The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Driggs Calls the Wastewater Partnership Dead. Victor's Settlement Offer Still Says Otherwise.

Driggs treats the wastewater partnership with Victor as dead since the lawsuit. Victor's joint powers settlement offer is still on the table.

By Wade Williams · ·

DRIGGS — On May 1, 2026, Mayor August Christensen told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that re-engaging Victor on a wastewater partnership was "a no-go" because of the lawsuit Victor had filed against Driggs eight weeks earlier. Three weeks later, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) rescinded its approval of Driggs' Driggs-only treatment plant design. Five days after that, Driggs City Attorney Sam Angell wrote to Victor's lawyers. He cited the cities' 2011 contract, put Victor on notice that it could owe a share of the upgrade's debt service, and invited Victor's representatives to the June 2 Driggs council meeting.

The day before that meeting, Victor's lawyer wrote back. Jeffrey Brunson called Driggs' pass-through theory "baseless." He said Driggs had materially breached the 2011 contract, excusing Victor from its obligations. At the end of a three-page letter that rejected nearly every Driggs position, Victor's standing offer to settle the lawsuit "remain[s] on the table": a joint powers agreement, shared ownership of the plant, and the same rates on both sides of the city lines.

That has been the stalemate since 2025: Driggs treating Victor's termination of the wastewater partnership as final, with the March lawsuit as the closing of a door already shut; Victor treating that termination as reversible the entire time, on terms Driggs has not been willing to discuss.

Victor's track

On December 12, 2025, Victor's outside wastewater counsel, attorneys at Smith Currie Oles in Atlanta, sent Angell a four-page letter. The lawyers laid out the theory that Driggs had materially breached the 2011 contract by failing to deliver a plant capable of meeting federal discharge standards. Victor would not waive its claims. The lawyers asked both parties to enter mediation and to pause the statute-of-limitations clock through a reciprocal tolling agreement, so neither side risked its legal position during talks.

The Driggs council took the proposal up on December 16. Mayor Will Frohlich attended in person from Victor and made the mediation case. Council Member Allison Michalski said she was "willing to sign the Tolling Agreement presented by the City of Victor and enter into mediation." The minutes record the next line as "The rest of the Council agreed." At 10:34 p.m. that night, Angell emailed Victor's counsel: "Tonight Driggs approved a motion to enter into mediation with Victor, and to agree to enter into the tolling agreement."

Smith Currie's John Crowley chased the tolling agreement over the following weeks. On January 6, Angell wrote back asking for an updated draft with a March extension. Crowley sent it the next day. No signed copy of either draft was received by Victor. Mediation proceeded anyway, on January 21, and the nine-hour session ended in impasse.

In a January 22 letter, Driggs offered Victor a roughly $3.25 million debt-service waiver over five years in exchange for disconnecting from the Driggs plant by October 1, 2030. The mediation Smith Currie had proposed to head off a lawsuit failed to resolve the dispute. Victor sued March 5.

In a June 1 reply, Brunson asked Driggs to "reconsider its refusals to enter into a Joint Powers Agreement" and set a June 3 deadline for Driggs to indicate whether it agreed in principle.

Driggs' track

In a Jackson Hole News & Guide article published the same day as the council vote, Christensen described "multiple letters from an attorney in Georgia threatening us" and said the council majority wanted "a formal letter from Victor dropping legal threats before moving forward." Her council voted that night to enter the tolling agreement those same attorneys had proposed, pausing the clock on litigation so the cities could work it out in mediation.

On March 7, two days after Victor sued, Christensen told the Guide that the lawsuit "severs a longstanding partnership between the City of Driggs and our neighbors in Victor on future efforts." On May 1, three weeks before DEQ rescinded the city's design approval, she told the same paper: "There is an opportunity to re-engage with the City of Victor, but due to the lawsuit that makes it a no-go."

Christensen told the Signal on June 9 that Driggs had not reached out to Victor between the lawsuit and the May 27 letter. "City of Driggs has not reached out to Victor since the lawsuit has been filed," she wrote. "It is not recommended to communicate with someone who is suing you, or to do press releases or social media posts."

The Valley's bind

A federal consent decree lodged in January 2025 sets Driggs' deadline. The city must have a rebuilt plant online and compliant by December 15, 2028, or by February 2030 if EPA grants its pending force majeure request. The May 22 rescission blocks Driggs' path to a Driggs-only design and leaves two DEQ-defined options: revise for combined flows or produce legal documentation stating that Victor will be disconnected by the time the new plant opens. Victor lost the land it had under contract for its own plant on April 30. The federal-compliance pressure on Driggs is real.

But DEQ did not foreclose a wastewater partnership. Driggs' own staff told the council on June 2 that DEQ and DOJ had each said they would consider transferring the permit to a jointly owned entity. The rescission opened two paths under regulation; it did not close a third under negotiation.

Since the rescission, Driggs has made one direct communication to Victor: a contract-enforcement letter, lawyer-to-lawyer, invoking the 2011 contract, reserving a debt-service pass-through, and inviting Victor's representatives to update the June 2 council meeting. The letter proposed no settlement. Driggs has instead put a precondition on the table: drop the suit, and then we'll talk.

At the June 2 podium, Victor City Administrator Jeremy Besbris offered to ask his council for a fresh tolling agreement — the same procedural pause that carried the cities into January's mediation. Christensen declined, "I don't think the City of Victor is interested in holding the idea; I think that it would be dropping it."

Victor's offer is the joint-powers settlement Brunson called "still on the table" on June 1. Driggs' staff said the path was open. The council tabled the plant decision and held that the partnership was not.

The consent decree is Driggs'. The deadline is Driggs'. The federal liability is Driggs'. The settlement offer on the table is Victor's.

What to watch: The Driggs City Council holds a 6 p.m. public hearing on the 60% design on June 16, the same day the city meets with the Environmental Protection Agency.

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