From left, clockwise: County Commissioner Kent Connelly, Kemmerer Mayor Tony Tomassi, Kemmerer councilman Dave McGinnis, Opal Mayor Anthony Ritzdorf, Kemmerer city administrator Andrew Nelson, Kemmerer councilwoman Kate Zimmerman and Opal town clerk Jane Broadhead gathered in the Lincoln County boardroom on Tuesday, Dec. 12, to web-conference with municipalities in the north of Lincoln County. (GAZETTE PHOTO / Theresa Davis) 

Representatives from the municipal governments of Lincoln County communities met on Tuesday, Dec. 12, to discuss each town’s plans for how they would use the revenue from a proposed sixth penny tax.

Lincoln County Commissioner Kent Connelly and representatives from Kemmerer and Opal met in the courthouse in Kemmerer. They webcasted the meeting to the Afton offices, where representatives from Afton, Alpine, Thayne and Star Valley Ranch were gathered.

The communities that were not represented at the meeting were Cokeville, LaBarge and Diamondville.

The purpose of the meeting was for each community in Lincoln County to give a cost estimate of the projects they would fund with sixth penny tax revenue.

The sixth penny tax has to go through several steps before it could produce revenue in Lincoln County.

First, each municipal government must pass a resolution stating the specific projects they would fund with the tax revenue.

The resolutions are then brought before the Lincoln County commissioners.

After they are passed by the commission, the propositions to institute a sixth penny sales tax in Lincoln County to fund specific projects is placed on the 2018 ballot for the public to vote on.

If the tax is instituted, communities will start receiving funds as soon as the tax generates enough revenue to fund their projects.

As soon as the projects are funded, the tax goes away. About half of Wyoming counties have a sixth penny tax.

Kemmerer mayor Tony Tomassi emphasized that the tax is only one penny added to the sales tax — making it a six percent sales tax.

Tomassi said some community members were under the erroneous impression that they were proposing an addition of six pennies to the sales tax.

The representatives also wanted to remind community members that most of the sales tax would be paid by visitors to Lincoln County, and that the sales tax would hardly affect day-to-day purchases of Lincoln County residents.

“Tourism and industry cover a lot of this tax,” Commissioner Kent Connelly said. “We know the system works because each community gets back the fifth penny money — it’s based on a different formula, but still the money comes back to the communities.” 

The revenue would be split up by each community’s percentage of total project costs, not population.

Opal proposed an estimate of $385,000 in street upgrades, scoping and cleaning, and equipment replacment.

Star Valley Ranch estimated $1,200,000 to double chip seal all of their roads.

Thayne estimated $115,000 to redo the community center parking lot, which is used by a lot of the surrounding areas, and $370,000 to reconstruct Van Noy Road in front of the community center.

Kemmerer estimated $3,100,000 for several road reconstruction projects.

Without estimates from Cokeville, Diamondville and LaBarge, the total money needed comes to $11,700,000.

Andrew Nelson estimated that the maximum revenue the county could generate with the tax would be about $15,400,000, so even with the absent communities’ estimates included, the numbers would still make sense.

The road projects that Kemmerer would use the sixth penny tax revenue to fund include:

• 5th West Avenue from Elk to Canyon Elementary – $210K

• Berry Drive (pilot project for Dell Rio) – $443K

• Elk St. finish (KCDC to Canyon Rd) – $400K

• Canyon Road – $427K

• Lincoln Heights (from 3rd West to Elk St., linking previous pavement rehabilitation projects together) – $269K

• Triangle – $237K

• Dell Rio Road – $515K

Andrew Nelson, city engineer Tom Crank, street department head Chad Nielson and Kemmerer council members all agreed that these road reconstruction projects would be highly unlikely to happen without revenue from the sixth penny sales tax.

“All of these projects need to be done,” Nelson said at the Dec. 11 council meeting. “These are the roads that are in really bad shape.”