Council looks at infrastructure issues

At Monday’s meeting of the Moorcroft Town Council, Councilman Ben Glenn was commended by Moorcroft Mayor Dick Claar for the hours volunteered by himself and his son along with the use of his own equipment to correct the placement of the electronic sign at the MTC. The mayor estimated the cost to the town, if charged, would have been in the neighborhood of $1000.

Splash Bash damage

Communication between the Moorcroft Area Chamber of Commerce (MACC) and Moorcroft Public Works was discusses at length due to a cost incurred by the town from a damaged sprinkler line.

Tents were set up for the celebration at the park by labor hired by the MACC and without contacting public works and, without the needed schematic, the laborers damaged parts of the underground sprinkler system with the spikes.

Glenn recalled that “in years past” communication was established and lines located, but this year there was no request or conversation with the town. Councilman Dale Petersen spoke to the entire situation, “Now we’ve got expense that could have been avoided by just some communication.”

The council agreed with Petersen when he suggested, “If we do this again, we need to have a lot more conversation and [Public Works Director] Cory [Allison] is going to have to give approval. If they go forward without that - somebody has to pay for it and it shouldn’t be the town residents.”

Hard look at culvert

A vehicle broke through the grating over a culvert on Westin Street and Big Horn Avenue in front of the West Texas Museum. It will be temporarily patched with a long term plan set in motion within a couple of years to begin the arduous task of reforming the area to better serve.

This culvert has been an ongoing problem for many years, according to Councilman Paul Smoot, who remembered being caught in the pipe when he was a child. Correcting the dilemma will necessitate HDR Engineering’s assistance with a proper design for which engineer Heath Turbiville was asked to begin investigating possibilities.

Glenn hopes to see the restructuring of this area in the near future instead of just adding this new patch to the older patches already there, “I don’t believe anybody up here has ever passed the buck to anybody else; we try to meet things head-on and fix them [so] I don’t want to patch it and three or four years from now, we’re all still talking about how we’re going to fix Big Horn and Weston.”