Mill levy vote date still in the air

by Tiffany Turner

Since the legislation allowing the Rural Health Care District (RHCD) and the county to raise the mill levy for the district passed both the Senate and the House last week, RHCD met with the commissioners this week to determine what their options would be for holding the required county-wide vote to allow the increase.

Due to restrictions listed in the bill and in county election requirements, the earliest they could get the election in motion would be May of 2010, said County Clerk Mary Lankford.

The district cannot make a vote to request an election until 60 days after the bill takes effect on July 1, which makes them ineligible to get their information on the ballot for this years May, August or November elections she said.

“And (May) would be a special election that would have to be called and the district would have to pay for that,” Lankford said.

A special election would cost approximately $25,000-$30,000, Lankford added.

If the district were to wait for the November election in 2010, however, she said it would not cost the district anything to add the vote to the ballot.

The district does understand waiting until the November election will cost them a full year before the mill could be increased.

“Well I guess we’ll probably just look at that at our first budget meeting,” RHCD’s Dave Racich said. “I think the full board should be involved in this.”

RHCD Board member Ken Shriver said if they were aiming to get the item on the May ballot, they would have to get busy and begin deciding how they would promote the mill levy increase to the county.

“It’s going to take a lot of work to convince the public we need that money,” he said..

In other county news:

• Erin Losik, a private childcare provider and president of the Sublette County Childcare Coalition approached the commissioners about using the old senior center in Marbleton as a childcare center once the new senior center was complete.

“Basically I wanted to let you know that there was some interest in using the senior center for child care,” Losik said. “I have a home business now and I am personally interested in starting a center there.”

The commission discussed options about whether to have a private enterprise and whether a center there should be non-profit if they decided to help support the funding. While no final decision was made, the commission unanimously agreed they thought using that building would help with the childcare provider deficit on the south side of the county.

“I for one am willing to make it available for that purpose,” Cramer said. “I’d like to see you get started and get the process going.”

• Dereth Gelhausen announced to the commission that she will be taking over as County Manager for the Public Health Nurse office. Gelhausen had been working in Sublette County’s nursing office for over a year prior to taking over for past nurse Annie Sondgerath. The state will be advertising for the position that Gelhausen’s promotion has vacated.

• Three bids were received for the Pinedale Transfer Station for separating and transporting materials.

After allowing Hoffman, Transfer Station supervisor, to look through the bids and figure out actual costs due to the differences in layout of the three bids, it was determined that M&M Transfer was the most suitable bid. The commissioners accepted the bid unanimously. The estimated total for the service based on M&M Transfer’s cost bid is $162,583. This is based on an average of 6,400 tons being removed from the station the last two years.

• Butch Penton informed the county he had spoken with Stuart Thompson and he was putting together figures as to the costs of maintaining and plowing the road up to White Pine each year.

When the road is fixed and widened by the US Forest Service as per their agreement with the commissioners, this road will become the commission’s responsibility.

• The commission voted unanimously to nominate a geographic feature in south county Aiken’s Butte. County surveyor Paul Scherbel brought the request before them.

• One proposal has been received for construction manager for Chopper Grassel’s expansion that is being funded by a Wyoming Business Council (WBC) grant and a low-interest property loan from the county commissioners. Grassel is now waiting for the WBC and state offices to move forward with new shop area for Callahan Cabinets.

• Cat Urbigkit, who is working with the commissioners to update and format their Web site, broached the subject of advertising the site in order to increase traffic.

“You guys should not be paying for something without the traffic, so generate that traffic,” Urbigkit said.

The commission is currently receiving an average of 80 to 90 hits daily on its Web site.