Law Enforcement Center (LEC), Davis said they have a generator and installation proposals and they are waiting for some switches for Door #9. 

Tricia McPhie gave the Public Health / Prevention update and said they still have flu shots to give, but those doses are almost gone. They will not order more when they are done. 

Nate Messenger gave the FBO report and said there were 164 total recorded operations at the county airport. Of those, there were six air ambulances, and they had eight aircraft overnight, with three hangar requests. Regarding fuel sales, they sold 2971.67 gallons of Avgas and 754.4 gallons of jet fuel.

Bo Bowman gave the planner report and said that the Natural Resources Planning Commission will meet on January 11 and he added that he is concerned about having enough memberships on the board. The Land Use Planning Commission will not be meeting in January. 

Bowman also gave a heads-up that there are potentially two subdivision applications that might come up. Both of these involve irrigation water, which Bowman said could be “problematic”. 

Regarding Lane 14, Bowman said that he has not spoken with the applicant since the last meeting but he expects to hear from them about possible next steps.

Regarding septic applications in 2022 Bowman reported, they had 11 completed systems and six that were delayed.

Bill Gordon gave the Emergency Management report and said with the snow on Warren Hill and with many children sledding, he will not test the sirens in January since they are in the same location. He will test the sirens in February instead. Also, the local Emergency Planning Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 11.

Gordon then reported on the recent ice freeze on the river and compared it to the 2014 ice freeze. Gordon described the ice as breathing, and he observed the water level rising and falling three feet several times. “Some spots were close to being problematic,” said Gordon, but there was no property damage. Gordon added that he will draft a report to document what happened for future use or information when the next ice freeze on the river occurs.

Gordon moved on and discussed with the commissioners some measurements of various snow tell drainages that feed water to the Boysen Reservoir. The snowpack is above average and there might be a high runoff later when the thaw happens. Gordon estimated there could be 11,000 to 12,000 cubic feet per second in the river flow at that time. He wants to observe how the flow coming from Boysen Dam will be. 

Karen Slocum held a discussion with the commissioners about the AFLAC program. The AFLAC program is offered to county employees as a pre-tax payroll deduction. However, the county employs 53 people and only eight are currently enrolled. The discussion was to determine if they want to continue to offer the payroll deduction for the program to the county’s employees. After discussion, it was decided that the county will no longer process payroll deductions for employees personally choosing to enroll in AFLAC.

Harold Hutson held a discussion with the commissioners about the Red Lane Water District Dissolution. Hutson said, “I’m currently working with Bill Long and some other people in the Red Lane area that are interested in forming a water district. We’ll probably become a water service or a service improvement district to induce the Big Horn regional water to come in and service us.”

Hutson referred to a letter from County Clerk Becky Kersten about Resolution 2019-03 where the commissioners dissolved the Red Lane Water and Sewer District. Chairman Ryan explained that they didn’t have options about the situation because the State essentially told them to dissolve. Kersten’s letter said that in regard to resuming operations, the interested parties will need to go through the petition process to establish a water and sewer district as outlined in the Special District Principal Act in Wyoming State Statutes 41-10-101. 

Hutson said, “I want to alert the commission that we are interested in getting another district formed so that we can get that water in there for a lot of different reasons.” Hutson explained that certain parties involved have had a change of heart about the situation and that the system is in need of substantial repairs. Hutson also said that he desires to be part of the conversation with the commissioners in the possible formation of a joint water powers board for Hot Springs County and that he has the intention of getting a board put together. 

Chairman Ryan informed Hutson about the coming meeting to discuss the joint water powers board on January 17 at 10:30 a.m.  

In other business, the commissioners voted and passed the approval of both RFR #6 for the Black Mountain Road Reconstruction Project for $21,631.90 and RFR #5 for the Big Horn Basin Children’s Outdoor Discovery Area for $1,324.26. Additionally, the commissioners voted and passed the approval to appoint Dan Wychgram to the Natural Resource Planning Commission board.