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The ladder truck used by the Wyoming Fire Department will be in the shop for an extended stay, come a few months from now.  Council approved spending over a quarter of a million on refurbishment.  Member Schilling was absent, as council voted 4-0 last week to spend $296,882 on an engine rebuild and associated body, seals and equipment needs rather than spend about $2 million for a replacement.  

Public Safety Director and Chief of Police Neil Bauer said the engine rebuild can be done at Blaine Brothers and the other needs will be addressed at a Rosenbauer America fire apparatus facility out-of-state. The truck will be gone about the same time the city is planning a complete overhaul of the fire hall, so the timing works out well, Bauer added. 

Wyoming opted to buy an existing building on Forest Boulevard and use it for administrative operations and police space and the fire hall area will expand into where city offices are currently.  The work is underway on the commercial structure remodeling.  Plans for a new stand alone public safety facility have been indefinitely put on hold due to no fiscal support coming from the state legislature in several tries for funding.

Chief Bauer stressed that the truck is “important to our service delivery” and was grateful the council approved the refurbishing approach.  A new ladder truck is tentatively bumped out to the city’s 2035 equipment plan.

Council approved an Interim Use Permit for property in the industrial park that is empty and an applicant wants to use the site for cannabis cultivation and manufacturing.  

The micro-business permit was approved 4-0.  There will be no retail or public access to the site.  The business will create five jobs, according to the permittee.

Council member Linda Nanko Yeager remarked to the audience that she was aware of concerns in the community but the applicant has met everything legally required to qualify and “there is no reason to oppose” she explained.

Wyoming is utilizing a new all day hearing window offered at the County Government Center for property owners who wish to appeal their market valuation or classification for next year’s taxes. The Board of Equalization (assessor’s office) is hearing cases from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 15 at the county government center in Center City. 

Normally these cases are presented at night, at local city community buildings or halls; but the county offered to schedule a full day for property owners to make their case and Wyoming is one of many cities to have accepted the offer.

In other business in this 20-minute council meeting last week:

Public Works Director Steve Reeves reported the county plans to mill and overlay Wyoming Trail (County Road 22) this coming season to prepare for traffic that will not be using Highway 8 when that reconstruction gets started. County Highway 30 is also slated for some concrete repair this summer. 

Staff also continues to coordinate with the Department of Health and city engineers at WSB on water service line switch-outs.  Old lead and copper service lines in Minnesota are being removed and replaced in a multi-year process. 

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