Town of Afton Administrator Violet Sanderson stepped into the SVI Radio studio on Thursday, December 4 for her monthly report from the town. Sanderson recapped the Parade of Lights and Afton Main Street Alliance events. Sanderson also explained a SLIB loan grant application for water line improvements and expected impacts the loan will have on water rates for Afton residents.

(0:00) Afton Town Administrator Violet Sanderson joining me live in studio for the monthly (0:04) report from the Town of Afton. Violet, good morning to you. How are you today? (0:08) Good morning, Duke.

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. (0:10) Absolutely.

Appreciate the time as always and the update from the Town of Afton. (0:13) First off, the annual Parade of Lights and Lighting of the Arch seemed to go (0:17) pretty well. Some great participation.

(0:20) It did. We had some great participation, great floats. We had some wonderful winners from that (0:26) competition.

We had a first place winner of Wild Wyoming Outfitters, second place of Avail, (0:31) and third place of Central Star Valley Farms. So we were excited to provide that (0:36) acknowledgement to them. I think we had such great floats all around, (0:40) so it was really hard to make those decisions.

But it was a great turnout, (0:46) great participation from the public to be there. We’re obviously hopeful that there was some (0:51) love shown to our downtown businesses while everybody was there enjoying the parade. (0:55) And I just always love the, you know, we welcome in the holiday season with, (1:01) you know, the utilization of our historic arch and lighting of that.

(1:04) And I think it just makes town look beautiful, so. (1:07) Absolutely. I want to give a shout out to Andy Nilled because I get the opportunity to do the (1:11) countdown to light the arch.

And if it doesn’t come on when we hit one, it makes me look pretty (1:17) silly. But Andy nailed it every time. So the lights turn on right as the countdown hits one.

So (1:22) nicely done. The whole town staff, a lot of people I know are involved in that event. (1:25) Yeah.

Our staff, you know, they have that time of day where they’re coming in on a Saturday (1:30) to make sure that the night is special for all the community. So we completely appreciate our (1:36) employees and all the hard work they put into these kind of events. (1:39) You mentioned supporting the downtown businesses specifically during that time.

(1:43) I know the Main Street Alliance has been working hard to do their Christmas decorating contest (1:47) again. Yeah, they’ve got their contest and votes could, voting started as of Saturday. And so (1:54) I believe that continues until December 23rd.

We have a QR code available on the Afton Main (2:00) Street Alliance business page along with a link. And that should also be available on the Town of (2:06) Afton’s website. If it isn’t yet, it will be today.

And so people can go and click and vote for their, (2:12) you know, the favorite business that they’ve seen lighting up Main Street. (2:16) Perfect. Violet Sanderson, Afton Town Administrator in the weekday wake up this morning.

(2:20) Speaking of kind of the downtown corridor, which is more than just the arch block, right? (2:25) The Town of Afton worked with the Main Street Alliance to host a downtown business session, (2:32) work session, if you will, a couple of weeks ago. Maybe tell us how that went and what the town (2:37) received feedback wise on that. Yeah, absolutely.

So a few years, (2:40) just to give a little backstory to that, a few years ago, the Town Council was hosting (2:44) quarterly business meetings, kind of business work sessions with the local businesses. And that (2:48) was before COVID happened. And we kind of got out of the routine of that.

And so now we’re (2:53) wanting to ensure that we’re doing quarterly meetings and touching base with our businesses. (2:57) And not necessarily during the council meetings, but with the Main Street Alliance and the tourism (3:03) board to ensure that some of the events that we’re planning, or the things that we’re hoping to (3:08) structure to help the businesses are really working for them. And what they’re seeing and (3:12) hearing from their patrons.

Absolutely. And so maybe recap and (3:18) summarize the most recent meeting and kind of the feedback that you guys received. (3:22) Yeah.

So we kind of discussed with the local businesses what the Main Street Program is, (3:27) the organizational structure, the four pillars that us being part of the Main Street Wyoming (3:33) Program is, which consists of economic vitality, organization, promotion and events, (3:42) and aesthetics, essentially, which we’ll get to that at some point. We’re still in the beginning (3:47) stages of our program, obviously, like working those three first pillars more, more right now. (3:54) But we kind of recapped that we asked the businesses to give us some feedback on the (3:59) events that we have been hosting in the last couple of years, what has been great about it, (4:04) what is or maybe some of the pain points that we can work on.

And so it was really great to (4:07) hear from the local businesses for them to give us some feedback on that. (4:11) Aftontown Administrator Violet Sanderson on the weekday wake up this morning, (4:14) is kind of sticking with that theme as well as the corridor study that’s been going on for a (4:18) while. Give us an update on where things are at there.

(4:19) So we have a final draft that we’re kind of doing some final wrap up things on. (4:25) We’re hoping in the next three, three to four weeks, everybody hopefully watch, (4:30) watch our publication period on that to let you know what day that meeting will be because we (4:36) will have another public hearing meeting where the public can come in and listen to (4:39) all the recommendations that they have. We’ve had comments back and forth between YDOT and our (4:45) consulting firm as well as the town from a, you know, management and maintenance standpoint in (4:50) terms of some of the suggestions that they have about changes with infrastructure, sidewalks, (4:54) things like that.

I think it’s easy to say this will work great on paper. But when we look at it (5:01) from a logistical standpoint of maintenance, some things are just not feasible. So those are the (5:06) kind of comments that we were doing the back and forth with on this final draft.

But hopefully that (5:10) will be wrapped up in the next week. And then, like I said, in the next three weeks, we should (5:15) have the publication available for that meeting that hopefully will happen in, in January. (5:19) Perfect.

All right, we’ll watch for that. What else is happening in the town of Afton right now? (5:23) So we’ve got our golf passes on sale now. So you know, if you, if you have a golfer in your life (5:29) and you’re looking for a Christmas gift for them, we’ve got our season passes on sale.

(5:33) So we’ve got our residential, we’ve got our resident passes on sale and non-resident golf (5:40) passes on sale. $400 for adult season pass for non-resident, $350 for Afton resident passes. (5:49) And then our junior season pass is $125 right now on sale.

And that does not, that does not change (5:57) whether you’re a resident or not. We want to make sure that we’re, you know, providing the (6:01) opportunity to some of these younger golfers to take advantage of, of getting out on our course (6:05) and learning, learning the game. Very cool.

All right. And that, those prices increase January 1, (6:10) right? Correct. All right.

And how do people get those passes? So they can call Town Hall, (6:16) they can come in. That’s probably the best way to get them. The golf course is obviously closed (6:21) now, as you can see this fresh, you know, blanket of snow coming down and our, our (6:27) blanket of winter is upon us.

So our golf course is now closed. So call Town Hall, (6:33) talk to Sadie, Tina, or Nikki, and you can purchase a pass through them, or you can come (6:37) in and get one. Perfect.

Violet, I understand the town is also still working through some grants (6:42) on water infrastructure and some potential impacts there, right? Yeah. So we had put out a public (6:49) notice with information as well as a call for the public to come to an open meeting that we had to (6:54) discuss our application before SLIB. So we are going for some drinking water SRF funding before (7:03) SLIB.

That application will be heard in February. The reason why we called for public comment is (7:08) because this is actually a loan application, not a grant application. And so this will obviously (7:13) affect rates in the future if we’re awarded this loan funding that we need.

This is for (7:19) South Highway 89 waterline replacement, upsizing, and relocation. This will help with increasing (7:28) fire flows and capacities to the south side of town, as well as dealing with some old steel line (7:32) that we have that’s now serving about 20 businesses on Main Street down there. So this is a good, (7:38) important project that we’ve had kind of on our radar for the last, you know, 10 to 5, (7:42) 5 to 10 years, I would say.

And we had the opportunity to go for this funding. Now the (7:47) funding total that we’re requesting is for $2,047,000. But with this particular application, (7:54) we have the opportunity to gain about 45% principal forgiveness, which is nearly a million dollars (8:01) that could be forgiven in the cost of this project.

So we have taken advantage of the opportunity with (8:07) this application. However, that still gives us about a $60,000 debt service payment that we’ll (8:13) have annually after this project is wrapped up. So rates do need to be adjusted.

That is what we are (8:19) borrowing against for this loan, is a new rate structure. So the utility board just made a (8:25) recommendation to the council that will change the, just in general, just for the general (8:30) population who’s on a three-quarter to one-inch line size, that will change their monthly bill, (8:35) their demand charge by $4.50 monthly. So that’s about a $56 annual difference in what they’re (8:41) paying now for the water that they’re using.

The line size, you know, the demand charge is based (8:46) on the line size. So we did a 20%, basically a 20% increase to the demand charge to be able to (8:51) accommodate for this increased cost of this debt service for the life of this loan that we’ll be (8:55) paying back. So just wanted to make people aware of that.

The council will be talking about this (9:00) next week in their council meeting, reviewing the resolution that’s been put together and that (9:06) was recommended for approval by the utility board. But one thing I do want to say is that obviously (9:13) during the time of a project, we always have the opportunity to figure out if we can save money, (9:19) right? Like if we can do it a little bit cheaper, if we can do it more efficient way, (9:23) we as the Town of Afton always strive to do that when we’re in, you know, talks with contractors (9:28) and bidding out for projects. But we, so if for some reason, aside from the principal forgiveness, (9:35) which that 45% will stay no matter what the cost of the project is, if that project does not cost (9:41) the full $2,000,000, you know, $2,047,000, we do have the opportunity to change the rate structure (9:48) that is to be put in place.

And the resolution that will be discussed next week, the rate structure (9:53) won’t be put in place unless we get the funding. So it’s contingent upon approval from the SLIB (10:00) board for the loan. And then if it is approved, that will not be implemented until July of 2026.

(10:07) So just to help the public understand where we’re at with that application and what that project (10:11) means to the system as a whole and why we’re going for it, you know, free money is great. Grants are (10:17) amazing. We have been very lucky in the last few years to be able to receive a lot of funding for (10:23) free from the state.

This particular project, you know, we just, it wouldn’t qualify for the (10:29) grant funding. And we just, it’s been on our radar for quite a while to get it done. We knew that it (10:34) was something that we’re probably going to have to apply for a loan for versus a grant, but just (10:40) to keep everybody in the loop on where we’re at.

Okay. So a resolution expected in the next week (10:46) town council. And then you said February is when you go to the SLIB board for approval.

Yes, (10:52) we will know after that meeting, whether or not we’ve been approved for the loan. And like I said, (10:56) that rate structure that they’re looking to put in place will only be effective (11:01) if the loan is approved. If we will be moving forward to have that debt service payment (11:06) associated with paying back that loan.

Okay. All right. We’ll watch for more details on that (11:10) and see how everything plays out.

Violet Sanderson, Afton Town Administrator on the (11:13) Weekday Wake Up. Violet, anything else we missed? I don’t think so. I think we covered a lot and (11:18) we’re just, oh, actually one thing I would like to do is as I’m sitting here watching the snowfall (11:23) outside, knowing that we’ve already had a couple rounds of snow plowing, just reminding the (11:27) residents of Afton that, you know, we do have an ordinance in place that requires you to ensure (11:32) that your vehicles are moved and not in the right away between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. during (11:37) our, you know, our peak snow plow hours.

So we encourage everybody to ensure that they get those (11:42) moved. Our maintenance staff has been out there kind of giving people the notices on their vehicles (11:47) and everybody has been really great at being able to comply with that, but we just want to (11:51) ensure that people remember that that’s an ordinance we do have in place and we will (11:56) give warnings when we can, but if it’s something that becomes an issue at the same piece of property (12:01) or with the same vehicle, tickets will be issued. Okay.

With that, Afton Administrator (12:06) Violet Sanderson this morning. Violet, as always, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.