County commissioners receive GIS update

At the Hot Springs County Commissioners board meeting held at the Annex Building last Tuesday, Chairman Tom Ryan reported that they were joined by members of the Wyoming Business Council to do a site visit at the old airport property. Ryan said their visit was “productive”.

The commissioners welcomed Connie Guntly, the new commissioner’s administrative assistant, replacing Penny Heardt, who is retiring. 

Brian Clarkson and Maddie Ross of Ardurra (formerly T-O Engineers) gave the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) update and said they finalized the gravel pit tracking form and added it to the Road Maintenance field application. They also set up email notifications for ‘new fixture’, ‘needs maintenance’, and ‘emergency maintenance’ submissions in the Road and Bridge (R&B) applications. They updated training materials and conducted in-person training on the desktop and field application for R&B. 

Additionally, they scanned septic permits from 1980 to 1984 and processed and uploaded septic permits to cloud storage, continuing the addition of this information to the online GIS database.

Regarding their work ahead, they plan on making minimal edits to the R&B offline application. They will scan septic permits from 1977 to 1980 and return those files to Bo Bowman County Planner. The septic permits will be uploaded to the GIS cloud storage and they will continue to add new information to the GIS database. 

Also, they will continue mapping land-use changes for the Planner Land-Use Change application and obtain additional county road easement/right-of-way documents from Cody Stewart, begin mapping descriptions and add to the R&B application.

The engineers will also add GIS layers to HSC Open Data and HSC GeoHub as approved by the commissioners. 

Nate Messenger gave the FBO report and said they had 126 total record operations, which included four air ambulances, and five aircraft overnight. There were three requests for hangar space.

Regarding fuel sales, they sold 1769.86 gallons of Avgas and 794.73 gallons of jet fuel. Messenger said that “traffic and fuel sales were steady this month.”

Shane Rankin gave the Road and Bridge report and said that snow removal has been “massive this year.”  

Rankin held a discussion with the commissioners about the GIS training and systems, specifically their use of personal cell phones for GIS data input and mapping. Chairman Ryan said that he would prefer the employee’s devices would belong to the county and that personal cells are used. Rankin expressed concern about using personal cells in case someone might be terminated and that the GIS app is still on their phone. The commissioners suggested having smart tablets for county employees to use. Rankin added that the GIS app uses a very large amount of stored data and can quickly fill up the phone or tablet. Rankin also said that GIS is a beneficial system. Rankin will explore pricing with Dean Peranteux and return to the commissioners with the results.

Frank Davis gave the Maintenance report and said for the Annex building that parts are ordered for the boiler and the compressor is on order. Davis anticipates they are four more weeks out.

Regarding the Law Enforcement Center, the generator is going to be about 36 weeks out. Davis is going to stay in touch with the supplier. For the Library, they lost the use of a pump and a pump is on order. Davis said, “We switched pumps to have heat in the building for this last cold spell…everything is six to eight weeks of waiting on parts no matter what I do, who I contact.” 

Davis also reported that they did a lot of snow removal over the past month.

Tricia McPhie gave the Public Health / Prevention report and said the Prevention staff started breaking down the meeting so that they could delve deeper into their topics. In January was suicide prevention where they talked about what their strategies are and ways to get involved. During the prevention meeting, there was a community member who provided ideas on getting the youth involved. In their next prevention meeting, they will address substance abuse. 

McPhie continued and said that the results of the prevention needs assessment survey which was conducted last spring are about to be released. In this survey, they reached out to sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders. 

Regarding their revenue, McPhie reported that it is up over 50% from last year. This is due to an increase in their services across the board, which includes immunizations, addressing communicable diseases, long-term care assessments, foot clinics, etc.

Regarding preparedness, their staff has been part of cybersecurity training, preparedness, planning, and regional workshop meetings.

Bill Gordon gave the Emergency Management report and said that Wyoming Gas has presented its annual inquiry to make sure the county is aware of the route and location of its transmission line and how it relates to multiple housing facilities or schools. The commissioners said yes and that they are aware. 

Gordon also announced that on March 1 at 5 p.m. in the Fire Department meeting room, they will have an H2S awareness training. The training is free and is being paid for by the Healthcare Coalition. 

Regarding the snowpack data from the various snowtells in the greater region, Gordon updated the commissioner and said that all measurements are higher than the median. The potential of the Boysen Reservoir runoff might reach 9,000 to 10,000 cubic feet per second. This could be a safety issue for those on the river, such as fishermen, and especially floaters. 

Gordon wants to raise awareness among the public about this possibility. If the river elevates due to a huge runoff, the surface of the river could reach the bridges and there would be no room for floaters to go underneath them. They would have to escape the river earlier. 

The commissioners discussed this further and told of their observations of last summer’s floating traffic on the river. Many tourists come from out of town or out of state to float. They may not know about the potential significant runoff. 

Gordon also presented a draft copy of the new Hot Springs County Emergency Operation Plan for them to review. This plan provides guidance on how to interact with other agencies in a time of crisis. 

Bo Bowman gave the Planner report and said on January 4, he submitted their annual report on septic activity to Wyoming DEQ. Last year there were a number of septic permits that went out but only two were active. One of the main problems with this is the lack of supplies to install the septic systems. Also, the slowdown of construction due to interest rates is another major factor. The permits do not expire and are free but Bowman said that they will see what happens in the spring. He said, “It might be a busy year.” 

Bowman said that one of the approaching projects for 2023 will be the Black Mountain Road Project with BLM. There will be some mapping done for it.

Regarding the Red Rim Ranch subdivision, Bowman said they will be monitoring the road construction work there once spring comes to make sure everything happens smoothly.

Kevin Cornia from Sheridan of Carver, Florek & James presented the audits of Hot Springs County and said there were some deficiencies and they had a clean audit of all county entities. One deficiency was the issue of financial segregation of duties due to the small number of staff available. The other deficiency was the county needed to have improved written policies and procedures over federal funds.

 The commissioners were pleased the audit did not have any additional deficiencies because the money received via Covid funds was given without guidance. The rules and regulations were given later, almost around the time they were required to be spent. The commissioners voted and passed the approval to accept the audit.

County Assessor Dan Webber presented two tax rebates. One is for rebate #1-23, Valkyrie Resources, LLC for $618.76, and rebate #2-23, Foreland Resources, LLC for $2,492.62. The commissioners voted and passed the approval to accept the rebates.

Dean Peranteaux held a discussion with the commissioners about streaming their meetings. Peranteaux gave some recommendations and commissioners asked Peranteaux to investigate the technology further and come back with pricing options. 

In other business, the commissioners voted and passed the approval to appoint Heather Love to the Weed & Pest board and JR Ramsey to the Land Use Planning Commission.

They also voted and passed the approval to ratify Chairman Ryan’s signature on the 2023 NAVAID Maintenance Grant, and the approval of the Greater Sage Grouse Management Plan Revision, which includes the WCCA Memorandum of Understanding and the Contractor Coordination Letter.

The next commissioners meeting will be Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 3 p.m.