A Collective Donor Knew of the Driggs Invitation

VICTOR — Former Teton County commissioner Cindy Riegel urged the Victor City Council on July 8 to respond to a Driggs invitation to open joint wastewater talks, one the city had received by email hours earlier, before it was public, and that its acting mayor had already accepted.

On July 8, the day the dismissal of Victor's lawsuit against Driggs became final, Driggs Mayor August Christensen emailed the Victor council and staff a letter inviting the city to a series of joint work sessions on the wastewater plant. Driggs had refused to negotiate until Victor dropped the suit. The dismissal cleared that condition, and the invitation followed the same day.

Christensen sent the email at 3:35 p.m. By 4:49 p.m., Acting Mayor Stacy Hulsing had replied and accepted, writing that the city would "figure out some possible times and dates." The council met that evening. During public comment on the sewer budget, Riegel told the council: "I suggest you actually respond to August, Mayor August, and her request to set up a series of work sessions." Hulsing did not mention the email in open session until the meeting's final minutes, when she told the council the city had heard from Christensen and that she had already replied.

Riegel knew the invitation had been sent. She did not appear to know the council had already answered it. The acting mayor accepted before the meeting opened, yet Riegel urged the council to respond. She had the half of the exchange that came from Driggs, not the half that had gone back from inside Victor's own city hall.

The invitation was not public. Christensen sent it to Victor's council and staff and to a Driggs administrator, and it appeared on no agenda. Asked whether the city had released it, Victor said in response to a records request that no city employee shared the email with anyone before the meeting, and that no other records request had made it public that day. A council member who forwarded the email would have had that message captured by the same request. None appears in the city's response.

Riegel is a donor to the Victor Valley Collective, the political committee formed by the group whose recall drive pushed former mayor Will Frohlich to resign. Carol Nowakowski chairs the committee and led the recall petition. Nowakowski spoke after Riegel at the July 8 podium and said she agreed with her.

How Riegel learned of the Driggs invitation that same day is not in the record. None of the public channels could have carried it: the meeting had not begun when Christensen's email arrived at 3:35 p.m., the council did not take up the invitation in open session until after she had spoken, and the city says no employee released it.

What to watch: How a Victor Valley Collective donor knew about the invitation, hours before the council disclosed it, is unresolved on the record. Riegel raised the matter herself, in open comment. The Victor council meets next on July 22.

A Victor Valley Collective Donor Knew of the Driggs Invitation Before It Was Public

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