WHEATLAND – The March meeting of the Wheatland town council convened last week and mayor Brandon Graves called the meeting to order at 7 p.m.
Present for the meeting along with Mayor Graves were Councilman Madsen, Councilman Kaufman,
Councilman Montoya and Councilman Allison
The council meeting began with Mayor Graves informing the council that a change had to me made in the minutes under “unfinished business.” He made the change as follows:
“No. 2 will be Parks and Rec backstops and No. 3 will be police department vehicles.” The motion was made to approve the changes and they were approved.
Mayor Graves then made a motion to approve the consent agenda from the Feb. 13 meeting and it was approved.
The council then took time to recognize WHS wrestler Ariel Kumelos and the WHS girls wrestling team.
Mayor Graves asked if everyone was present from the wrestling team and then went on to give comment. Kumelos was not in attendance as she was training for nationals.
“We as a town of Wheatland would like to recognize the historic, inaugural 2023 girls high school wrestling program,” Mayor Graves said. “I have a bit of information here that I would like to share. We had four girls including Jayden McDaniel, Jenna Karr, Audrey Davis who are here, and of course Ariel ‘Alex’ Kumelos who is a training machine apparently. But, Jayden McDaniel actually got the first win and the first pin for the tournament. She won 12 matches as a senior this year. Congratulations Jayden, that’s awesome. Jenna Karr is a freshman and won eight matches and placed at two large tournaments. Audrey Davis is a sophomore and she won four matches and went undefeated against all the boys that she wrestled this season. Alex Kumelos who is a freshman and she won 17 matches this year and she was the first 125 lb. girl champion in the state of Wyoming and she was the first girl from Wheatland to be state champion.”
Mayor Graves then presented to Coach Blaine Eppel a certificate to give to Kumelos.
Mayor Graves then issued a Proclamation Declaring March 29, 2023 as National Vietnam Veterans Day
The council then reviewed unfinished business dealing with ordinance 840 dealing with an Ordinance Rezoning 1950 South Road to General Business. This was a second reading. The motion was made and approved to rezone.
The council then moved to discuss the Platte County Parks and Rec’s backstops. Parks and rec director Curtis Hofrock was present to bring information.
Mayor Graves then went on record to clear up any misconceptions.
“To go on public record and say it this way is probably best because there is a lot of hearsay out there,” Mayor Graves said. “I asked Eli Stone of Stone Welding not to bid it due to the obvious conflict of interest, and that was absolutely 100% me initiating that conversation. Telling him that the stigma looked bad and I had advised him not to bid it.”
Hofrock then gave a brief history to catch people up on the situation.
He mentioned that t might have been right after the season last year that there was talk about possibly putting up netted backstops and said that they are a fantastic improvement, making the game easier to watch and with these backstops, they are mobile and can be removed at the end of the season.
“Initially we had some preliminary numbers from a company to provide those,” Hofrock said. “When we really started to put the rubber to the road, those numbers came back somewhere between $20-30K higher than the initial numbers we had. In good conscience I could not move forward without the approval of the council, so we started looking into all kinds of different things. Initally Eli Stone had worked up a drawing to put together some ideas on how to work it.”
Hofrock then said that he could see how, from the public standpoint that it could be a conflict of interest and went on to ask the council if the parks and rec need to put that up for bid, or does the town of Wheatland need to put it out for bid.
“Where do we need to go from here,” Hofrock asked.
An answer in reply to Hofrock was that appropriate specs had to be done before it could be bid and anything over $35K had to be bid with appropriate specs. If the project is under $35K, there needs to be three quotes and appropriate specs.
Hofrock then said that he would go forward and begin to look at getting proper specs for the project.
Other business matters that the council heard was the increased cost of ordering a new police vehicle and whether the budget line item had enough to cover the increase. The discussion was conducted as to amending the line item in the budget to handle the increased costs due to the economy and inflation. A motion was made to deviate from the budgeted purchase of the black Dodge Ram to purchase instead a white Tahoe for $58,545.41 and the motion was approved.
As for New Business the council hears an ambulance update from Taylor Schmick from Banner Health, the Wyoming Region 7 Hazard Mitigation Plan by Terry Stevenson, and the approval of Resolution #05-2023 Adopting the 2023 Updated Region 7 Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Cost Proposal for the 2023 Environmental Monitoring & Reporting for the Landfill was discussed as well as the acceptance of the FY 21-22 Audit
The council then had a first reading on the Ordinance 841 An Ordinance Increasing Water Rates for Residential & Commercial Users.
The Town of Wheatland council meeting can be heard in its entirety at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVI0jXu29a0
SCHEDULED MEETINGS/WORKSHOPS:
April 10, 2023 – 7 p.m. Monthly Council Meeting
