Hanna went CodeRED

The Hanna Town Council met at 6 p.m. on February 11 at the Hanna Town Hall. All members of the council and mayor were present. The agenda was approved after it was amended to show that Carbon County Fire Warden John Rutherford would not be making the meeting due to road conditions on US 30.

After the agenda was approved, the minutes for the regular meeting of January 18 and special meeting on January 28 were approved.

Mayor Lois Buchanan gave a quick overview of the public works report. She said public works had spent most of the month trying to keep up with the snow removal. The snow removal budget was currently running $1,000 in the red due to the weekly, if not daily, snowfall of the past few weeks.

“I heard a comment there should be no more snow plowing for the rest of the year because they ran out of money,” Buchanan said as most of the dozen or so audience members laughed.

“That would be interesting,” Council member Bob Patton said.

Jon Nelson, North Fork Engineering, said the Department of Environmental Quality’s Abandoned Land Mine (AML) project on 2nd and Main was on track.

“They got back to me about the potential of delaying the project because of the grouting operation and there was no directive to stand down, so that is a good thing,” Nelson said.

The month before, Nelson had reported that grouting of the streets might have to be done before the project could be started which could have caused delays.

He said everything was moving ahead. Nelson suggested advertising for bids of contractors in March as long as the snow would allow the bidders to come and survey the area.

Hanna Marshal Jeff Neimark told the council that a CodeRED had been issued on February 3 during a winter storm that caused a white-out in the town of Hanna. All travel in town was shut down as were most businesses, the town hall and schools. He said that when he was leading the school busses to get students home, visibility was less than two feet.

CodeRED Weather Warnings deliver advanced notification of severe weather events as soon as a bulletin is issued by the National Weather Service. The system delivers voice calls, text messages and emails to subscribed users within the direct path of the storm. Alert warnings may include tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood and winter storm warnings.

“I encourage anyone here who is not signed up to be alerted when there is a code red, to do so in the near future,” Neimark said. “It is a smart thing to do.”

Neimark said law enforcement had been issuing a larger amount of citations than usual for this time of year. Most citations given in town since the New Year began were to energy related vehicles going through town. He said most were first citations. Neimark told the council there was a rash of loose dogs in the past month.

“We try to keep them here in town overnight until the owners come and pick them up, but if we can’t take care of them properly, we have to send them to Rawlins,” Neimark said.

He informed the Council the new law enforcement vehicle should be delivered next week.

The mayor said the recreation center was having trouble finding a company to come out to Hanna and work on the hot tub or see if it needs to replaced. Funds are available to replace it if need be, but no company contacted in Wyoming or Colorado have been willing to come out. She said King Coal days had been moved to July 24-25 instead of the July 4 weekend because of staffing issues.

Melissa Sykes from South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Services (SCWEMS) said there had been 42 calls during the last month. She attributed it to the bad weather.

The Hanna Cemetery is still looking for a board member. Town Clerk Ann Calvert said an application had been received.

Mike Armstrong, Hanna representative for the Carbon County Visitors Council (CCVC) said the last meeting had gone over grants and then later met with legislators at the Hotel Wolf to go over support for the proposed lodging tax (See “Legislators meet with MHCC on tourism bill” on page 5 in the January 29 Saratoga Sun.)

The bills coming in at $40,432.76 were approved.

Resolution 2020-518, which allowed the Hanna Recreation Center to submit an application for $2,000 to the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) for a recreation board grant towards the band at King Coal Days Celebration was approved.

The Council approved Resolution 2020-519 which allowed the Hanna Recreation Center to submit a grant application for $5,800 to CCSD No.2 recreation board grant to help with building/grounds maintenance and pool supplies.

Resolution 2020-520, an application from the Hanna Marshal’s office to request $2,000 from the National Highway Administration was approved.

The Town Council decided to award the bid from Custom Builders out of Saratoga for $18,900 to do repairs at the recreation center after receiving two bids. The other bid was approximately $10,000 more.

The Town Council went into executive session at 7:15 p.m. It came out at 8:15 p.m. and announced the town would start going after delinquent water accounts. The Council will work with offenders, but payment will be required.

The next scheduled meeting will be at 6 p.m. on March 10 at the Hanna Town Hall.