Davis made his comments during the council comments portion of the March 5 meeting. He highlighted a list of over 20 accomplishments that his administration had completed from Jan. 1, 2023, through the end of January 2024.

Saratoga town government has several new faces in important town departments in this last year. Davis fleshed out his town hall staff with the hiring of five new staff members. He, with the support of the new council, hired a new town treasurer, Corina Daily, a new police chief, Mike Morris and retained a new town attorney, Kylie Waldrip, from Rawlins. When his first town clerk, Marie Christinsen, resigned, Davis and the council hired Jenn Anderson as the town’s new clerk.

Davis also hired a new recreation director, Kim Hemenway, to replace Sara Laughlin, who resigned. As rec. director, Hemenway, in addition to operating the town’s gym and fitness center and all the outdoor athletic field activities, also manages the town’s swimming pool during the summer months.

An additional success for Davis was his ability to hire, as the new public works director, Emery Penner, to fill the vacant public works director’s chair that had been empty for some months.

Penner, who in addition to being in charge of the streets department and the water and sewer department, also has the expanded responsibility of being the town’s planning and zoning officer, thereby filling another position that has been vacant for a long time.

He is also the town’s representative to both the planning commission and the stand-alone water and sewer board (Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board). It is this board that has the actual responsibility for the maintenance and improvement of all the town’s water and sewer systems, not the town council.

The Davis administration has also been successful in hiring two new people to work in the Saratoga Public Works Department (PWD), Jeremy Hemenway for the streets department and Carter Edwards for the water department.

Among the public works projects completed during Davis’s first year as mayor was the completion of the Spring Avenue water line improvement project that was started during the previous James administration. This project installed a new waterline on Spring Avenue from the Saratoga Elementary School to the fire station and out on to River Street.

The Davis administration has also completed the engineering and design of the new River Street water line project south on River Street to about Maple and this improvement continues to move forward. “It has now been put out to bid and they have had their pre-bid meeting,” said Davis.

During this first year the Saratoga PWD has completed the first major water well maintenance work on all five of the town’s water wells since these wells were installed in 2009. “This had never been done. We know what the wells are. We know what kind of shape the wells are in. It came back very good.”

The PWD was also able to install a new sewer lift station and vault on Myrtle Street to permit the long idle land south of Myrtle and east of South Veterans Street to be developed.

PWD has also engineered and designed a $1.5-million project for street repairs and that should go out to bid next week, said Davis. The town has already spent some $60,000 on street repairs, “fixing potholes.”

With more projects there is a need for more equipment. The PWD has purchased an additional new dump truck, and a 1-ton flatbed truck equipped with a snow plow to help town employees in this work, said Davis.

The Saratoga Police Department was also able to purchase a new vehicle and replace the decals on some of their older police vehicles. The police department has been short staffed for the last year due primarily to the high cost of housing in Saratoga and there have been a number of existing staff changes in the Department in the last year with officers leaving. Officer John Moore joined the department in July as a lieutenant, and Chief Morris continues to seek new officers.

The Saratoga’s 911 police dispatch center, operated by the Saratoga Police Department, has also struggled to remain fully staffed over the last year. Staffing of this 24-7 department became so critical that it was necessary to bring in Carbon County Sheriff dispatchers for 60 days late in the year to keep the service operating around the clock. Chief Morris reported that this unit is now almost fully staffed and able to operate with town personnel.

The long languishing (16 years) Never Forget Park was finally let for bid after the engineering and design was completed, said Davis. Unfortunately, with the high inflation cost the bids received came in some $100,000 over budget forcing Davis to reject all bids. This project is in the process of being redesigned to try and bring it within the funds that are available. The plan is to go back out for bid this year so progress can be made on this project, said Davis.

On the financial side there has also been some success. “We have a good account of the exact money the town has. I am really pleased with that,” said Davis. The town has sufficient funds available in its general fund account that it was able to open a WyoStar account with the state for the first time and move $1,000,000 into that new account where it can draw higher interest until it is needed. The town treasurer, under Davis’s direction, also moved $387,000 into the JPB’s water WyoStar account and $192,000 into the JPB’s sewer WyoStar account while leaving over one million dollars in the general fund to conduct the town’s business.

Another town problem has been the long outstanding arrearage in the audits of the town’s books. Under this administration the town has “has completed the second of three major audits,” said the Mayor. “We are behind only one audit,” which is being worked on.

The town council also spent some money to investigate whether to officially object to the new FEMA flood plain map that is coming into effect for Saratoga. It was determined that it would be expensive to officially object and was advised that successfully getting changes to the map would be unlikely. So, the town decided not to officially object to this map.

As for the town’s future Mayor Davis said, “we are also working on the Saratoga Alternative Master Plan and looking at possible ways to help the Police Department dispatchers operate more efficiently. The town is currently working with the Airport Board on their new master plan.”

“I feel the town government and (its) employees have come together and are now working as a team. The town is moving forward in the right direction to improve our community.”