Commissioners approve letter of support for Roundtop Trail

by Abby Belus

The August 17 Hot Springs County Commissioners meeting opened with Meri Ann Rush requesting a letter of support for the Roundtop Trail on behalf of the Hot City Outdoor Alliance.

Last fall, Rush spoke with the commissioners as the Hot City Outdoor Alliance was applying for the Land & Water Conservation Grant.

The first one, the Musser fund, fell through so they pulled the land and water one because they didn’t have the matching funds. Christie Walden, with Walmart, gave them $20,000 to develop Roundtop.

Hot City Outdoor Alliance works with Wyoming Pathways and Wyoming Pathways needs a letter of support to verify that it is okay with the commissioners for Hot City Outdoor Alliance to develop Roundtop Trail with it being on county land. A motion was made and approved to provide the Hot City Outdoor Alliance with a letter of support.

The commissioners then moved on to appoint a new Hot Springs County Clerk. Vice-Chairman Jack Baird moved that they appoint Becky Kersten as the new county clerk. Commissioner Phillip Scheel seconded the motion and it passed.

Chairman Tom Ryan thanked all the clerk candidates for their interest and commissioner Scheel thanked everyone in the republican party who did the work in the process and gave the commissioners three well qualified applicants. The names of the other applicants were not mentioned.

Kersten will be sworn in on Tuesday, August 31 at 8:15 a.m. in the District Courtroom at the courthouse.

The commissioners did not receive any Property Proposals from the public for the property at 518 Arapahoe Street. This allows the commissioners to proceed with a plan they choose for the property as they have given the public the opportunity to submit proposals.

The commissioners then discussed the county’s Workers Compensation discount programs. The county’s workers compensation has roughly doubled. Last month they spent around $4,000 for workers compensation alone.

There is a drug and alcohol discount annual application and there is a safety discount available. The drug and alcohol tests would be prior to employment and then random after that. The safety meetings would have to be done in each department once a month.

Scheel stated that his company gets a 10% safety discount for doing a documented health and safety program, a documented monthly safety meeting, and they have to achieve and maintain their loss ratio to equal or less than 10%.

Commissioner Baird asked, “What kind of discount are they giving us if we do all of this stuff?” If they are able to get a 20% discount utilizing these two programs they are talking about $800 worth of savings per month.

Chairman Ryan said it would help to identify patterns and fix them and raise awareness.

The commissioners would like the elected officials and department heads to visit with their groups and come back to them with some input and feedback at the second commissioners meeting in September.

Commissioner Scheel then made a motion to have Chairman Ryan put his signature on the petition seeking recordation of change at the point of diversion prior to the 1965 following appropriations of the O.P. Jones ditch permits 2945 for Beckers and Browns. Motion was passed.

Next, there was a discussion about Removing the Construction Notice from the County Land Use Plan.

Commissioner Scheel wanted to discuss striking 4-1 out of the land use plan. Scheel stated the goal of the notice is to curb potential misuse of land, take care of septic notifications and just to have a general idea of what’s going on in the county.

Scheel said, “I think we are doing a pretty good job, people in general, of understanding septic permits. I think the construction of or the use of land is probably the one thing that is least understood here.”

Scheel suggested a newspaper ad or having notices sent out along with people’s property tax notices each year to give people notice as to what they can and can’t do with their land as they have had trouble with people just deciding to do something with their land without going through the process of land use change. The notice could include a list of what is approved for agricultural, residential, or commercial land. It could also include a short synopsis of if you are currently in residential and want to go commercial, this is the simple process of how to do it.

Chairman Ryan was not in favor of removing it. If you own property and you’re thinking about changing the use you need to talk to the county planner. He said, “all the things that we have the most trouble with almost every single one of them somebody changed the use without asking, and it turned into a big old mess and then you have to decide if you will let them continue to do the use...and all it would have taken is calls to the planner and that’s all the construction notice does.”

Chairman Ryan mentioned that they should probably be having another discussion on how hard of a line they should take if people don’t follow the rules. He asked, “Should you let them stay doing it or should you say no you didn’t follow the rules so you gotta back out. Most of the time when they don’t follow the rules they’re performing some commercial activity in a place not approved.”

The commissioners would like to continue the discussion as they think it is going to get worse as VRBO and other similar services are becoming a trend.

During discussion on the matter, Commissioner Ryan said “We’re not going to start building permits, that isn’t happening. We keep hearing this slippery slope, that was never the intention.”

County Planner Bo Bowman added “Basically they’re giving us a heads up and it doesn’t stop the process. We never get back to anyone and say go ahead. If there’s a problem, then we’ll contact you because all we want to know is ahead of time what is happening. Maybe this is not a perfect solution, maybe we will come up with something better, but we tried to keep it as simple as possible.”

Commissioner Scheel moved that they strike from the land use plan section 4-1. Jack Baird offered a second. After further discussion, a vote was held. Scheel voted in favor and both Baird and Ryan were opposed. The motion was not passed.

Scheel would like to continue the discussion and come up with consequences for those in violation of the Hot Springs County land use plan. Scheel said, “If we don’t do anything about it, then there are no repercussions to their world.”