GUERNSEY – Grantwriter Bruce Heimbuck spoke to the Guernsey town council last week about the next steps for the renovations of the senior center and public library.
“As you know we got our grant. I talked to the business council about next steps, and we are getting the paperwork taken care of. You will have $750,000 (from the grant) and you have your own money (grant match funds). You can get started now, but you have to understand you will be using your own money – I would make a recommendation you do that because we have the money coming in later from the grant,” he said.
Heimbuck said the first step for the council will be to hire an architect of their choosing. He recommended the council choose TDSi, the company which assisted with putting together the grant package which was submitted to the state.
“They understand the project,” he said.
TDSi has recently worked with the school on a project and know the community and have presented a proposal of no more than $89,955 to oversee the entire project.
The contract with TDSi for architecture services for the senior center and library project was approved by the council. They will begin on the project this week.
Town attorney Frank Jones gave his legal advice to the council concerning their liability after a complaint letter regarding of slander, defamation of character, and spreading false information were presented to the council at their Feb. 18 public meeting by Shawna Reichert.
“The letter was directed to all the members of the town council, from Mrs. Reichert. In the letters there are…some pretty serious allegations and I spent quite a bit of time investigating it all – not the underlying facts, but the allegations [in regard to the state statutes cited in the letter by Reichert],” Jones said.
In summary, attorney Jones said the statutes cited were miss-applied to the council, and in his legal advice to the council, “You have no liability: nothing. Nobody has done anything wrong, legally.”
He added, if there are legal issues, in his opinion they would not apply the town council, and the body is not in danger of liability. If there has truly been illegal actions, Reichert could opt to press personal or criminal charges through the county attorney’s office.

Guernsey town planner/code enforcement officer John Burfeind reported on the nuisance ordinance public workshop held last Monday. “Last night we had a really good discussion on the nuisance ordinance. We had great feedback and all in all it was an A-plus meeting,” he said. “A couple thing stemmed out of the meeting is the need for better communication.”
He said going forward he will make sure any notification letters are more clear, and before letters are sent there will be a site visit and walk-through to explain any issues. He said there will be four specific points presented to the council to recommend changes in the nuisance ordinance.

Burfeind clarified questions from the workshop regarding bonfires in the town. He said town ordinance 3-2-5 talks about wood, coal and other combustible materials, and section B2 of the ordinance provides for an incinerator in the yard. In short, campfires are okay if they are in an enclosed container with a screen on top – not a fire pit.
Burfeind also said there has been issues with alleyway access for maintenance, services, and emergency workers. He explained, though the homeowners’ property lines are to the center of the alley, the town has a 10-foot easement to be able to get through to ensure public safety and service, and it needs to remain clear.
“I’d like to this kind of workshop on a regular basis. It will make us better,” Burfeind concluded.
Stating she was following up on a discussion from the previous night’s public workshop on nuisance ordinances, during public comments Shawna Reichert told the council their new website, togwy.us is “not appearing in search results, making it difficult for residents, visitors and businesses to find.”
Reichert also said she researched domain providers and found several versions of “www.townofguernsey” still available and wondered why the previous website handle was not kept. Though she emphasized her biggest concern was poor search engine optimization.
Mayor Ed Delgado and clerk Hillary Dawson spoke to her questions and assured her they will be working on the issue.
Attorney Jones said he has sat in on municipal court cases regarding nuisance ordinances, and often they say they don’t know about the ordinance, and one person recommended an ordinance book be placed at the library.
The mayor said there currently is a copy of town ordinances at the library, town hall, and the website, and anyone with ordinance questions can contact town hall for clarification.
Public works director Mike Fronapfel reported water project general contractor Oftedal Construction has officially wrapped up the project. He said his crew has already been utilizing the bucket truck the council authorized to purchase at last month’s meeting.
“The truck is awesome, thank you guys. Our guys used it to [work on] the streetlights,” Fronapfel said.
Fronapfel said the water department has had to conduct manual re-reads with many older water meters, and he is looking at replacing those. He also said the new town shop building construction is going slow, and he has had to search for a new contractor to finish the project.
Members of the council complimented Fronapfel and the town crew for their quick response to an electrical outage.
Police chief Jay Harrison reported, after his vehicle’s windshield is replaced, his department may be at the end of a list of vehicle issues and repairs that needed to be addressed. He told the council one of the town’s handheld police radios went down. “So myself and officer (Justin) Breon were swapping out my radio back and forth when he was working or I was working and vice versa,” chief Harrison said. “We have to give credit to Wyoming Emergency Services because we contacted them, and [they] donated two handheld radios to us. They’re not brand-new ones, but they’re refurbished and ones they use to recycle when they rotate their equipment out.”
He also added a thank you to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. “The lightbars we have on our cars were donated by them – except for the one on muy car, I donated that one myself.”
Police officer Steven Taylor completed his online courses for the academy and will have completed his training at the Wyoming Police Academy by the end of last week.
Chief Harrison said there are two new computer systems the department will be converting to. There is a new system for crash reports which are required to be entered into the state’s system, and a new Platte County Dispatch CAD system will soon be implemented throughout the county for all emergency calls.
The council proceeded to have a discussion regarding the 20 MPH sign along the length of Burlington Ave. with input from some of the people at the meeting. There has been a question of when the speed limit changed from 25 to 20 mph on the road. It is unclear when the signs changed or if it was publicly advertised when it was, but the speed limit has been set at 20MPH for years, according to the mayor and Fronapfel. The public works supervisor said there was a sign covered up by someone’s trees that was recently trimmed back so people could see the sign. The police chief, when asked, said he didn’t know anything about the history of the signs, it is just his job to make sure the speed limit is enforced.
Closing the meeting, councilwoman Penny Wells reported she and councilman Joe Michaels attended the fire department meeting last week. “They held elections without any problems there, and it is submitted,” she said.
Wells also said there has been “a lot of people reach out about the grocery store who weren’t at the meeting. Hopefully it will improve.”
Burfeind and councilman Michaels told the council the Guernsey Food Pantry received generous, overflowing donations from Lynn’s Superfoods, the grocery store which closed down two weeks ago.
“The store just blessed the pantry with an abundance of food. It’s unbelievable, so you can say what you guys want about them, but they are good gous. They passed out what they could at the food pantry,” Burfeind said.
Michaels, who is chairman of the food pantry board, confirmed, “The [pantry’s] freezers are fullo, and any of the canned goods and stuff is here that we could take without interfering with the town (space in the town shop where the pantry is located). Lynn’s Superfood blessed the Guernsey Community Food Pantry, and that need is growing daily. It’s unfortunate we lost them, but they left on a good note.”
Mayor Delgado thanked the town employees for the work they do to keep the town running. “Everybody works hard, and we all make mistakes like everybody else does. And we do what we can to try to correct it and get it right. We have a good crew here…and the council is trying to make decisions that are hard to make – sometimes it’s tough. You lose friends, you gain friends; but it’s a tough job [to] sit up here trying to look out instead of looking in, but that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”