(0:00) Monthly report from the town of Alpine for our guest interview segment this (0:04) morning. Alpine Mayor Eric Green joining us here on the weekday wake-up. Good (0:08) morning Mayor Green, how’s Alpine today? Everything’s going well, thanks for (0:13) having me on dude.

Hey you bet, I appreciate your updates and let’s start (0:17) with Monday night. You had the open house on Monday for the master plan and had a (0:23) chance to meet with residents to discuss that and further sounds like it was a (0:26) well-attended meeting, everything went well. What was your takeaway from (0:29) the open house meeting Monday? Yeah I think it went really well, the (0:35) consultants came away saying that attendance was beyond expectations so (0:42) yeah they were pleasantly pleased with how many people showed up and you know (0:49) got more information on what the master plan really is and what it means for the (0:54) town of Alpine for the next 15-20 years and yeah I was I was very happy that we (1:02) had a chance to communicate with the not only the residents of Alpine we have (1:08) plenty of people from Star Valley in general and just interested in what was (1:13) going on in Alpine and you know some of the some of the changes that we see (1:18) coming down the road here in the in the future.

So let’s talk about some of those (1:22) specifics mayor as the consultants in the town look at this master plan moving (1:26) forward what are some of the top priorities here? Well for sure it’s (1:32) laying out what one of the main things we do is look at the future land use map (1:38) and so we have what we call an area of influence which goes pretty much from (1:42) the state line up by bananas as you’re going to Idaho Falls all the way down to (1:47) like Ames Hill which is you know maybe five minutes south of Alpine and pretty (1:54) much all those people have their zip code is Alpine. So we want to lay out (2:03) like if people were to annex into the town of Alpine what zoning would they (2:08) come in as? For example if you’re right next to the highway maybe it makes a lot (2:13) of sense to come in as mixed-use so you could put commercial and then also have (2:17) opportunity put residential kind of away from the highway. If you’re in a (2:25) densely or if you’re in an area that’s mostly residential you know you’re more (2:29) likely to come in as residential and not have that option for you know commercial.

(2:36) So that’s one of the biggest things that has come out of this. We also had the (2:45) opportunity to show the public what the existing conditions were. You know this (2:52) study says this is where the town stands right now on all these different you know (2:59) issues as far as like people think that we need more restaurants and places for (3:05) business and things of that nature.

So I think we’re all on the same page there. (3:10) Overwhelming support over 75% of the residents think that we need more (3:15) restaurants for example. So and the other major thing that we have found is that (3:22) people want different modes of transportation, easier ways to get around (3:27) Alpine.

For example bike paths, walking paths, things of that nature instead of (3:32) Alpine right now is just a driving community. We drive to go to the store, we (3:36) drive to go to the post office. So that will be a major shift if all the future (3:43) you know developers that come in they’re required to put in bike paths and (3:47) walking paths in the future.

Alpine Mayor Eric Green this morning on the weekday (3:51) wake up. Next steps now I understand this isn’t a one-and-done open house right (3:57) people can still be involved in the process and submit some input? Exactly (4:02) yeah we’re gonna the consultants are going to be opening up another survey (4:08) period to have everyone’s voices heard and get feedback on the plan and what we (4:14) have going forward and look for more information on that on our website. But (4:21) our plan is to have the initial draft of the master plan in the spring and have (4:29) it ratified in the summer for sure.

Alpine Mayor Eric Green this morning on (4:35) SVI Radio. Mayor also last night was the monthly Town Council. Anything (4:40) coming out of Town Council last night you’d like to report on? We last night (4:47) was a lot of red tape that we have to do this time of year.

It was you know people (4:53) had to apply for their renew of their liquor license and things of that nature. (4:59) We had a special use permit for a developer in town. One of the most (5:05) important things that came out of the meeting is and I want to make sure the (5:09) people in Alpine understand this that we’re changing there’s potential of (5:15) increasing fees for water and sewer monthly fees.

So there was some feedback (5:22) that you know one gentleman showed up and said no one knows about this well (5:26) we’ve been talking about it for quite some time. So we just want people to (5:30) understand that we’re reevaluating what people pay for sewer and water and we want (5:37) to make sure that we are you know making sure that we’re always have enough money (5:43) to update the system and things of that nature but we really have to make sure (5:48) we’re covering our costs to operate the sewer and water. So you will be seeing (5:53) that over the next month we’ll have a couple more meetings and we are be we (5:58) will be looking at updating the fee ordinance for sewer and water coming up (6:05) soon.

And I’m sure it’s probably too soon to give an exact number but how much do (6:11) you anticipate that increase might be? I don’t know I would say it’s anywhere from (6:17) you know zero to 25 percent so that’s what we’re trying to establish. You know (6:25) we’re also in the middle of building a new pretreatment plant for the wastewater (6:33) for the for the sewer which deals directly with Melvin Brewery’s waste and (6:40) just getting that over the finish line for us it’s going to be huge but we we (6:45) want to make sure that we’re not necessarily raising rates just to cover (6:50) those costs but we need to raise rates to cover the ongoing operation of the (6:55) sewer and water. Mayor Eric Green with the Town of Alpine on the weekday wakeup (6:59) this morning.

Mayor anything else happening in Alpine you’d like to mention (7:01) today? It seems like we always have so much going on but coming up I know there (7:10) is a pancake breakfast for the veterans that the Veterans Auxiliary is putting (7:16) on this weekend at the Civic Center so definitely encourage people to go do (7:22) that and you know we have a few other things coming up of course over (7:27) Thanksgiving we have the annual Thanksgiving feast at the Civic Center (7:32) which is put on by Top of the Rockies and at no cost to the public so that’s a (7:39) great event. Encourage people that might have a lean year this year and may not (7:46) have the means to put together a big feast to come enjoy it with the rest of (7:50) the general public there at the Civic Center in Alpine. Absolutely you can find (7:56) more details on both those events by the way at svialpine.com. That’s Mayor Eric (8:02) Green this morning.

Mayor as always thank you for the updates we appreciate it. (8:04) Absolutely, thanks Duke. Weekday Wakeup on the SBI Radio Network.