Sheridan City Council Work Session – May 26, 2026
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Sheridan City Council Work Session – May 26, 2026
This work session covered five agenda items, including a landfill remediation project, two ordinances (fees and special events), staffing and budget discussions, and a review of golf course financials. No formal votes were taken; actions were scheduled for future meetings.
Discussion Items
Landfill Remediation Project (Old Landfill)
- Dan presented an update on the corrective measures for the old landfill site, a project that began in 2015 under a state DEQ-funded program (75% DEQ, 25% city).
- The low bid of $3,166,610 from Wagner Ranch Services was received on May 6, 2026, and is under the engineer’s estimate. The city’s share will be $800,000.
- The project involves construction of evaporation ponds, a collection and pumping system, site grading, and realignment of the dog-walking path. It will not regularly use the sewer system.
- Council members asked about potential odor, fencing around ponds, and whether trash is buried under the dog and cat shelter (confirmed no). The project will close out the city’s remediation obligations.
Ordinance 23-06: Fees in City Code
- Ashley Foster presented an administrative ordinance to standardize fee language across city code, replacing inconsistent references with “as established in the master fee schedule.”
- The ordinance also repeals two unused provisions: downtown parking permits and pawn broker/secondhand dealer permits.
- The dog license fee language is cleaned up to align with current $15 flat fee practice.
- The master fee schedule will be presented at the June 22 study session; the ordinance is scheduled for first reading on June 1 and second on June 15.
Ordinance on Special Events
- A separate ordinance creates a structural framework for special events, including mobile vending, open container permits, sidewalk use agreements, and liquor licensing updates.
- Key changes: mobile vending permits must list all vendors; revocation of a mobile vending permit would be administrative, with reapplication allowed only the next calendar year after presenting remediation to the governing body.
- Council members raised concerns about the lack of an appeal process for revocations. City Administrator and staff agreed to explore adding an appellate process, mirroring liquor license procedures.
- The special events policy will be adopted alongside the ordinance on July 6, after discussion on June 22.
Staffing and Budget Questions
- IT Position: Dan confirmed a proposed third IT position will serve citywide, potentially housed at the police department to improve service.
- Audit Costs: Darla reported FY25 audit fees to Porter Mirrorhead were $178,000 plus $15,000 for training. A new senior staff accountant position is expected to reduce external costs after training.
- Golf Course Financials: The FY27 budget shows a projected break-even, but this is partly due to a change in accounting (previously management fees were netted from revenue). Steve noted that municipal courses typically require subsidy; however, council discussed the possibility of raising fees to eliminate the $200,000 deficit, comparing to Cheyenne and Casper models. No decision was made.
Mobile Food Vendor Concerns
- Council raised questions about fairness between mobile vendors and brick-and-mortar restaurants regarding fees, sanitation, and use of public utilities. A future study session on mobile food vendors was suggested and noted.
Key Outcomes
- The landfill remediation bid award for Wagner Ranch Services will be presented to council at the next regular meeting (likely May 26 or June 1).
- First readings of both ordinances (fees and special events) are scheduled for the next council meeting. The master fee schedule and special events policy will be reviewed at the June 22 study session, with final adoption targeted for July 6.
- Staff will investigate adding an appeal process for mobile vending permit revocations and will report back.
- Future agenda: study session on mobile food vendors; deadline for city council candidate filing is Friday, May 29.
Meeting Transcript
Anyway, that's nice. Before we begin, I want to let you know that due to technical issues we are on the live speech. We are recording the meeting, however, we'll see the subsidies. We appreciate your patience and understanding. We apologize for the convenience. We just got uh late. We are we are live streaming. We are interested. Rewind um welcome everybody. So we have our uh work session line spot through the sixth six. We have five items on the agenda for today, so we'll just keep going working. Item number one is a discussion of fair work to blank up ranch services for the old landfill correct mission project. Three million one hundred and sixty-six thousand six hundred and ten dollars. This is a the item before council um next Monday, but this is a bit of work for uh um uh landfill corrector measures project. But um I want to give a little bit of background just to say give council an update of how we got here because it's been a long time through this process, and more so is this is the end, and that's the that's the encouraging thing. So um the city entered into the landfill remediation program in 2015. So we've been working on it for a while. Um really that program was uh funded and set up by the um state legislatures to fund remediation of old landfill sites, unline landfills. They um being involved in that program, we get 75% funding for any work we we do to mitigate those, um, including studies. So we start out with a study called the Nature and Extent Study, and you know, we worked on that from 2016 to 2019, and that's where we just uh had a consultant dive in and look at the nature um and the extent that it's got its name of groundwater contamination impacts due to leech ache leaching into the groundwater, which happens when you all have an online landfill. So once that was completed, there were some corrective measures identified in that study of how we can uh um options to remediate on each one of those sites. Um we entered into an assessment of corrective measures. So we looked at uh those individually and try and come up with the best option for each of the sites that we had to remediate. We did that from 2021 to 2023, and it also got drawn out because we had to um investigate some more data. We found out there was some data lacking to help us ultimately arrive at the um the best solution, and so we did some more study in that process. Um and uh ultimately we arrived at some options for our old landfill site and our existing landfill site on corrective measures to um to remediate our groundwater impacts, and we selected those those best options in conjunction with DDQ and the city come up with the best options. Again, design and construction of those um projects in 2023 to present day. So just recap visually, there's three remediation sites, um, two projects, one on the existing landfill and the old landfill. Um the first project, which council's very familiar with um is the administrative trench and the um T1 through T6, which we remediated using a dig and flip technique. Um so we dug those up and place them in that identified cell 10, which we constructed. That project's done and has been completed. This project's on the old landfill site. Um we associate that with the dog and cat shelter site, but that's where it's located was our old landfill um disposal area. So that's what we're talking about here today, in which we just recently um went out the bids for the solution. There is a dewater and discharge to evaporation ponds solution. So it's different than the dig and flip. So funding that we've secured for these projects is just under 3.7 million. 2.4 was um was uh secured for the um the dig and flip project one. So we have 1.3 available in funding that we've identified for this for this project uh two. This is a scope of work in more detail what we just um did out, and you can see location of the dog and cat shelter on there. Um, first and foremost, they will re um realign the uh pathway that uh um identified there in pink. So the pathway that they walk walk the dogs on will be realigned. Uh they'll build um evaporation ponds, an access room for maintenance, and then do some site grading. One is a borrow area, the larger area is cover over a large part of the old landfill, and and then part of that will be treated and such that it will be a little more in impervious material, more like a clay type material. Um, so improved drainage and uh lessen um uh percolation down into the uh um the subsoil, and then in those areas they will build uh dewatering walls and a collection system to pump it to the evaporation ponds. This is kind of what you're gonna see. This isn't the graphic of the proposed solution, but it's a similar similar aesthetic look of what we're going to be looking at. The mound is not going to be quite as high as what's there, it's going to be more natural to what the terrain is there, but we're gonna have evaporation ponds and a collection system and pumping system uh taking it to the evaporation ponds. So one of the good benefits of this is we're not putting it into our sewer system, even though it will be connected to the sewer system as a possible overflow if that ever is needed, but we won't be doing that on a on a regular basis. So on May 6th, we received bids on this project.
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