About the City
by
Council Member Kingery

Lots going on around Douglas!

We just had the open house for the new Joint Law Enforcement, Joint Communication center and Converse County Jail.  We had a great turnout and we can be proud of the new facility we have in Converse County.  We have tried for years to build a new jail and to change to a Joint Communication system.  We have needed both and this will save the county  lots of money when we quit spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year housing our inmates in Wheatland and Casper.  That was money spent out of our county with no hope of return.  Now much of the money spent housing our inmates will circulate within the community thus helping our economy.  The new Joint Communications system hopefully will be more efficient and better help protect all of us.  We hope it will also save some money, however it will take some time to find out whether that occurs.  The Sheriff's office and Police department both needed more space and now they each have a larger facility within which to operate.  They will be able to share meeting room space, exercise space and importantly a new gun training space that should make their training more complete and help bring more safety to Converse County.  The jail employees and inmates have utilized an antiquated and inadequate facility for years.  It is a great credit to all of them that more staff and inmates have not been injured and that Converse County has not had a major lawsuit from inmates.  Detention staff are unnoticed and often unknown heroes in our community who work behind the scenes to take care of members of our community who find themselves in trouble.  If you know any of the detention officers, please thank them the next time you see them.  They deserve all the thanks we can give them.  The new jail is a facility that will provide much needed service to our community members and their loved ones who end up there.  This facility should make it safer for both the employees and the inmates.  We are very fortunate that this new facility is all paid for.  The county and the city both saved monies ahead so that this facility is all paid off.  No tax increase was needed, and no debt exists for our children to pay off.

If you haven't been down to Bartling park recently you should make a trip there now!  We have a new, state of the art, skate park just being completed.  Bring your skate board and get in line at the "bee hive" of activity, or just come and enjoy watching.  There will be a Grand Opening of the Chad Garls Skate Park at 5:00 p.m. on May 10th.  This a joint project of the City of Douglas, the School District, Converse County and a donation from Wyoming Community Gas.  Credit goes to Councilperson Monty Gilbreath who noticed the need for major repairs of the old facility given by the Garls family.  He promoted and got cooperation from the agencies listed and the City Council agreed to include $13,500 that the Wyoming Community Gas company donated to the Douglas community.  This is a great facility for the youth of our community (and the brave older people) that we would likely not have if not for the cooperation we have in our community.  Thanks to all involved!

Our new City Administrator, Jonathan Teichert, will be arriving in a few days and I believe all the staff and council at the city are anxiously awaiting his arrival.  I think this is especially true of Karen and Mary at the City office, who have carried a large extra load of work since Tony Tolstedt left.  While Karen Rimmer was officially in charge, Mary Nicol took on a large load in working with applications and the organization for our process of locating and hiring the new City Administrator.  Thanks to both, and all the other City employees, for what they do to make our city operate efficiently.

Election time is coming up for City Council and Mayor positions.  Terms expiring at the end of 2018 will be Mayor Jones, Councilman Bartling and Councilman Kingery.  Mayor Jones says
he will not be running again for the Mayor position.  Likewise, I do not intend to run again for the City Council position.  Councilman Bartling is undecided currently.  So, we need people to step up and run for City office.  The mayor position and at least one council position will need to be filled and Councilman Bartling's position will be up for election also.  Mayor Jones and I are completing our second (4) year terms and Councilman Bartling is completing his first (4) year term.  Our terms end at the end of 2018.  I hope to have more on this next week.

So, start thinking and encouraging whomever you think would do a good job for the City!