 - The Riverton City Council has decided not to charge the Fremont County Emergency Management Agency a fee to store three mass incident response medical supply trailers within the secured perimeter at Central Wyoming Regional Airport.){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – The Riverton City Council has decided not to charge the Fremont County Emergency Management Agency a fee to store three mass incident response medical supply trailers within the secured perimeter at Central Wyoming Regional Airport.
The question came up earlier this month, when the council considered a proposal to allow FCEMA to store the trailers at the airport free of charge.
The council held off on approving the proposal at that time, with several members indicating that they wanted more information about potentially adding a fee to the agreement.
City staffers have been in touch with FCEMA since then, Public Works Director Brendan Thoman said this week, reporting that the agency would likely find another place to store the trailers if the council decided to include a fee as part of the proposed agreement.
“FCEMA has stated that they probably would relocate these trailers to a different (area) and partner with a different entity if the council did decide to assess a fee to park these trailers,” Thoman said during a council meeting Tuesday.
Rates
Thoman also shared information from a 2024 Airport Rates and Charges Study that shows ground lease rates for commercial non-aeronautical purposes across Wyoming airports range from 11 cents per square foot to 25 cents per square foot.
Riverton currently charges 20 cents per square foot for outdoor land leases at the airfield, Thoman said, and if that rate were applied to the agreement with FCEMA, the city would earn about $200 per year.
That amount of income is “insignificant in the big picture,” Councilmember Mike Bailey said.
“I agree we need to generate income for the airport,” Bailey said. “But we need to generate thousands of dollars – not tens or hundreds of dollars.”
Bailey also pointed out that the airport is “probably the most likely place” in Fremont County to experience a mass casualty event that would necessitate a response from the medical supply trailers – so “it’s probably the best place to store them.”
“This is a benefit to the City of Riverton,” Councilmember Kyle Larson agreed, referring to the proposed agreement with FCEMA as “a gift horse.”
“(These are) for us to utilize if we were to have a difficulty – versus calling Cheyenne and hoping somebody could get us something in the next couple of days,” Larson said. “That’s going to help us in the future if there is some adverse condition. I mean, what maximum profit could we get versus the detriment of not having it available?”
The proposed agreement with FCEMA indicates that, “in the event of an airport mass casualty incident, the trailers’ medical supplies will be immediately available and also able to support the Airport Fire Rescue unit’s response.”
“That’s the benefit to the city,” Mayor Tim Hancock said. “This isn’t just them wanting to use (the airport). This is something that we would have access to … in the event of an emergency.”
Public feedback
Councilmember Karen Johnson had originally proposed exploring the idea of adding a fee to the agreement with FCEMA, but this week she acknowledged that the suggestion “was not well received by the public.”
“I think it’s the will of the (people), from the feedback that I got, that they don’t want to see anything like that charged up there,” she said. “I can recognize that and support their parking out there.”
She added, however, that “it never hurts to ask, and it never hurts to look at it.”
“There’s things that have to be looked into and questions to be answered before sometimes we can make an appropriate decision,” Johnson said. “And trying to find revenue for the airport is not something bad.”
Hancock agreed, suggesting that it might be “beneficial” to ask the Riverton Airport Board to examine “different ways that we can be increasing the revenue that we’re making up at the airport.”
“I think that’s definitely something we need to get them on,” he said.
After approving the fee-free agreement with FCEMA, the council directed city staff to work with the Riverton Airport Board to review CWRA’s current rates structure, compare the local fees with those at similar airports, and report back to the council at a future meeting.
For more information, call the City of Riverton at (307) 856-2227.