Mayor responds to county residents' annexation concerns

Oct. 12—CHEYENNE — Mayor Patrick Collins responded Monday night to Laramie County residents who voiced concerns related to the city's plan to annex county pockets in the coming months.

The goal was announced at the beginning of 2022 as a priority for the Cheyenne City Council, and officials have spent the past year preparing. They ensured the city-initiated annexations will not include fees for these residents, or trigger them personally paying for public improvements such as streets, curbs and gutters, and they will be allowed to continue nonconforming land uses.

Residence owners will be impacted via property taxes, as they will be expected to pay the city's rates. The annual assessment increases will be based on the market value of the property, and more details are at cheyennecity.org/annexation. They will be served by Cheyenne Fire Rescue and the Cheyenne Police Department instead of county first responders.

While Collins told residents the city is working to make the transition as smooth as possible, it has been met with opposition. Some property owners have stated they don't see the benefits, saying it is only a move by the city to bring in more funding.

Collins said he appreciated their comments, and staff was taking into account the potential difficulties.

"Is there a plan to annex from wherever all the way to the Colorado border? Because I can tell you straight up, everybody I've talked to that lives in the county — we don't want to be a part of the city," Marilyn Burden testified. "We want to be able to light off fireworks, and have our cows and our chicks and goats."

Collins said any annexations filed currently were at the request of the property owner, and that is how the county pockets were created. The 65 that officials want to bring into city limits are completely surrounded, and have created complications with emergency responses.

South Cheyenne residents testified at the latest City Council meeting they had reservations about voluntary annexation of a private property located between Clear Creek Parkway and South Greeley Highway. A business park is expected to open there, which will include a Microsoft data center.

Mailers were sent to all landowners and utilities within the annexation area, which City Planner Seth Lloyd said was around six property owners. All signed the petition to annex except for the Wyoming Department of Transportation and Union Pacific Railroad.

Revenue reduction

Bison Crossing resident Mike Raneri said property-adjacent homeowners should have been notified, as well, and he disapproved of the city's overall plan. He criticized taking away revenue from the county, its fire districts and sheriff's office.

"Why are you jumping out and grabbing these pockets?" he asked City Council members. "It's going to be good revenue and taxes for now, but you're going to have to support it, you're going to have to improve it, you're gonna have to put money into it. And I think the city is pretty challenged with doing that right now with what you already have."

Stakeholders had different reasons for wanting to stop the annexation, such as increasing property values and pushing people out of the area, or an increase in vandalism. Others questioned why the city had moved forward with creating the business park, to which city planning staff responded it has been among the options in the long-term community plan for nearly a decade.

Rich Poach was uncomfortable with the annexation of 1,200 acres for the business park, including Microsoft. Not only did he consider the company's products to be substandard, he said the company has a great amount of power and a conforming environment.

"That is the exact opposite of what Wyoming is supposed to be, at least to me," Poach said. "Because they're ubiquitous, they're not just a corporation, they're a mega-corporation — I have serious concerns that it would be the city of Cheyenne still calling the shots, or even the state of Wyoming still calling the shots. And I should preface this, I am the most pro-business person you're ever going to meet."

Misinformation

City officials recognized the validity for some concerns, and countered what they said was misinformation.

Jennifer Rojas read a letter on behalf of her 72-year-old friend who lives in the trailer park near the business park development, and said she was worried she would lose her housing stability and affordability.

"They may be forced to abandon their home with no way to recoup that loss. That's going to put a lot of our citizens at risk for homelessness at the beginning of winter. It should also be noted that the area being annexed has a population not wealthy enough to pay the costs of annexation, even if they're not necessarily in the trailer parks," Rojas read. "This could cause more crime, blight and possibly suicide in an area of town that already suffers from all of these. The added cost to the city's resources would increase and burden all city departments."

Collins informed her this area would not be annexed, saying he appreciated the comment.

City officials said sewer and water service connections would not cost additional fees if it there was a septic failure, livestock on the properties would be grandfathered in, and full public improvements would not be the burden of property owners.

For those worried about future county pockets being created by housing development and business usage, the mayor said the city would do its best to address this.

"We don't have the authority to do anything about them until they become a county pocket. And when they do become a county pocket, then we'll have to deal with them," Collins said. "Our planning director and folks are going to do everything we can to try to prevent those things from happening as much as we can in the future."

Jasmine Hall is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's state government reporter. She can be reached by email at jhall@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3167. Follow her on Twitter @jasminerhphotos and on Instagram @jhrose25.