The Lander City Council will hold a regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 11, in the City Council Chambers at 240 Lincoln Street.
The agenda includes 10 new business action items.
Utility rates
First, the council will consider a resolution amending fees and utility rates for water and wastewater services.
During a work session last month, city staff said the amendment would increase rates by 7 percent.
Public works director Lance Hopkin said the increase would help cover infrastructure replacement and maintenance.
“The reality is, it’s just going to be expensive,” he said, adding that the 7 percent hike represents the minimum proposed increase.
“This may adjust up as time goes on, (but) we think that this can get us to where we need to be for a couple of years.”
City treasurer Charri Lara noted that Lander’s utility rates are still “well below” the federal affordability index for water and sewer services.
Workers’ compensation
The council will consider ratifying the resolution allowing fireworks July 4, 2023, after the Lander Old Timer’s Rodeo, then consider approving a resolution amending the workers’ compensation section of the city personnel manual.
City clerk Rachelle Fontaine said the proposed amendment would let employees use their accrued sick leave or vacation time, or seek donations from coworkers, to cover the portion of their salary that isn’t provided by workers’ compensation.
State workers’ compensation pays two-thirds of an employee’s regular salary, Fontaine explained, so injured employees “take a loss in earnings.”
“I think we have good employees, (and) we need to keep them,” Mayor Monte Richardson said during last month’s work session. “My opinion is, we should do it.”
Gannett Peak
Next, the council will consider a resolution authorizing the submission of an application for federal funding through the Transportation Alternatives Program administered by the Wyoming Department of Transportation.
The money would cover cost overruns on the Gannett Peak Safe Routes To School project, assistant mayor RaJean Strube Fossen said during the work session last month.
“The application is for $986,341, and our match amount … will be $103,569,” she said, noting that the city’s portion would come out of the 1 percent sales tax fund.
Hopkin said the overruns resulted from inflation, as well as “issues that came about after design.”
“We weren’t really solving some of the issues of the project,” he explained. “We were just avoiding issues rather than addressing them.”
For example, he said, the “biggest win for us on that project, with pulling it back, is the access into Gannett Peak School itself is going to widen and become much safer.”
“The alley entrance off of Fifth is going away,” Hopkin said. “That was a previous issue that we weren’t able to do when the school was being built.”
Other items on Tuesday’s agenda include:
-approve a resolution amending the building inspector job description
-approve Rick Bestul and Khrysten Lutz as new appointments to the LIFT Committee
-authorize the mayor to sign a new hangar lease for David and Samuel Rodgers for hangar 405 at Hunt Field Airport
-authorize the mayor to sign a new hangar lease for Bert Womack for hanger number 404 at Hunt Field Airport
-authorize the mayor to sign an updated hangar lease for David and Jennifer Rodgers for hanger 500 at Hunt Field Airport
-authorize the mayor to sign a notice to proceed for a pavement maintenance project
The meeting is open to the public for in-person attendance and will be streamed live on Zoom (Meeting ID: 885 8032 5579 Passcode: 149261).
Past meeting recordings are available here.
For more information call the City of Lander at 332-2870.