Star Valley Ranch Mayor Ru Rok and Administrator Trevor Atkin spoke with SVI Media’s Dan Dockstader to recap the most recent Town Council meeting and update on projects going on in the town.

(0:00) SBI and the offices of the town of Star Valley Ranch, Mayor Rue Roark and Town Manager Administrator (0:05) Trevor Adkin. Folks, let’s go back to our latest town council meeting and do kind of a recap, (0:11) if we could please. Sure, you bet.

Thank you, Dan, for the time today. So we just had our last town (0:16) council meeting last Tuesday on the 11th of August. It was a pretty quick meeting, I think it was 25 (0:22) minutes.

We had a, probably the highlight was we did one of our community service awards for a (0:30) trail work for like the last 10 years with our trail crew. So that was fun. (0:34) We had a couple of ordinances.

The one that’s been a bit controversial is an ordinance we’re (0:40) trying to get through to update our regulations for fencing along the golf course, or at least (0:46) on properties that border the golf course. We’ve tabled that ordinance a couple of times. Then we (0:51) read it once and now we tabled it again.

We’re just having some back and forth with our homeowners (0:55) association on the best way to go after that. We do currently have a 30 foot setback in our town (1:01) code for fences that border any kind of recreational property. But that was kind of it (1:07) from the town council meeting.

Where does it go from here, Mayor? (1:10) So a couple of our councilmen decided to take that ordinance back on and do some revisions to (1:16) the wording. And one of the issues with that ordinance is that apparently some of the properties, (1:23) actually the property lines go into the golf course area, the fairway itself. And so there’s (1:28) just concern about placement of the fences.

So we’re going to rewrite the language to give (1:33) ourselves a bit more flexibility with that. Okay. Anything else regarding council for (1:37) either one of you? I do have, let me, (1:40) one thing I’d like to bring up.

We’re still working with some issues with our delivery (1:45) of packages with the United States Postal Service. I know the Jackson Post Office has been (1:51) lending a hand to Thane since they’ve been a bit short staffed. So we are still getting packages, (1:56) but it’s been a bit intermittent.

They’ll catch up. And then with the short staffing, (2:00) the packages backlog again. But I know everyone’s trying to work through that.

(2:05) The only other thing I have before I’m going to pitch it over to Trevor, and he’s going to talk (2:08) about a couple of projects. We’re going to start our fall bear awareness campaign here in town a (2:14) bit early, just because there have been some sightings way out on the trails of black bears. (2:20) And we know with the dry season, we might expect to have a few more of those (2:24) critters roaming in town.

Maybe drop in next to the houses for a visit. (2:27) That’s right. And we want to make sure everybody keeps their garbage put away and their pet food (2:31) and all that.

So Trevor has a couple updates. Town Administrator, bring us up to date. (2:36) We’re still working on some chip seal projects.

And then Plat 5, we have maybe 300 yards left, (2:41) one more layer on those 300 yards when we finish with that plat. And we’re doing the prep work for (2:47) Plat 20. We’ll have to cut out some sections there, and then we’ll do a maintenance layer there.

(2:53) And Prater Canyon returned the dirt last year, and we’re going to try to get that back with (2:58) three layers of chip seal there. And we’re still working on our residential water meters. We’ve got (3:04) 253 installed, and that project’s been a little slow.

We’ve found some billing issues from our (3:10) last meters, but we’re going to make sure we do this one tonight. We’ve already found several (3:16) million gallons of unbilled water, so we’re going to make sure the meters are installed (3:19) correctly and match our billing records. So it was important to go back in and take a closer (3:27) look at the whole water system, update it with these meters.

Yeah, absolutely. This was a (3:31) project that was long overdue, and it’s a big deal to get caught up and do it correctly. (3:37) Remind us on the roads, too.

That’s part of an ongoing plan that you have every year, (3:41) to do certain maintenance and keep the town of Star Valley Ranch Roads up to date. (3:46) Yeah, and our roads board, actually, we have a couple engineers on there that have been (3:50) very helpful. And the way we’re evaluating roads is going to be very different moving forward, (3:54) so we’re going to be way more efficient in how we do that.

(3:57) Keeping a town all put together. Either one of you have anything else you’d like to add today? (4:02) I don’t think so. We had one other little item with our trails.

All the trails that (4:06) go into the Bridger-Teton National Forest from Star Valley Ranch are non-motorized (4:11) and signed appropriately that way. We have had this season, unfortunately, quite a bit of (4:17) motorized activity on those trails, which has caused some… (4:19) Too tempting, huh? (4:20) Apparently so. And it has been causing some damage, but we’re trying to work through that (4:24) with the Forest Service and then also just with continuing to educate folks so that they (4:29) understand that those trails are non-motorized.

There’s plenty of others where they can ride (4:33) motorized vehicles. These are foot traffic trails? (4:35) Yes. (4:36) Okay, very good.

Well, thank you to both of you, Mayor Roorock and Trevor Atkin, (4:40) Town Administrator of the Town of Star Valley Ranch. (4:43) SBI Media at the Town of Star Valley Ranch, Dan Dockstader reporting.