Saratoga Museum pursuing tax district

The Saratoga Museum and Historical Society (Saratoga Museum) is beginning to follow through with steps to form a special museum tax district. At the February 10 meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners, Carbon County Clerk Gwynn Bartlett informed the commissioners of the Saratoga Museum’s intent.

Members of the Saratoga Museum board appeared before the Saratoga Town Council on February 18 to inform the governing body of the process. Connie Patterson, board president, spoke for the museum. According to Patterson, while the Saratoga Museum was not at risk of running short of funds in the immediate future, the threat of funding loss was on the horizon.

“We are going to try and form, as one of our other options that we’ve looked at, a special museum tax district. That’s a process,” said Patterson. “The process involves picking your boundaries, which we have established as electoral precincts 11-1 and 11-2 … and 11-2-1, which includes Ryan Park. So, essentially, it’s just inside Saratoga and outside Saratoga, including the Ryan Park area.”

With the boundaries of the district selected, Patterson informed the Saratoga Town Council that the next step of the process was to begin obtaining signatures of landowners within the proposed district’s boundaries. According to Wyoming State Statute 22-29-105(a), a petition to form a special district shall be signed by 25 percent of the landowners owning at least 25 percent of the assessed valuation of the property within the proposed district.

“Once we present that, then the county clerk will verify that the land owners are indeed landowners and that we have enough signatures gathered to proceed,” Patterson said.

Upon submitting the petition, the county clerk has 10 days to determine if it has the appropriate number of qualified signers. If it meets that threshold, the county assessor will have 60 days to review the boundaries of the proposed tax district to ensure that it does not have any boundary issues such as overlapping or conflicting with existing district boundaries.

A hearing before the Carbon County Commissioners will then be held 45 to 90 days after the petition has been filed. A notice of the hearing must be posted in at least three public places and published twice in a newspaper of general circulation within the county with the last notice being published 10 days prior to the public hearing.

Following the public hearing, should the county commissioners approve the petition, the question of formation will be placed upon the ballot during the general election to be voted on by the registered voters within the proposed district.

The Saratoga Town Council voted unanimously to allow Mayor John Zeiger to sign the petition in support of the proposed special tax district.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on March 3 at Saratoga Town Hall.