Around the 307
News, commentary, and other items of interest from the greater Wyoming landscape.
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Around the 307 is back after a short break! With that, here are a handful of Wyoming news items of interest from the week of December 8th, 2024:
Monday, December 9th, the Cheyenne City Council passed the third reading of an ordinance that bans residents from parking their oversized vehicles and trailers on public streets in front of their homes for nine months out of the year. Prior to the new regulation, parking an oversized vehicle on the public street could occur year-round. Residents will now only be permitted to park RVs, trailers, etc. on the public street during the summer months. Addressing safety concerns as well as facilitating winter snow-removal operations were the main factors behind the city implementing the new rules. The controversial ordinance will go into effect on September 25th, 2025. You can read the full story in this article from the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
Tuesday, December 10th, we learned Rocky Mountain Power (RMP), Wyoming’s largest electric power provider is implementing another rate hike. While temporary (set to expire in June), this latest increase will add on average $11.95 more per month to customer bills. This is yet another in a series of historic rate increases by RMP in Wyoming. Barely a year ago in our October 22nd, 2023 Around the 307 post we reported on RMP’s then proposed 30% rate hike for its Wyoming customers. This mammoth hike was later whittled down by the Wyoming Public Service Commission to a 5.5% increase. According to RMP this latest rate hike is being driven by multiple factors most notably the decline of U.S. coal production along with increased export of existing coal stocks to foreign markets. The latter leaves me scratching my head a bit. You can read more about RMP’s rate hike in this story published in the Star Valley Independent via the Wyoming News Exchange.
And, on Friday, December 13th, in a story more reminiscent of Halloween than the current Christmas season, Cowboy State Daily published this story about creepy drone sightings in Niobrara County Wyoming that occurred in October and November. Some of you may be familiar with the rash of similar drone sightings currently occurring in New Jersey. For the past several weeks national news broadcasts have been filled with reports of groups of drones with multi-colored lights flying together in orchestrated patterns over the Garden State and elsewhere around the country. In Niobrara County, Sheriff Randy Starkey witnessed the strange drones and described the sightings as “Just random, multiple drones flying around, roughly 45 minutes to an hour every night. We watched them go straight up and do some maneuvers and disappear.” The Sheriff queried the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for answers, however, the FAA had none. The plot thickens or maybe it’s just Santa making some practice runs using new techie-techie delivery methods? Regardless, sounds to me like an excellent opportunity for some Cowboy State skeet shooting practice! Stay frosty out there folks!
That’s all for today ladies and gents! Thanks for reading and have a great week!
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