Changes in the New Year

During the first Saratoga Town Council of the New Year on January 7, Mayor John Zeiger made changes to council representation with the recreation department and commission, and the department of public works. Zeiger also appointed two members of the Saratoga Police Department to new positions. 

Council Representatives

There were very few changes when it came to appointing council representatives. Councilmember Steve Wilcoxson remained Mayor Pro-Tem and as representative to the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District. 

Councilmember Jon Nelson was kept on the Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board, the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board and representative to the fire department. 

Councilmember Judy Welton will still serve as representative to Town Hall and will remain on the Community Center Joint Powers Board. Councilmember Bob Keel will continue serving on the Saratoga Planning Commission and representative to planning and zoning.

Zeiger will remain as representative to the Corbett Medical Foundation and representative to the Saratoga Police Department.

“Recreation department, I am going to make a change there and I’m going to put Councilman Keel in as the recreation department liaison,” said Zeiger. “He’ll go to the rec board meetings as a representative of the town.”

Keel’s appointment to the recreation department and the recreation commission replaces that of Wilcoxson, who was appointed in 2019.

As Wilcoxson will no longer serve as recreation department representative, he was appointed as representative to the department of public works. Wilcoxson replaces Nelson, who was the representative to the department of public works in 2019.

Later in the meeting, following Keel’s appointment to the recreation commission, a letter of resignation was read from Christy Keel, wife of Councilmember Keel. Christy Keel had served on the recreation commission for approximately a year.

Police Department

Appointments

While there were no changes to who will be leading the police department, Ken Lehr will remain Police Chief, Zeiger stated that he wanted to “do something different.”

“Each community is supposed to have an emergency manager. It doesn’t have to be a full-time emergency manager, it could be quarter-time,” said Zeiger. “I have asked Sergeant Tyler Christen if he’d be interested in that and he smiled and kind of said, ‘yes.’”

Following his announcement of appointing Christen as emergency manager for the Town of Saratoga, Zeiger asked the town council for approval of additional compensation.

“He does have to attend extra meetings, he has to help with making sure our plans are in place, he has to just be on top of things so we can continue to get federal funding,” Zeiger said. “I was thinking $200-$250 a month on top of his wage for the extra time.”

Zeiger added that his reason for selecting Christen was his experience with both the fire department and his previous employment with the United States Forest Service.

“He is very well versed on the ICS (Incident Command System) system and everything you do depends on ICS,” said Zeiger.

According to Wyoming State Statute 19-13-108, “Each political subdivision of this state shall establish a local homeland security program in accordance with the state homeland security plan and program.” The statute goes on to read, “Each local homeland security program shall have a coordinator appointed by the governor upon the recommendation of the local jurisdiction.”

In addition to Christen being appointed by Zieger as emergency management coordinator for the Town of Saratoga, Lehr was appointed as the Town of Saratoga’s representative to the Carbon County Juvenile Services Board.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on January 21 at Saratoga Town Hall.