On Nov. 22, the Kemmerer City Council held its last meeting for the month of November. Items on the agenda included the usual approval of minutes from the previous meeting and other payment information. New items on the agenda included the proposal to approve the First Bank as a depository for the city’s funds next year.

During the pre-meeting session, the council went over the tentative agenda and discussed the issues, as well as interviewing Carrie Runnion for a position on the Recreation Center’s Advisory Board. Speaking before the council, Runnion, already a regular at the center, explained that she had been told about the position’s vacancy and asked if she would send in an application. She added that she had a few general ideas on how to improve things at the center, but did not have many specifics beyond her willingness to give the position a shot.

“I’m hoping that we can bring something to the community and get people healthy or try something new,” Runnion said.

A motion was then made to confirm Runnion’s appointment to the board until the end of next year, which passed unanimously. As of the meeting’s conclusion, there are still two vacancies on the board. Of these, one expires at the end of the year and the other at the end of 2023.

Following this, state Representative Scott Heiner gave a brief presentation and update about the ongoing redistricting process to the council, talking about two competing options for redrawing the southwestern part of the state’s districts.

“Option 1 leaves this district pretty much intact, but it has to go and capture some of Cokeville to make up for the population difference. So what happened with Carbon County losing population is that they had to come to the west and north to get enough population, so the lines were adjusted accordingly. 46% of the population for this district lies in Sweetwater County, 38% in Lincoln County, and the other 16% is in Uinta County. With option 1, Sweetwater County drops down to only 24% and Lincoln County goes up to 53% of the population,” Rep. Heiner explained to the council.

Rep. Heiner also made no secret of this map being his preference, as he framed the option 2 map as being particularly disastrous.

“Option 2 is founded upon the premise that Cheyenne gets another representative. So a [map] option would make this house district be 60% Sweetwater County, and Lincoln County would only be 34%. So I think you can understand how that’ll affect the elections in the future. Why is that? The reason is, if we lose a seat to Cheyenne, we lose [some] rural representation to more suburban representation,” he said.

Councilman Mark Quinn spoke up, asking for further information.

“Is there any drawback or future implication that might be a concern in not making selections? Or would we be limiting different growth potential or anything like that?” he said.

“Councilman Quinn, to be truthful with you, Option 1 is the best I can see for Kemmerer. And that’s why I’m supporting it with my whole heart. It retains more voting power in Kemmerer than option 2 for future elections,” Rep. Heiner said.

Approaching the issue from a different direction was Councilman Dale Hicks, who inquired if Cokeville had been broached in any meaningful capacity about the proposed map options.

“I’ve talked to some members, but we have not had a public [meeting]…the sort of people that I’ve talked to in Kemmerer [about this] are friends of mine, so they were in favor of this,” Rep. Heiner explained.

Despite the council’s questions, however, Rep. Heiner was curious about Mayor Bill Thek’s opinion on which map he would support, and expressly asked him for such an endorsement to take back to the committee.

As with the few members of the council that spoke up about the two map options, Thek affirmed that he supported the option 1 map. Councilmembers also joined the mayor in criticizing the option 2 map.

Speaking to the Gazette after the meeting, Rep. Heiner explained that his rationale for the presentation was to get more people involved and aware about what his group are doing.

“This affects the public more than anything…it’s going to affect them for the next 10 years,” he said.

Speaking on the methodology of the two map options, Rep. Heiner explained that the first option’s goal was to “maintain communities of interest and county boundaries as much as possible. That’s why Uinta County liked option 2, because it firmed up their county boundaries…We were trying to draw the lines to keep those interest groups as much as possible.”

Despite the rationales behind both maps, Rep. Heiner added that his committee would not be submitting both maps to the next level of the process.

“We’re not going to submit two [maps], because if we submit two, everybody will jump on that…the Cheyenne people will say that ‘well this is the one we want,because you’re readily giving it up,’” he said.

“We want to push forward with option 1, and if we fail, we don’t want somebody else drawing option 2 for us. So that’s why we got that in our vest pockets; if this fails, then we can say “well, okay, this is what we’d like to do in this situation,” he explained.

Asked if the maps were drawn to protect incumbents, Rep. Heiner stated that the proposed maps (and those across the state) would affect a couple of incumbents, including a few in the southwest, but that it had not been a major concern.

Rep. Heiner also reflected back on the two map options once more:

“From my perspective, I should be going for option 2, because that gives me more voting power in Sweetwater County. I won the election because of Sweetwater County’s votes. Tom Crank was the local boy, and because of Sweetwater County, I was able to beat him. So, wouldn’t you think I would want more strength there?” he stated.

Notably, Rep. Heiner defeated incumbent Thomas Crank by 10 votes in the primary last year, 940-930.

In closing, Rep. Heiner talked about his group’s goals when drawing these two maps:

“We’re very cognizant of gerrymandering, so we’re trying to take the incumbent seats out of the picture and just do what is best for the people,” he said.

“But it’s always in the back of your mind: is this [new map] going to unseat me?” Rep. Heiner added.

After Rep. Heiner’s presentation had ended, the council expressed potential interest in passing a resolution in support of the option 1 map, but stated that if they were to proceed on such a matter, it would have to happen much later.

The council then moved on to the rest of their agenda, the first of which involved a fee waiver request from Kemmerer Junior Senior High School to rent an ACT testing space in the event center next spring, as they have done for the last few years. Also included with their fee waiver and room request was the request that a quiet environment be maintained throughout their rental.

Notably, the school has also requested 100% fee waivers for this year’s as well, despite already receiving a 50% discount. The room request, which would be an estimated $1200 before the discount, or $600 for the school, was met with opposition from the Director of Events and Recreation, Trista Gordon.

“I recommend that we do not grant the fee waiver, and allow them use of the building at their already-approved discount of $600,” Gordon said.

She also described her rationale for the decision, explaining that the fee waiver form itself explicitly states that repeated fee waiver requests are strongly discouraged, adding that she was “trying to lower the subsidy in the city budget for the event center.”

The council had a livelier discussion about the merits and demerits of this fee waiver request. This discussion included concerns about the cost to the city if the school were granted another fee waiver, the potential for lost revenue if other parties were unable to rent spaces at the same time, and the possibility of the school finding another venue. After a few minutes of this, the council voted against the fee waiver.

The final items on the agenda involved a trio of maintenance and engineering repairs at the airport. The first involved an alleged permanent fix to one section of the airport fence, so as to prevent the accumulation of snow from eventually allowing animals to travel over the fence. The repair will involve about 4,000 feet of fencing.

“This is essentially a realignment of the fence that requires repair every year from the snow drifting collapsing the fence. So this is a realignment of that portion of things to eliminate that fence.” Thek explained.

Thek also explained that 90% of the funding for this stemmed from the state, with the last 10% being split among the airport, county, and city. Quinn also added that the specific cost to the city for this would be $3,250.

The second and third items involved an independent fee of $2,140 for the expansion of the SRE building at Kemmerer Municipal Airport, with the fee being assessed by JUB Engineering. For these items, Thek explained that the airport is required by the state and the Federal Aviation Administration to keep and maintain a truck and snowplow in a covered setting for use at any time, and that they had actually been non-compliant with this for the last three years.

These items were approved by the council, but not before several members took the opportunity to bemoan the total cost to taxpayers for the expansion before the 90-10 split. One even went so far as to say that they could have completed the project for a fraction of the cost.

The next city council meeting will be on Dec. 13, the only meeting for December. The pre-meeting session will begin at 6 p.m. and the formal meeting at 7 p.m.

All are strongly encouraged to attend and participate.