Getting in the zone

Despite a continued struggle to maintain a quorum, the Saratoga Planning Commission was able to conduct a fair amount of business as they met on April 9 at the Saratoga Town Hall. While acting chairman Tom Westring and town council representative Bob Keel were in physical attendance, commission member Jim Beckmann joined by phone while Chris Duke was absent.

During the hour long meeting, the commission approved a special use permit for Saratoga resident Kathy Wallace, discussed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a permanent zoning officer. Kent Smith, who served as a zoning officer for the Town of Saratoga in the past, is currently serving on an “as needed” basis until the position is officially filled.

Special Use Flowers

As was reported previously (see “Zoning hole and special use flowers” on page 1 of the March 20 Saratoga Sun), the planning commission had granted Wallace, who now helps her daughter and son-in-law run the Flower Pot, a temporary special use permit to operate the business out her garage until a public hearing could be held during the April meeting. That public hearing saw very little attendance and no concerns raised. Wallace had acquired just over the required minimum, 50 percent, of signatures needed for the planning commission.

The only comment made during the public hearing was from Reverend Steve Nicholls, who assured the planning commission that parking was not an issue for the neighborhood. Later, during the regular meeting, the commission approved the special use permit for Wallace effective until June 30. Wallace implied to the commission that the Flower Pot had found a store front, but was currently in preparations to move into the location.

Memorandum Update

The MOU between the Town of Saratoga and Carbon County is currently in limbo between town attorney Tom Thompson and Carbon County Attorney Ashley Mayfield-Davis. During the March meeting of the planning commission, Carbon County Commissioner Sue Jones had provided some insight to the commission on the MOU and had also informed the commission that Mayfield-Davis was out of the office on maternity leave.

“I just got an email from our town attorney today,” said Keel. “He CC’d me along with the email he sent to the county attorney asking for them to give their opinion on the legality of the MOU and they’re still not responding. He suggested we don’t do anything until the county attorney is able to respond on this issue, so, it’s just kind of sitting at a stalemate. Unless we want to give a recommendation without the legal blessing of our town attorney.”

According to Keel, as he provided background on the MOU to Smith, while the county is intending to use the document to give the Town of Saratoga the authority to issue building permits for the Old Baldy Club, Thompson has been unsure of the legality of such a document.

During the 2013 General Session of the Wyoming Legislature, House Bill 42 had been passed and signed into law which repealed the state statutes that had organized a state land use commission and established buffer zones around municipalities. Along with repealing those statutes, it provided new statutes that allow local governments to work together in land use planning “in accordance with powers granted by the Wyoming Joint Powers Act.”

“I believe they’re just looking at doing a simple wording change saying that we’re not acting as the Town of Saratoga, but our building inspector can still go out there and do building inspections,” Keel said.

Still Zoned Out

The last meeting for former zoning officer Dan Ferrin had been in March, when he suggested to the planning commission that the position be opened up full-time or split with a part-time position in one of the town’s other departments. Since March 19, the Town of Saratoga has been without a permanent zoning officer and recently brought in Smith.

“At the, not the last town council, but the one right after we had approved to recommend the full-time position to the town council, I took that to the town council and they felt like, that, based on the budget that we’re dealing with, it wasn’t wise to make that decision right now,” said Keel. “They didn’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ just ‘we need more talks to figure out whether or not we can afford it’ which I think is wise.”

Keel informed the rest of the planning commission that, following the March 19 meeting of the Saratoga Town Council, the Town of Saratoga had been approached by Sid Fox, Carbon County Planning Director, about the municipality and the county sharing a zoning officer in a 60/40 split.

“Sid Fox has suggested that we budget around $28,000 to $30,000 as our portion of that zoning officer, but this is strictly just a zoning officer. It has no building inspection aspect to it. At least that’s what the county’s suggesting, so we would still need to hire somebody to do building inspections or building permits,” Keel said.

Keel stated that he felt the Town of Saratoga could work with Carbon County on a shared zoning officer, but ask for the condition that whoever would be shared between the municipality and the county also be trained on being a building inspector. Throughout the conversation, Keel believed that 60 percent of the split would be in the hands of Saratoga, though fellow council member Jon Nelson, who was also in attendance, stated he believed the town’s split was the 40 percent.

As the discussion continued, Smith stated he felt that the Town of Saratoga would have nothing to gain from a partnership with the county. Keel pointed out that he believed there would be a savings of $10,000 in providing a part-time zoning officer while the town is struggling with its budget.

“The City of Rawlins and the county already have an agreement almost exact to this. I need to get with Sid Fox, but I believe this county person would be in Saratoga and they would be responsible for the county over here. They would have two people who are split up between two municipalities … and between those two people they would be responsible for the zoning of the whole county,” said Keel.

Without having seen anything official on what part of the split the Town of Saratoga would be paying for and no answer, at that time, on if the county would go along with allowing the shared zoning officer to also be trained in building inspection, the discussion came to an end. Keel did state that, since the departure of Ferrin, he had been approached by local construction companies.

“I’ve had two construction company owners already come talk to me very upset that, one, we’re taking this long and, two, that it’s not something that we’re willing to consider full-time. My answer to them was ‘If you can do better, come do it.’ We’re trying our best to balance a budget and make things work,” Keel said.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Planning Commission will be at 5:30 p.m. on May 14 at Saratoga Town Hall.