Pinedale Town Council Accepts New Plan

by Tiffany Turner

The Pinedale Town Council accepted the new town Master Plan, a list of ordinances and procedures outlining the ambition and planned growth of the town, during its first reading at its Sept. 25 meeting.

The town’sMaster Plan, which has been under construction for the past few months and published recently for additional public comment, reached the town council’s table and was accepted during its first reading later that night.

Changes have been made to the draft as commentsweremade at the various meetings and mailed, emailed and brought into the town hall.Itispossiblethatsomechanges will still be made to the document before it becomes an official ordinance on its third reading.

Rachelle Ricotta, who was hired to aid the town in the revamping of the document, (an undertaking that has not been done for years despite the accepted policy that it be updated yearly) collected officials’ and citizens’ concerns, created a steering committee and meetings with both the public and the Planning and Zoning Committee in order to compose the document that was presented to the town council on Monday evening.

“Overall, both meetings went very good,” Ricotta said. “(The Master Plan) is something to be proud of.” Taking into account the different suggestions, Ricotta presented the newest plan to the council and was met with unanimous approval for her hard work and organized document.

“I think you have done an extraordinary job and the Master Plan looks great,” Mayor Steve Smith told Ricotta. The council chose to read the Master Plan with other ordinances that evening and it passed unanimously on first reading.

The council also approved two other ordinances, which were being read for the second time that took into consideration the restraint of dogs in town and fines for nuisance dogs.

Municipal Judge Ruth Neely requested the ability to sit down with Town Attorney Ed Wood to determine the actual terminology to be used for the ordinances, but she found no fault with the changes the ordinances were going to make.

The first, referring to the restraint of dogs within town limits, will force all animal owners walking their dogs off their property to have their animals on a 10-foot or shorter leash and be deemed responsible enough to control the animal they are responsible for.The second, which refers to barking, nuisance dogs, will allow the court to charge owners with a misdemeanor offense and an escalating fine for nuisance dogs instead of the previous flat $25 fine. Both ordinances passed on their second reading.

In other town news:

• Town Engineer Eugene Ninnie continued to urge the town to consider metering water consumption within the town limits, stating that the extreme usage amounts may not necessarily be from the consumers in town.

“The town consumption may be coming from a leak within the town lines,” he said, adding that the only way to truly figure that out would be with the metering to find any inconsistencies in the amounts.

“Right now we don’t know,” he said. “That in itself would be a good reason to install metering.”

• Planning Administrator Meghan Jacquet reported to the town that the Planning and Zoning Board has eight items on its agenda for the month of September (compared to two on the agenda in August). She also reported that the town had collected $130 worth of fees, $4,000 for water hook-ups and $2,000 for sewer connections during the past month.

• Lauren McKeever, assistant to the mayor, brought a letter to the board, which needed signatures. The letter was to be sent to theWyoming Association of Municipalities (WAM) in regards to the new distribution models for minerals money that comes to the state.

“Basically, what we would be looking at is, we would be getting less money in most of the models,” McKeever explained to the council. “It will have direct consequences.”

Councilmember Nylla Kunard spoke up about the years the town went without money prior to signing her name.

Council member Dave Hohl agreed. “Not only do we have impacts to deal with but we also have past debts to catch up on,” he said.

The council signed the letter stating their case and requesting that WAM not lessen the money Pinedale receives each year.

• Jim Parker of the Airport Board brought Sept. 19 meeting minutes and the past month’s treasurer’s report to the council. He also reported that the Airport Board hoped to have the new runway completed soon with the exception of the wild game fence and the crushed stone top.

He also reported that they would be installing a credit card machine to help decrease the wait time for bills to be paid to the facility.

• RockyMountain Bank requested and was granted permission to shut off Sublette Street during their opening festivities to house a tent for food and activities. The street will be closed on Nov. 3 from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.