[0:03] this meeting of the Laramie Planning
Commission to order. I think if the
[0:08] clerk could call the role
[0:14] is absent. Bull
>> present.
[0:19] » Heiser White absent. Moody
>> here.
[0:23] » Oul absent. Schneider
>> here.
[0:26] » And Madamore
>> here.
[0:28] » That's four present. three absent.
>> Uh chair would then entertain a motion.
[0:34] Well, any additions to the agenda from
staff?
[0:39] » Seeing none, uh chair will entertain a
motion.
[0:44] » So move to accept the agenda and minutes
as presented.
[0:47] » Do I have a second?
>> Second.
[0:49] » All those in favor say I. I.
>> Okay. No, I'm seeing no citizens in the
[0:57] room. Are there any online? No. Seeing
none, we'll go to planning commission
[1:02] and staff reports and comments. Anything
there?
[1:08] Mr. Chair, we do have one announcement,
kind of a reminder of the Forge
[1:14] Exchange,
our public engagement space in downtown.
[1:19] I'm just pulling up the hours real
quick, but we do encourage you guys to
[1:24] come participate uh if you can during
the opening hours. We did have a open
[1:30] house last Thursday which was well
attended. Um we had about 38 people
[1:34] there so that was that was good. But
just to remind everybody um the Forge
[1:40] Exchange space is open on Wednesdays
from 10 to 1,
[1:45] Thursdays 2
and Fridays from 8 to 11. So come see us
[1:51] during that time and talk comp plan.
>> Okay. Uh one question for staff Derek.
[1:57] Uh do you have any dates on the DDA's uh
presentations?
[2:04] » Yeah, sure. I can uh bring you up to
speed on that a tiny bit here. So March,
[2:11] let me just make sure I'm telling you
the right dates here. March 25th, 26th,
[2:15] and 27th, the DDA will be doing some
public engagement uh related to the
[2:22] downtown development plan. Um
those meetings uh exact times I don't
[2:30] quite have solidified yet. We're kind of
finalizing those things. Um there's
[2:35] going to be some different opportunities
throughout the day. We're going to be
[2:37] meeting with stakeholders. So it's going
to be like property owners, business
[2:40] owners, things like that within the
downtown. Uh we're going to have some
[2:44] openhouse style type events as well as
some cherettes that we're going to do
[2:49] some real specific uh kind of planning
exercises with people to kind of go
[2:55] through some different concepts and
ideas and thoughts that we've heard of
[2:59] and it's really going to be the first
kind of intro opportunity for public
[3:03] engagement of the downtown development
plan. So March 25th 26th 27 it's not
[3:09] going to be the whole day for everybody.
Um, there's going to be different
[3:12] opportunities for different groups of
people. So, uh, we should, I'm thinking
[3:16] probably next week we'll probably have
some way more detailed information
[3:20] coming out, but that's a good that's a
good reminder. Yeah.
[3:23] » All right. Well, thank you, Derek.
>> Absolutely.
[3:26] » Seeing nothing else, we'll get on to
disclosures. Are there any disclosures,
[3:32] exparte, communication, conflicts of
interest?
[3:37] Hearing none, we'll carry on.
Uh new business, no old business. We
[3:43] will go to new business. Planning
Commission request for fencing as
[3:48] permitted by LMC
1514
[3:53] 100.D.1.h.
[4:00] Take it away, Derek. Planning
Commission, uh chair, thank you. Um,
[4:06] what I'm going to do is I'm actually
going to turn this presentation over to
[4:09] Jay Smith. Jay Smith, uh, works in our
water department and is primarily
[4:14] focused on water distribution within the
city. And so, uh, what I do want though
[4:21] to introduce you to is there is a one
little sentence in in code related to
[4:26] fencing, which is the section that I
provided that allows planning commission
[4:30] to consider alternative materials for
fencing. And simply the reason why we're
[4:35] bringing it to you is because this is a
fencing uh type or material that we
[4:40] don't allow in code, which is this chain
link fence with the razor wire on top.
[4:46] Um just really it's not most of the time
necessary for much of anything. And so
[4:51] uh we're bringing it to you in a pretty
unique scenario here. And so, um, I just
[4:57] wanted to kind of preface with that
because I don't know if we'll ever do
[5:00] another one of these again because I
we've never done one before. And so, um,
[5:05] this may be a pretty limited
opportunity. So, anyway, I'm going to
[5:09] turn this over to Jay Smith, um, and let
him kind of present the report and we'll
[5:13] be available if you need to as well.
Ryan, I'm gonna have to say what this
[5:18] microphone is huge. It's really tall
>> even for me.
[5:26] That's why we got it.
>> Well, then you have to vertically ascend
[5:29] it with Phil and it fits him perfect.
>> Yeah, it's okay.
[5:37] » Mr. Chair, uh, as Director Teny
mentioned, my name is J. Smith and I'm
[5:43] with the utility division of the city.
And what you have before you is a
[5:47] request for two projects for uh security
fencing for the Grant Street uh pump
[5:54] station and the zone 2 storage facility.
And the reason for the chain link and
[6:01] the barb wire is because those are the
recommendations not only from the
[6:05] American Waterworks Association but also
from Homeland Security. And for obvious
[6:11] reasons, right, what these facilities do
and where they're located, it's pretty
[6:16] important, vulnerable, and
I don't want to get too in the details
[6:22] about what could happen or what may
happen. But the Grand Street is about
[6:28] 410 ft around it, located on the west
side of Laramie. There will be three
[6:34] strands of barb wire on top of that and
one man gate and one fullsize gate
[6:40] there. For the zone two tanks located
near Joanna Bruner,
[6:46] there's 1,025 ft and then 8ft tall with
three strand barb wire
[6:53] then and two fulls size gates.
These are important pieces of
[6:58] infrastructure within the city and I
would I beg for your approval.
[7:06] » You don't have to go that far.
[7:10] » I'm not too proud. So, I'll do whatever
it takes to get the projects done.
[7:14] » Yeah. Uh
[7:19] what I don't understand is why you
didn't do this 20 years ago. you know, I
[7:24] mean, lots of other cities did protect
their water infrastructure.
[7:28] Um, and the other other question I have
is the new pump you put up off of Well,
[7:37] it's I don't know if it's 9inth or Roger
Canyon right at that location, but that
[7:42] doesn't have a fence around it either or
is that lower on the priority list?
[7:48] » So, Mr. chair. The the Ninth Street pump
station, which we eloquently call the
[7:56] North Tank Pump Station, it has security
inside the building. It has motion
[8:02] detectors, and at some point there will
be a security fence there. Also, at this
[8:08] point though, because of easements and
the way that project happened and was
[8:13] built with I' I don't know if you've
noticed, it's a fence inside a fence.
[8:16] » Yeah. And so because of some of those
unique characteristics, that one takes a
[8:21] little bit longer. But this will be not
this will not be the last of security
[8:26] fencing that goes up. The reason these
three there are actually three projects.
[8:31] One in the county at the water treatment
plant also. And the reason these were
[8:36] chosen is because of a risk assessment
that we performed with Homeland Security
[8:41] about two years ago before my time with
utilities. But there will be a string of
[8:48] security updates as we go forward. And
so I don't really have a good answer of
[8:54] why these have been the way they have.
And as it mentions in the report, they
[8:59] have been vandalized in the past. There
have been circumstances there and
[9:05] different issues. We'll say most of them
not very flattering as you can imagine.
[9:10] But
to this point, there's not been any real
[9:17] vulnerability yet or any real threat.
They've all been mostly kids painting
[9:23] » things on there. And so I know that
would get a chuckle out of Commissioner
[9:29] Moody. The And so there that's the
reason. Well, I don't have a reason for
[9:36] why it they are the way they are now. I
can tell you that we are working on it
[9:41] and they won't be like that in the
future.
[9:44] » All right. Well, we shall see you here
again. You get to be a regular visitor.
[9:51] » I I got a couple Well, maybe just one
more to kind of piggyback on what Tom
[9:55] was asking. There's the pump station at
Indian Hills. There's a pump station
[9:59] down. I mean, there's several more pump
stations around town. Are these going to
[10:02] be in the future needing security fence
like this?
[10:08] chair through you.
In my personal opinion, yes, there will
[10:14] be some fencing there, but we may have
to do something that is a little
[10:17] creative in some of those locations. as
you were talking about Indian Hills,
[10:21] that pump station that is dead smack in
the middle of a neighborhood and
[10:25] figuring out what we can do there to
kind of put in something that isn't
[10:34] three strand barb wire fence 8ft tall or
figuring out if there's something else
[10:39] or maybe it does end up being that. But
those will have to be evaluated each one
[10:44] before we do that. I mean, you could
even think about um because as I know
[10:49] you're familiar with the system, there's
also Worcester Drive, right? That's
[10:53] right off of Grand there, and that's a
that's a pretty important pump station.
[10:58] It has boulders in front of it for
traffic in case a car were to fly off
[11:02] the road. That would stop it from
hitting the building. But there may be a
[11:07] chance at some point that there's also
security fencing going on there.
[11:12] We also have to keep in mind for the
volume of work, there's only so many
[11:18] contractors that you can get within a
12-month period to do fencing. So, we
[11:23] struggled with that a little bit to
begin with when we were looking for
[11:27] quotes and looking to get these fences
done. So, as far as all of the pump
[11:32] stations being fenced,
I cannot sit here honestly and tell you
[11:38] two years everything will be fenced.
That's kind of the goal or to be
[11:42] protected, we'll say,
>> right?
[11:44] » Maybe not fenced,
>> right? And I guess my my followup or
[11:48] leading question is perhaps the planning
Derek Philip maybe is there some text
[11:53] amendment that we could write that for
something that for security issues for
[11:58] infrastructure like this doesn't have to
go through this process it can just get
[12:02] done because it seems like it should be
more important to get done than to come
[12:07] before us to get us to say it can be
done because I think almost
[12:11] unconditionally we would probably always
say go do it. Yeah,
[12:17] » chair, commissioner,
you're thinking actually along the lines
[12:21] that Jay and I have already had
conversations about. Um
[12:26] something that we hadn't had a
conversation about until this came up
[12:31] and when we started going through code,
we're like this makes sense to
[12:34] potentially exempt these facilities from
the standards. So that correct it does
[12:39] not have to come before the planning
commission for security improvements to
[12:43] our critical infrastructure really is
what that boils down to. And so I think
[12:47] that that's possible. We actually spoke
about it this morning about adding it
[12:51] into kind of like a next set of text
amendments that come forward. So maybe
[12:55] you don't see Jay again, which maybe is
good, maybe is bad, but um I like Jay,
[13:02] so I'm going to try to make his life
easier. But I think you're right. Right.
[13:06] We want to protect that infrastructure.
It's not something we likely would uh
[13:10] not want to see done. Um but I think too
we can be conscious of like where these
[13:15] different locations are and try to try
to do the right thing for the
[13:18] neighborhoods or places where these
fences go in uh secure facility but also
[13:24] do what's necessary in terms of maybe
aesthetics or whatever. Right. So
[13:30] » first
>> yeah and I don't think this is the forum
[13:35] to uh
identify the vulnerabilities
[13:39] of of our water infrastructure.
>> Agreed.
[13:46] Any other questions? Kendra, you have
anything?
[13:52] » No, I don't have anything. Thank you.
here.
[13:56] » Well, thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
[14:04] » Is there any public comment on this?
Seeing nobody here, nobody online.
[14:13] The chair would entertain a motion.
I'll move to approve a request by the
[14:19] city of Lurmy to allow for an 8-ft
security fence with a barb wire on top
[14:24] to allow for securing our water supply
in two locations at Grant Street pump
[14:29] station and at the zone 2 storage
facility.
[14:33] » Second.
>> All right, I moved and seconded. All
[14:37] those in favor say I.
>> I.
[14:44] Uh, guess it carries.
[14:49] » Well, did we beat our 15minute record?
[14:59] » Should we adjourn?
>> Not injured yet.
[15:01] » Okay, go ahead. Make
>> Make a motion to meeting.
[15:04] » All those in favor, stand up and leave.
>> I
[15:12] Yeah, I think we did that. I got 14
minutes.