Pine Haven overview

The Pine Haven Town Council met last Tuesday night with a relatively quickly covered agenda. The following are a few highlights:

Mark the date

The “Fire Works over the Water” will start at dusk on Saturday, July 6 at Coulter Bay.

Public works projects around town

The contractor Sacrison Paving has been patching the formerly damaged pavement on Pendleton, Lakeview and Vista Grande Drives over the last couple of weeks and while there have been a few verbal complaints, according to public works director Sunny Schell, “the project is going along as best as it can go with the weather and rain.” While patching was soon finished on Lakeview and Pendleton, Vista Grande was considered the worst damaged and had “roughly double the quantity” of soft spots, HDR Engineering’s Mike Oakley told the governing body. Subsequently, Grande was under construction longer with the detour signs and barricades lowered on Monday.

The work of replacing culverts and raising the roadway on Harwood Street was completed before the weekend including the reinstallation of the street and stop signs at the intersection of Pine Haven Road and West Pine, according to Schell. The side road from Pine Haven Road to the cemetery gate as well as Rose Lane and Park has also been reconditioned with ground asphalt/concrete.

Schell and associate Randi Flowers have been recording addresses of property owners who have not maintained fire safe grass control this season and she asserts that letters have been and will be sent and phone calls made to these homeowners. “We’re getting a jump on that. It’s going to start getting dry, there’s fire danger and they need to mow.”

Fire department prepares for the season

The Pine Haven Volunteer Fire Department has been working with the forest service to complete a comprehensive mapping and survey project and, as part of this mapping project, all of the fence lines from the west on Highway 14 to the north on McKean (where the asphalt gives way to gravel), on to Pine Ridge on the east point of the map and south to I90 will have been charted. This includes gates, explained Fire Chief Bob Rudichar. “That will help us if we have a grass fire, we won’t have to cut fences, we’ll know exactly where the gates are.”

The department is now beginning risk assessments of town properties, Rudichar added, “to see what we’re facing down the road.”

Black Hills Life Flight has examined the Pine Haven Airport for a possible landing zone expediting response time to area emergencies at the behest of fire department coordinator Don Lancaster. Black Hills Life Flight travels to both Rapid City and Spearfish according to the situational requirements. Lancaster reported that the Black Hills crew will conduct an orientation with the town’s volunteer firefighters and EMS as well as any council members who would like to join. He hopes to see the implementation of this plan within the next two weeks.

EMT Barb Hardy advised the council that life flight can answer a call to Pine Haven now without landing at the airport, depending on where it’s at. She also told them that while Black Hills is the closest flight for life option, however, there are others including Casper and Sheridan as options in the event that Black Hills cannot respond.

Bike path

Oakley reported that the bike path is moving forward, “I think we can start on that pretty soon. We received the [grant application] packet from [WYDOT].” July 15 is the deadline for receipt of the application by the agency.

Oakley’s associate, Heath Turbiville advised the governing body that with approval of the grant, the concrete path will break ground on the first phase along the eastern end of Waters Drive next summer. He also recommended the body continue applying every year as they complete each phase.