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Here’s a rundown of Ranch news for the week of June 9th, 2024—buckle-up it’s kind of a long one:
Coffee with the Mayor got the week off to a busy start on Tuesday, June 11th at 9am followed by a Town of Star Valley Ranch (TSVR) Town Council work session at 10am. Here’s a link to the work session agenda along with notes on some of the items covered.
Water Improvement Project 2023 (WIP 2023) is going well with work currently moving down Green Canyon Drive. HK Contractors has also begun mobilizing for the various road projects that will be ongoing through the end of the month.
The Council discussed a residential lot in Plat 22 where the town road is currently misaligned and travels through private property. Additionally, the Town has water infrastructure located within the lot’s private property boundary. Options are limited as to how to remedy the situation.
Note there will be a Special Public Meeting held on June 25th at 7pm to determine the path forward for this residential lot.
The Council also discussed Ordinance §154.118 that specifies the minimum footprint for a single-family home as 1,200 square feet. The latter does not align with the Star Valley Ranch Association (SVRA) minimum home square footage as specified in its various Declaration of Covenants, Codes, and Restriction (DCC&R) documents.
From my review of the DCC&Rs for each plat, most specify a minimum of 750 square feet with the remainder specifying a 900 square foot minimum.
A Meet the Candidates Night (for candidates running for TSVR Town Council) is scheduled for Tuesday, September 17th, 2024. More to follow as we get a little closer to this date.
Also on Tuesday, June 11th TSVR Municipal Court was held at 2pm. There were four cases on the docket—one citation for pushing snow across the road, another for a dog at-large, and two for operating without a short-term rental permit.
At 7pm on Tuesday evening, the regular monthly meeting of the Town Council was held. Here are links to the council packet and meeting video recording as well as a few notes.
First off, with regard to the video recording—there is no audio for the first 5 and 1/2 minutes of the video. Once the audio did kick in the quality was quite poor. The video quality could also have been better. The Town will be working to improve these video recordings in future.
As far as the meeting itself—from an execution standpoint it was not the Council’s best showing as a resident made two points of order with regard to the conduct of Council business on the agenda. The latter resulted in approved motions being rescinded and reordered for reconsideration at the end of the agenda.
On a positive note, the Town approved the third reading of its Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024-2025. Thus, your municipal government will be funded when the new fiscal year starts on 1 July!
Wednesday, June 12th at 5pm the TSVR Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Board met at Town Hall. Check out the agenda and draft minutes from the meeting here. [Note that these are the correct minutes although the date at the top is wrong.] One item of interest was a lively discussion of a request for variance (see agenda item G.1). While not stated in the minutes the variance request is for installation of solar panels on posts rather than on the resident’s roof (only roof mounted installation is allowable per Ordinance §154.080). Ultimately, the variance request was tabled pending additional follow-up being needed by both P&Z and the Town Council.
On Saturday, June 15th the TSVR and Natural Resources Board (NRB) celebrated the Town’s 14th Annual Arbor Day at Fox Run Park. About two dozen residents attended along with special guests from the Wyoming Department of Forestry and our local Wyoming State Senator Dan Dockstader. After several short speeches and a raffle (giving away eight lovely red geraniums), nine new aspen trees were planted around Canine Commons. It was a very well-run event on a beautiful Star Valley Ranch day! If you missed it, you really should come out and join the festivities next year!
Other news and notes from the week:
The SVRA Board of Directors (BoD) election is next weekend! Remember your ballot must be in by June 22nd! You can read responses to questions I posed to each of the six BoD candidates in the SVRA BoD Candidate Q&A post in the Election 2024 section of Close to Home 307.
This week you can read new responses just in from candidates Wayne Huhtala and Nancy Ellis. [Previously posted responses include those received from candidates Patty Judge, Fred Lamming, and Deborah Larson.]
I read a notice this week from local waste service company Star Valley Disposal stating due to the growth in their residential customer base here at the Ranch they are splitting their small truck route into two days. Up to now their pick-up day at the the Ranch was on Thursday. Now a number of Ranch roads they service will be picked-up on Friday instead.
Roads on the new Friday route include: Blackwood Drive, Cedar Drive, Cedar Way, Fir Place, Green Canyon Drive, Oak Drive, Redwood Circle, Redwood Road, Spurwood Drive, Star Peaks Court, Sugar Loaf Circle, Sugar Loaf Drive, Vista East Drive, Vista East Court, Vista West Drive, White Pine Drive, and Wild Rose Circle.
Overnight on Friday we had some monster winds here on the north end of the Ranch. Not sure about the rest of you but there were several trees down near our property. Thank you to the good samaritan who cleared the road of this one!
Last but not least—a new Town Administrator, Trevor Aitken, was hired by TSVR at the end of May; he started work this month. Trevor Aitken is a long-time Star Valley Ranch resident. So, if you stop by Town Hall please take a minute to say hello and welcome Trevor aboard!
Here’s a look at calendar items for next week:
TSVR Public Works will collect Firewise brush piles starting on Monday June 17th and continuing through Thursday June 20th.
Tuesday, June 18th at 6pm the SVRA BoD will hold a workshop at Cedar Creek Center.
Thursday, June 20th at 1pm the TSVR Water Utility Board will meet at Town Hall.
Friday, June 21st at 7pm a SVRA BoD Candidate Night will be held in the banquet room at Cedar Creek Center.
Saturday, June 22nd at 8am the SVRA Annual Meeting will be held. Note polls for the SVRA BoD Election open at 7:00 a.m. in the Barn and polls will close 30 minutes after the conclusion of the Annual Meeting.
The new SVRA BoD Organizational Meeting will be held at 4:30pm in the Cedar Creek Center Conference Room (BoD and SVRA General Manager).
Final thoughts—this has been a bit of a long post so I won’t keep you much longer. I hope you’re enjoying what’s left of our beautiful spring season and guess what…? Next week, on June 20th it’s the official start of summer! Wowza! Have a great week y’all!
That’s all for now—thank you for reading. If you have Star Valley Ranch news to share please drop me an email at close2home307@gmail.com. And, if you find this weekly email useful, please invite your neighbors, family, and friends to check out Close to Home 307. Your support and feedback is very much appreciated!
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