Mayor discusses state of the town at chamber luncheon

Mayor discusses state of the town at chamber luncheon

By David Peck

Lovell mayor Tom Newman gave a report on the current status of projects and the budget during a brief talk at the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce general membership luncheon Monday at the Mustang Café.

Newman first reported on the Cottonwood Canyon Mountain Bike Trail project the town has been working on for more than a year. He said the town secured funding for trail route planning, but the Wyoming Legislature turned down a $1.2 million proposal for trail construction, with the Senate approving the money but the House rejecting the funding by three votes.

“So we’re still working on being able to get that funding,” Newman said. “We’ve still got some options.”

He noted that mountain bike enthusiasts familiar with the Fruita, Colorado, area, considered to be the Mecca of mountain biking in the United States, have stated that the Cottonwood Canyon trail system is in the same league as Fruita when it comes to mountain bike terrain. He added that the Cottonwood Canyon system, much like a ski area, will have beginner, intermediate and advanced trails.

“There’d be something for every level,” Newman said. “There’d be something for families to come to, little kids to go on, the parents to go on. It has a tremendous opportunity to bring the good kind of money in, the kind where people come, leave their money, and then they go home. As it stands now, we just trade money between each of us, and nobody really grows, so we like that outside money, and with it will come some other industry -- bicycle shops, repair shops and other service opportunities, maybe more restaurants. We’re still plugging away.”

Newman said town administrator Jed Nebel has done “tremendous work” on the project and over the weekend submitted a grant proposal for the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Tourism and Trust Fund.

Town Hall

The mayor said the project to remodel Town Hall is progressing, with the town having received a grant to cover about half of the project. Not only is the town hall building old (more than 100 years old), it is laid out in an awkward fashion for office space and public amenities. For instance, the council chamber where municipal court is also held is in the same room as the town administrator’s office, and sometimes members of the public will sit at Nebel’s desk during a council meeting, which is “just a little weird,” he added.

“We’re working on that. We have some plans, and we might get that started this year, actually. So we’ll get that done,” Newman said. “This would be really, really good.”

Newman noted that the town is in the middle of “budget season,” and so far the funding stream is looking OK, though the town won’t truly know the bottom line until firm revenue numbers come in from the State of Wyoming.

“You know, we get anticipated numbers. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to be yet, but we look good,” the mayor said. “I think we’re going to be in a good position again this year. Previous councils have done some good things that put us in good financial situations, and so I am not too scared of budget season this year. I feel pretty good about it.

“We’ll see when numbers kind of come down, and we have the different departments making requests anyway. So I think financially, we’re still in a really, really good position.”

When the mayor asked for questions, Lovell Area Chamber manager Linda Morrison asked if the town and chamber could work to hold a community cleanup day in advance of the 250^th anniversary of the founding of the USA.

He also said that the police department is “all staffed up,” with a new officer recently hired and another new officer just returning from the law enforcement academy.