New county attorney requests special prosecutor

The Hot Springs County Board of County Commissioners held their first meeting of the new year on Tuesday, starting things off with elections of

chairman and vice chairman.

Commissioner Tom Ryan retained his position as chairman with Phil Scheel remaining as vice chair for another year. An upcoming court case, State of Wyoming v. DeVries, is already causing an issue for newly elected County Attorney Jill Logan.

Due to a conflict of interest with the case, Logan asked the commissioners for approval to bring in a special prosecutor from Fremont County to handle the case. Other than expenses for the special prosecutor, no payment will be made to Fremont County.

The commissioners approved the appointment.

New commissioner Jack Baird will be taking on a few special areas of responsibility, including being the commission liaison to the BLM Bighorn Basin Resource Management Plan, Shoshone Forest Travel Management Planning Committee, Prevention Coalition, the Fairboard and the Sage Grouse Management Committee.

Chairman Ryan will work closely with the Wyoming County Commissioners Association Board of Directors, the Hot Springs County Library, Road and Bridge, Airport Commission and the Senior Center.

For his extra duties, vice chair Scheel will represent the commissioners at meetings with Search and Rescue, the EDC, Basin Authority Child Support Enforcement, Hot Springs County Museum, the Chamber of Commerce and Courthouse Maintenance.

The commissioners voted to keep their meeting dates the same, the first and third Tuesday of each month, however, they decided to change the time of their second meeting to 3 p.m. rather than 4 p.m. to shorten their day. Their first meeting of the month will remain at 9 a.m.

Next on the agenda for the day was the appointment of a few members to various boards and committees.

Joe Martinez will be joining the fair board this year, while Carl Dockery was re-appointed to the Natural Resources Planning Committee. Dee Hillberry and Arnold Pennoyer were both appointed as members of the Hot Springs County Weed and Pest Board.

Hot Springs County Airport FBO Nate Messenger said things were slow during the month of December out at the airport with fuel sales way down.

The solar powered lights for the airport’s sign near the highway are no longer lasting through the night and need to be replaced.

The company that makes the lights indicated it is probably due to the batteries wearing out, even though they have only been in use for three years. Messenger was quoted $553 for two new batteries from the manufacturers.

Instead of going through the manufacturer, Messenger believes he can get the same batteries for about $150 less than he was quoted and asked if it would be alright to purchase them somewhere else.

The commissioners told him to proceed with finding them somewhere cheaper if he could, especially since they had not lasted very long.

Messenger told the commissioners there were two aircraft, which cancelled their trip to Thermopolis because a transient hangar was not available, nor was deicing.

Just before the end of the year, the commissioners had spoken with Bill Gordon, coordinator for Emergency Management in Hot Springs County, about upgrades that needed to be done in the courtrooms and whether or not grant monies from Homeland Security could be used to make those upgrades.

Next week, the commissioners will be meeting with the new sheriff, new police chief, Gordon, the new judges and others to discuss what needs to be done and map out a plan for putting new security measures in place.