[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.

Laramie Planning Commission Meeting - February 23, 2026

Transcript