The Two-Week Ahead: Wastewater on Both City Agendas and a Cross-State Targhee Meeting

Two city councils take up their wastewater plants on back-to-back nights this week, and both set aside time to talk to each other. Driggs meets Tuesday to weigh a treatment-plant design option and Victor's share of the plant's operating cost; Victor meets Wednesday to reopen its own facility plan and take up a draft agreement with Driggs. On Thursday the commissioners of Teton County, Idaho and Teton County, Wyoming meet jointly over what the resort's growth means on both sides of the line. The following week brings the county budget, the curbside-hauling contract, and, on August 4, a Driggs hearing on a 180-unit subdivision and a hotel.

Tuesday, July 21 — Driggs weighs a plant design and Victor's operating share

The Driggs City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. Its action calendar is built around the wastewater plant the city is building to serve both Driggs and Victor. The council takes up a Class A water-reuse design option for the plant, the plant budget and Victor's share of its operating cost, and authorization to seek proposals for administrative services on the facility-improvement project. The same agenda carries a runway-repair update and airport access agreements, a lease of plant property to a radio company for an AM antenna, and a discussion of an upcoming Driggs-Victor joint work session.

Wednesday, July 22 — Victor reopens its facility plan and weighs a Driggs agreement

The Victor City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall on North Main. The council holds a public hearing on an amendment to its wastewater facility plan, presented by an engineer from Sunrise Engineering, that would weigh projects to be considered as alternatives within the plan. It is the planning step that follows Victor's decision to drop its lawsuit against Driggs and abandon its own plant. The council also discusses a draft agreement letter and joint work sessions with Driggs, and takes up an action on its judicial-confirmation petition. A separate work session takes up the procedure for filling the council seat left open when the council appointed Sue Muncaster interim mayor on July 8; the seat is not filled at this meeting. The FY2027 preliminary budget is on the consent calendar.

Thursday, July 23 — a joint meeting of the two Teton counties

The Teton County Commission holds a special meeting from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the courthouse in Driggs for a joint session with the commissioners of Teton County, Wyoming. The two counties sit on either side of the state line, and the meeting takes up the interstate relationship the resort's expansion has forced them to work out. The meeting is public and carries a Zoom link. It falls five days before the July 28 deadline to object to the plan-amendment portion of the Forest Service's draft decision.

Music on Main returns to Victor City Park at 5 p.m. with Deltaphonic.

Monday and Tuesday, July 27–28 — the budget, then solid waste and wastewater

The Teton County Commission meets July 27 at 9 a.m. as it finishes the FY2027 budget ahead of an August public hearing; the detailed agenda had not posted at press time. The commission meets again July 28 at 9 a.m., when it takes up the county's exclusive curbside-hauling franchise as both a discussion and a contract action, along with a discussion of wastewater treatment. The hauling contract returns a year before the notice deadline that would otherwise extend it automatically.

The Teton School District 401 board holds a working meeting July 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the district office. Friday, July 31, is the last day to comment on the state transportation department's draft seven-year plan, which carries five Teton County highway items, including a bridge replacement near Tetonia and pathway projects on Highways 31 and 33.

Tuesday, August 4 — Corona Valley and a hotel at Buffalo Junction

The Driggs City Council opens a public hearing at 6 p.m. on two preliminary plats its planning commission has recommended. Corona Valley would put 180 homes on about 39 acres east of Teton High School, a mix of single-family houses and attached townhomes. Altitude Business Park, on about seven acres south of Buffalo Junction, would create lots for a 69-room Cobblestone Hotel and eight commercial pads. Music on Main plays July 30 with The White Buffalo, and the Big Hole Arts Sunday Brunch runs August 2.

Calendar

What We're Watching

Both cities put their wastewater plants on the agenda in the same week, and both scheduled time to talk to each other, the first such moves since Victor dropped its lawsuit and gave up building its own plant. Driggs is building the plant that state regulators will permit for both cities, and one of its July 21 items is what Victor pays to operate it. Victor, on July 22, reopens its own facility plan, weighing alternatives now that it is no longer building a plant of its own. The county's own wastewater-treatment discussion lands on the July 28 agenda alongside the curbside-hauling contract.

What to watch: whether the resumed Driggs-Victor work sessions produce terms both councils will sign, and what Victor's share of operating the shared plant turns out to be.

Sources

• Driggs City Council Agenda, July 21
• Victor City Council Agenda, July 22
• Teton County Commission Special Meeting Agenda, July 23
• Teton County Commission Agenda, July 28
• Driggs City Council Public Hearing Notice, August 4
• Idaho Transportation Department Draft ITIP
• Music on Main
• Driggs Builds Its Wastewater Plant for Both Cities
• Victor Drops Its Driggs Lawsuit and Its Bid to Build Its Own Plant
• Interstate Workshop Catalyzed by Targhee Expansion Set for July
• Victor Appoints Sue Muncaster Interim Mayor