The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Driggs' Mediation Offer Asked Victor to Disconnect. Victor Wants Joint Powers Instead.

Driggs' mediation offer asked Victor to disconnect by 2030. Victor's response letter demands a joint powers agreement instead.

By Wade Williams · ·

DRIGGS — Two letters now in the public record give the clearest look so far at what each city wants. Driggs gave Victor until Oct. 1, 2030, to disconnect. Victor wants joint powers instead.

The mediation itself was confidential and remains so. Both letters were written by counsel, one the day after the Jan. 21 mediation session and the other four months later. Neither is a transcript. They are the closest the public has come to seeing what each side was asking for.

The first letter, dated Jan. 22, 2026, was sent by Driggs' counsel, Sam Angell, to Victor's counsel. It memorialized the offer Driggs had presented the day before at a nine-hour mediation. Under the offer, Victor would build its own treatment plant, disconnect from the Driggs system by Oct. 1, 2030, and pay operations and maintenance fees capped at $260,000 per year until disconnection. Driggs, in exchange, would waive Victor's remaining debt service of about $950,000 through 2030, Victor's share of a $1.4 million drum-screen replacement, a sludge-removal share of about $1.5 million, and Forsgren re-design fees of about $500,000.

The letter included a release clause Angell described as "a complete release of any and all claims … in any way arising from the 2011 Inter-City Agreement or related to the treatment of wastewater in general."

Angell characterized the offer as "objectively reasonable" and said Victor had "inexplicably rejected" it "without making any counter-offer." He pitched the waivers as "a tremendous savings to Victor residents in excess of $3,250,000.00 in waiver of debt-service and waiver of contractual operation expenses due over the next (5) years," writing that the money "could be banked to offset Victor's costs in constructing a new WWTP."

On Feb. 25, the Jackson Hole News & Guide published the letter after Driggs released documents in response to a public records request. Victor's lawsuit, filed on March 5, alleges that the release of the document constitutes a breach of the parties' mediation agreement. That count is pending before Judge Steven Boyce in CV41-26-0062.

The second letter, dated June 1, 2026, was sent by Victor's counsel, Jeffrey D. Brunson, to Angell. It responds to Driggs' May 27 invocation of the 2011 Inter-City Agreement's debt-service pass-through provision, sent after the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) rescinded its approval of Driggs' single-city plant design.

Brunson rejected the pass-through as "baseless" and said Victor was "excused from performing its obligations under the 2011 Inter-City Agreement" on material-breach grounds. He proposed a joint powers agreement on terms Victor would accept only if both cities shared ownership and control, and only if Victor residents paid "no more in wastewater treatment charges than Driggs residents gross of all costs, including debt service and trunkline costs (capital and maintenance)." He gave Driggs until June 3 to indicate whether it "agrees in principle."

That letter became public the same day it was written. Driggs added it to its own June 2 council packet, posted through the city's municode system under the title "Victor Response Letter 6-1-2026." The PDF metadata records the file as prepared at 11:31 a.m. and finalized in the council packet at 5:17 p.m. on June 1.

Both letters are written in constituent-cost terms. Angell pitched the offer as "tremendous savings to Victor residents." Brunson described his rejection as a refusal to "burden [Victor's] residents by incurring costs stemming from Driggs' material breach of contract." Each city's counsel argued for the deal that protected the residents that side's elected officials answer to.

Each ask is consistent with the duty each city's elected leaders owe its own residents. A separation deal with Victor's exit by 2030 lets Driggs build a smaller, cheaper plant for its own residents alone. That is what Angell offered at mediation. A joint powers agreement with shared ownership and a rate-parity floor lets Victor pay into a plant that Victor co-owns and helps govern. That is what Brunson demanded by June 3.

Forsgren project engineer Dave Noel told the Driggs council on June 2 that a combined plant serving both cities is cheaper per ratepayer than two smaller plants, if everyone pays the same rate. "It will cost you more to do the smaller plant than the bigger plant if everybody that's using [it] pays the same amount," he said. Brunson's letter demands that condition.

Victor has been after a joint powers agreement on the wastewater plant for years. Its complaint lists earlier joint-plant offers Driggs refused. Victor's counsel floated the structure again in a Dec. 12 tolling letter to Angell before January's mediation. The specific parity-floor terms became part of the public record in June.

Brunson's June 3 deadline passed without a public response from Driggs. The breach-of-contract case before Judge Boyce is the venue Victor chose to close the gap between the two asks. If the cities cannot settle on terms acceptable to both sets of residents, a court will. That clock runs slowly.

The federal consent decree clock does not. The decree was lodged against the City of Driggs alone, with construction completion required by Dec. 15, 2028. Driggs' April 30 force majeure request asks the EPA and Justice Department to extend the deadline to February 2030. A joint powers agreement reached later could share the forward-looking compliance burden of operating a plant the cities jointly own. The federal liability already on the books, the consent decree itself, sits on Driggs no matter what comes next.

The June 16 Driggs hearing will not resolve the underlying dispute. It will decide how big a plant Driggs builds.

What to watch: Whether the Driggs council holds to its June 2 position that a joint powers agreement is off the table or moves toward its own staff's view that regulators would allow one; what the council decides about plant size at the June 16 public hearing; and whether DEQ, EPA, and the Justice Department grant Driggs' design-schedule extension request.

Sources

Waste Water