Workday at the pool on March 23

Mayor CJ Duncan announced at the March 14 meeting of the town council that a workday is planned for Saturday, March 23 at the Basin swimming pool. Start time is 8 a.m.  Volunteers may help change the fence, add stairs and a shaded area and with miscellaneous clean up.
Residents in town will be able to burn the later part of March and during April. An ad will run in the paper with the dates and times. Duncan said raw water will be available the end of April, like it normally is.

DOG PARK
Town engineer Jesse Frisbee presented a plan of a potential dog park on the north end of town at “Turtle Park” — the vacant lot on the east side of Fourth Street on the north end of town, west of the railroad tracks. There is currently a billboard painted black and red on the site.
The presented plan had a total of $3,085 in materials, including gates, posts and wire. A community workday for the project was discussed. Duncan said he would like to see money for this in next year’s budget. The new budget starts July 1, 2024.

REVERSE 911
Duncan said there had been a couple of instances where reverse 911 would have been helpful to notify the citizens. One was a water leak; the other was after a gas meter was hit. Reverse 911 is not available at this time.
He wondered if the town needs to invest in that type of system. The town did what it could to let residents know their gas and water would be turned off for a while. The town posted a notice on Facebook. He feels it caused some confusion as people were asking questions even though the answers to their questions were in the original post.
“The staff can push one button and it calls every phone number on file and says there will be an unplanned water outage today. Sorry for the inconvenience. You’ve got 30 minutes to fill your bathtub or whatever.  We as a town have the responsibility to push that information out.” Included in the council’s packet were three purchase options.
Councilman Brent Godfrey asked if the school had CodeRED (a public alerting system). Duncan said the school has something, but doesn’t know the name of that system.
Godfrey continued that the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office has a system. Police Chief Kyle McClure added that land lines are automatically registered in that system by geographical location. Cell phone numbers must be registered to be included in the system. He said he would visit with the county to see if there is a way the town could use it.

ANIMAL LICENSES
Town Clerk Deaun Tigner provided a breakdown of dog, cat, and chicken licenses from 2022, 2023 and 2024. Dog license have dropped from 288 in 2022 to 132 in 2024. Cat license have dropped during that same time frame from 39 to 24. Chicken permits dropped from 13 in 2022 to two in 2024.
She thought some of the differences could be accounted for as animals passing away due to old age or people moving.  McClure said some people who had a lot of dogs and found it expensive to have the dogs in town said they would move their dogs out of town limits or haven’t replaced dogs that have passed. His department hasn’t confirmed if they have yet, but will. Dog complaints have gone down, according to Tigner and McClure.
Councilman Carl Olson asked about the drop in cat licenses. He has observed a lot of cats on the streets at night. McClure pointed out that the town’s obligation if a cat is trapped is to take it to the pound in Greybull. The animals may only be housed three days there. Duncan said he thought the town ordinance had been changed to say if a cat was trapped and was not licensed it could be euthanized.  
McClure said that is the way the ordinance reads.  “We’ve had people call and complain that someone else has trapped their cat and removed it from the town. We tell them if they are not licensed, they are a nuisance to the town and if they are trapped, they can be removed. They are a nuisance animal at that point. Either license your cat, collar it all the time, keep it in your yard or you run the risk of losing your cat. That is the unfortunate thing about it.” He knows there are people in town trapping cats.
Tigner found the ordinance and noted it says the animal must be held for 48 hours before it can be euthanized.
Duncan asked McClure to check on how many people in town still have chickens since there is such a drastic drop in permits.
In other Basin Town Council news:
• Town attorney Kent Richins asked for an executive session was held regarding to items of potential litigation.
• A building permit was approved for Jill and Martin Tanner on South Sixth Street.
• The WYDOT stockpiling agreement was reviewed and updated.
• A 24-hour alcoholic beverage sales Ppermit was approved for the National Wild Turkey Foundation banquet.
• An activities committee meeting will be held to talk about town clean-up day. The meeting will be March 25 at 6:30 p.m.
• Olson asked McClure if there was something that could be done about vehicles parked up to three deep on the streets.
• Councilman Brent Godfrey asked if the police department is trained to carry and administer NARCAN. The chief said yes.
• Frisbee reported that WYDOT would join the town and Wilson Brothers Construction for the cost of repairing the pavement heaves on the south side of town on Fourth Street/U.S. Highway 16-20.
• Town foreman Mike Dellos provided information about free technical assistance for small wastewater systems. There is no cost for the assistance.
• The council reviewed a proposal for a parking lot west of the town hall that will include handicapped parking.