Town of Alpine Councilman Jeremy Larsen called into the Weekday Wake-Up on Wednesday, December 3 for the monthly report from Alpine. Councilman Larsen recapped the Dec. 2 council meeting, including a discussion on water and sewer along with a potential rate increase for town residents. Larson also recapped the annual Thanksgiving meal and summarize the role and work of the Alpine Travel & Tourism Board.

(0:00) Alpine Town Councilman Jeremy Larson joining us over the phone today. Good morning, Jeremy. How are you? (0:06) Good morning, Duke.

How about yourself? (0:08) Hey, doing well. Appreciate the time and thank you for joining us and giving us our monthly report from the Town of Alpine this morning. (0:14) Let’s start with Town Council last night.

Sounds like maybe utilities were part of the discussion again yesterday with the Town Council. (0:22) Yeah, we’re still kind of deep into figuring out our sewer and water and (0:29) discussing those as far as either rate increases or just how to better organize. Right now we just (0:36) started our radio read meter program for our water and so we’ve only had a couple, three months of (0:44) getting data in from that and we’re really looking to get a solid kind of six to eight months of data (0:51) before we kind of make any decisions with water and then sewer.

We’re looking at other options (1:00) kind of and unfortunately it looks like we may have to raise rates on sewer which (1:06) I don’t like to do, nobody on the council likes to do, the mayor doesn’t like to do. (1:10) Unfortunately that’s kind of where things are at in the economy of things going up and it (1:17) costs us more and unfortunately we have to kind of keep the wheel turning so to speak. (1:24) But we’re still looking at it.

We really are thankful for we’ve had a lot of community come in (1:31) and instead of just complaining actually put forward ideas and help us out there. We’re always (1:38) looking for solutions. By all means we do not know all and welcome productive solutions to (1:47) any issues that we have within town.

So we’re still working on that. Absolutely. So if that (1:52) rate increase were to go into effect, Jeremy, do you know how much of an increase that would (1:56) be at this point or is that still to be determined? That’s still to be determined, yeah.

(2:01) Yeah, we’ve got a couple more things that we’re looking at and trying to keep it as (2:10) minimal impact as possible but still to be determined. Alpine Town Councilman Jeremy (2:16) Larson on the weekday wake up this morning. Jeremy, anything else from last night’s town (2:19) council you’d like to report on? Not really.

We were just kind of getting our schedules together (2:26) for the coming 2026 year. One thing that was brought up was just all the activities and that’s (2:33) kind of where we’ve got a lot going on just like most of the communities right now with the holiday (2:38) season going on. I’d kind of like to give a recap on we had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner last (2:45) week.

The town puts on a Thanksgiving dinner for anybody who wants to come or who would like (2:53) delivery service. There were over 270 meals served including deliveries and leftovers taken so (3:00) that’s a record for us. Each year it seems to be getting bigger and bigger and really turns out (3:05) to be a community event.

We had about $1,400 was raised for the Alpine Food Bank and then just (3:13) really like to give a huge thank you to Top of the Rockies, their volunteers who cooked and served (3:20) and cleaned. We couldn’t do it without them. Alpine Fire and Star Valley EMS, they did all the (3:27) deliveries for the meals.

They do that every year so not only thank you for delivering the meals but (3:35) any you know standing by for any emergencies over the holiday season. (3:40) They’re integral to our communities and we thank them a lot. A huge and special thank you to Justin (3:48) Fritz and Alana Horton.

They go above and beyond and really make this event happen. (3:57) It was a huge success and every year it gets bigger and bigger. I was just going to say it (4:06) really is such a great tradition in Alpine and it does.

It takes a whole community to pull it off and (4:12) very, very cool. Again, Jeremy Larson this morning, Alpine Town Council on the weekday (4:17) wake up. Jeremy, you also represent the council on the Alpine Travel and Tourism Board so while (4:22) we have you on the air wanted to ask you about that and have you speak to that.

Just remind (4:27) our listeners the purpose of the Travel and Tourism Board and kind of your focus with the (4:33) projects and what you guys do. Yeah, so Alpine Travel and Tourism Board, (4:40) our focus you know it’s based from lodging tax dollars that so if you book a hotel, motel, (4:49) Airbnb, RV, guide service within the incorporated boundaries of the town of Alpine, (4:55) you pay an extra one percent on your lodging tax. Statewide it’s five percent so those who have a (5:03) lodging tax set in place it’s either an extra one or two percent.

Town of Alpine we just have it as (5:11) one percent. That way we’re able to get monies directly back to our community so we don’t keep (5:18) all the six percent. We keep essentially two out of the six percent that’s charged and that comes (5:24) directly back to the town of Alpine and we use that state statute has us use that for the (5:32) promotional efforts to promote the town of Alpine to bring tourists in.

We’ve with the (5:42) precedence of other communities over the last five years it’s kind of gotten not so much as a push (5:50) back but a balance of promotion but also of helping out the community. So you have because (6:01) the community votes this in it’s not a permanent the one percent is not a permanent tax. The (6:07) community votes it in every four years and for us that’ll be 2026.

So you know we want to show that (6:15) that not only are we promoting Alpine but we’re also giving back to the to the community and so (6:22) grants that we’ve had in the past have been a fireworks show for 4th of July, (6:29) Mountain Days events here in town of Alpine, Winter Jubilee, the Trout Unlimited banquet (6:37) in the spring. We’ve done several projects with Star Valley Arts and have an art project from (6:46) summer and winter and then Alpine Trails and Pathways our winter grooming for cross-country (6:54) on the lake bed. This year we have releasing a groomer for the town of Alpine so we can connect (7:03) the graze to McCoy Creek.

That’s been since the widening of of of 89 kind of lost that (7:12) that connection to McCoy Creek and so we have a grant to try and rebuild that that connection (7:20) and we meet generally in the spring time. We take open applications from January 1 to March 15 (7:29) and then we generally have three readings after that because our fiscal year is starts July 1 (7:36) to June 30th so there is a bit of planning involved if you want to put in an application. (7:43) You kind of have to think ahead so say if you have events going on for this time next year (7:48) in the winter you’d want to put an application now that January 1 to March 15 date but it’s a (7:56) board of three and and we’re pretty community-minded and we kind of want to you know we try and choose (8:01) the best applications for what will kind of fit that promotion but also really come back to (8:10) help the community.

That’s Alpine Town Council Member Jeremy Larsa this morning on the weekday (8:14) wake up. Jeremy appreciate your time thank you for the update. Anything else we missed you wanted to (8:18) touch on today? I know we just have quite a few events coming up from Santa this weekend to (8:24) lion dancing to bingo so always something going on around the holidays you can always find more (8:31) information going to Alpine Town of Alpine website and look there or call the town and (8:39) they can get you filled in.

Jeremy Larson Alpine Town Council it’s all part of the (8:43) weekday wake up this morning on the SVI radio network.