Mayor Jeff Jensen called into the Weekday Wake-Up on Tuesday, December 30 to provide the monthly report from the Town of Afton. Mayor Jensen discussed an opening on the town council and applications being accepted to fill the position, an upcoming open house with WYDOT regarding the corridor study and Main Street traffic, and also the latest plans to create a breezeway downtown.

(0:00) Town of Afton, Mayor Jeff Jensen joining me live over the phone this morning. (0:04) Mayor Jensen, good morning. How’s the holidays been for you? (0:08) Good morning, Duke.

Holidays have been warm. I’m a little out of town, a little (0:14) southern Arizona, but it was about as warm here as it was Afton when I left. (0:22) Glad to see you.

We got a little bit of snow. (0:24) It was late, but we’ve never missed a winter, as we always say, so we knew it was coming. (0:32) Well, appreciate your time, Mayor Jensen, in giving us a report from the Town of Afton.

(0:37) Let’s first off start with an opening up and coming on the town council. (0:43) I understand the town’s accepting some applications currently right now, correct? (0:47) Yes, yes, we are. We do have an open seat.

Councilperson Michael Butler is (0:54) going to put more time towards his business and making that work, and we fully support him in (1:02) that. He’s stepped down. It’ll become official at the end of the year here, and then we’re (1:12) hoping to have some applications in for people who are willing to step up, hopefully be a part of (1:21) improving the community and being a part of our council.

(1:25) Okay, and I assume this will be just for the remainder of Butler’s term, (1:29) correct? Are you aware of how long that goes for? (1:33) So, he has three years left, but what will happen is, because of the election in this coming (1:42) November, the seat will be a one-year for one year, and then come November, we will have (1:50) on the ballot a two-year position to finish that out. So, it’s not initially a three-year (1:57) commitment. It’s basically a one-year, and if you’d like it, (2:01) run again and fill the two-year position.

(2:05) Gotcha, okay. And how do people apply to be considered for this? (2:11) Basically, just come into the town of Afton. There’s an application there, (2:17) and ask one of the nice ladies at the front there if they can get one and fill it out.

(2:24) It really is just a couple questions. You need to be a, if I understand correctly, registered voter. (2:33) You need to live within the municipal bounds of Afton, and you need to be over 18.

(2:39) All right. (2:40) Those are the three qualifications, and we’d love to have people to consider. (2:45) And when is the council hoping to select the person to fill this position? Do you know? (2:53) So, we would love to have somebody in place on January’s meeting, which is the second Tuesday (3:00) in January.

It’s not a requirement. We actually will look at applications, and we have, these are (3:12) all done in open town council. So, we have a discussion, and then somebody is nominated.

(3:19) And so, that’s, I recommend, if you’d like to be on the council, that you actually get it (3:27) in before, in the next week, 10 days, your interest. And that way, (3:35) when we consider it, because we will consider it in January, (3:41) when that comes about, then your name would be on the list. (3:44) All right.

Town of Afton, Mayor Jeff Jensen joining us this morning from the town of Afton, (3:48) giving us a monthly report here. Mayor Jensen, one of the ongoing projects for the town has been (3:53) the Corridor Study. And it sounds like there’s a public meeting up and coming next month in January (3:59) with some of the consultants.

Tell us about this. Yep. So, the Corridor Study was looking at the (4:06) traffic and traveled between, really in the downtown area, but really concentrated between (4:12) 4th and 5th Avenue.

And that it’s a requirement that YDOT has if we want to change signage, (4:23) or change the way traffic flows through there. So, we did that. We did a lot of this with a grant (4:32) through, I believe it was YDOT had a grant that we got a lot of help for this.

And so, this is the (4:40) final they’ve gone through. We’ve had a preliminary look at it. YDOT has had a look at it.

(4:46) And so, they’ll be releasing that. It does talk about crosswalks and traffic patterns (4:54) and stoplights even. So, we’ll hint at that a little bit.

The date is January 14th at 6 p.m. (5:03) will be the open house. And that will be at the Afton Civic Center. And so, that’s when they will (5:10) discuss their findings to the public and show it to the public.

And it should be pretty interesting. (5:17) Okay. So, again, that’s happening January 14th, 6 p.m. at the Afton Civic Center for (5:21) that presentation with the traffic study and everything with the Corridor.

Along those lines, (5:27) I know some of the other plans that have been discussed by the Town of Afton, (5:30) the town’s purchased the Los Cabos building, something I’ve talked with Violet before in (5:34) the past. Has the town kind of solidified their plans for what to do there? I know there’s been (5:39) discussions of tearing that down and opening a breezeway. Are those types of conversations (5:44) still happening? Yes.

It’s pretty much been determined. It’s not finalized. But we will be (5:54) taking the building down and creating a breezeway connecting basically that east parking lot, (6:01) alleyway back there, eventually Starview Park, and then having access directly downtown.

(6:10) So, if you’ve noticed, the business in Los Cabos, he’s been trying to sell his equipment. So, (6:17) I will put a little plug out there to help him. If anybody knows, he wants to buy some kitchen (6:23) equipment.

He is trying to sell that. But the business is closed now. And we’ve had structural (6:34) engineers look at that.

And I believe at this point, we will be putting out an RFP to get (6:42) somebody to come give us a cost estimate to take that building down. So, it sounds like the way (6:50) things are moving, this could happen in the upcoming spring-summer then, it sounds like, right? (6:57) Yes. Yes, it really could.

And of course, we’ll look at when costs come back what the cost is (7:04) of those things and make a determination if it’s worth the value. We think it is because (7:11) we think it’s going to tie, like I said, the parking downtown. It’s going to give us (7:18) a nice little area that we can have like a sitting area and tie everything together and open up some (7:27) parking because parking is always a concern downtown just on the main street.

So, opening (7:31) up that East Alley downtown, I feel, is a good idea. Town of Afton, Mayor Jeff Jensen on the (7:37) Weekday Wake-Up. Mayor, appreciate your time.

Anything else we missed you’d like to discuss (7:40) today? No, I think we’re good there. Just come to the open house. And if you have interest to (7:46) be on the council, please, please submit your name for consideration.

Perfect. That’s Town (7:52) of Afton, Mayor Jeff Jensen this morning. It’s all part of the Weekday Wake-Up on SVI Radio.