Council mulls street improvement funding

WORLAND – The Worland City Council decides to pay for curb, gutters and sidewalks on street improvement projects in town.

In opening up discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting, Mayor Dave Duffy said, “There is a need for some policy that establishes what the city will and will not do for curb, gutters and sidewalk.”

He added the city has absorbed costs in the past but has also required residents to incur the costs because a policy was not established.

He then opened up discussion on how to address funding street improvement.

“A fourth of the money we anticipated is not going to be there,” the mayor said, and money has already been committed to the 15th Street project with additional funding from a State Loan and Improvement grant.

The mayor also added the topic of forming an improvement district to the city, but it was not received positively by some council members.

Councilor Lisa Fernandez said, “We need to have a plan to do this right … It will take a couple of years and this will not be fixed over the summer.”

After much discussion, the council made passed a motion “to take responsibility to cover costs of replacing curbs, double gutters and sidewalks on corner lots when replacing valley gutters with general purpose tax funds.”

A focus area for this project has not been determined.

Community Center bylaws

Also on Tuesday, a motion for bylaw changes at the Worland Community Center Complex failed on the floor at the Worland City Council meeting Tuesday night.

The issue of bylaw changes was addressed in March, but no action was taken until Tuesday night.

Worland Community Complex Center Director Steve Hunt said he requested the bylaw changes because a board members term expired in December and he expressed interest in continuing another term.

Frank Bowers, the Worland Community Complex Center board member, ended his two terms Dec. 31, 2015, and Hunt said in a March interview, with the shortage of people wanting to volunteer “Why push someone out who wants to be here?”

Worland City Council members addressed their concerns over making the bylaw changes because the position was never advertised, and after some back and forth conversation board member Keith Gentzler made the motion to accept the changes; it was not seconded.

Worland Mayor Dave Duffy said if the community center advertises for the position and no one applies for it, the board would consider readdressing the bylaw changes.

Green Hills Management

The Worland City Council addressed the Green Hills Golf Course temporary agreement with Gary Shampeny and Go Play Golf LLC.

Currently the city has a temporary agreement with Shampeny from March 16 – April 30 to manage the golf course and it is set to expire between city council meetings.

Council decided to give Shampeny a 30-day extension and make an addendum to current agreement and extend it from May 1 – 31. They also moved to “authorize the mayor and golf committee to propose this extension and to be able to move forward.”

There is a meeting with Shampeny on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. with the council. The meeting is closed to the public since contracts will be discussed, Mayor Duffy said.

Other business

—The council went into a closed executive session to discuss valuation of real estate, and after reopening for their scheduled council meeting they made two motions.

The first motion was to “authorize the mayor to enter into agreement for action to purchase real estate for a city shop and to perform due diligence with party No. 1 with costs to cap at $15,000.”

The second motion was to “authorize the mayor to enter into agreement for action to purchase real estate for a city shop and to perform due diligence with party No. 2 with costs not to exceed $5,000.”

The council approved both motions.