TORRINGTON – The Torrington City Council convened for its first October meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 3 at the Torrington Council Chambers. 

Mayor Herb Doby was present with council members Richard Patterson, Dennis Kelly, Wayne Deahl and Shane Viktorin.

During the meeting, City Clerk and Treasurer Lynette Strecker introduced the solar energy generation project that Sandhills Energy and the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN) is proposing.  

“Last year, around July or August, we were contacted by MEAN in regard to the possibility of entering into a solar generation project,” Strecker told the council. “We had a different council, there are three new members. At the time, we wanted to research it more and look into it.”

Since that time, the city has held several work sessions to discuss the topic and work out any potential issues. Representatives of MEAN and Sandhills Energy has also attended a few of these sessions to answer questions and provide information. 

The request for the council was to vote on whether to continue working on the details of the project and the contract or decide against it completely. 

“This solar project was started about two years ago in some other communities,” Matt Reed from MEAN said. “Some of the other communities involved include Alliance, Nebraska, Gering, Nebraska, Sydney, Nebraska and Yuma, Colorado.”

“It is MEAN’s responsibility to provide wholesale electricity to the city of Torrington and we try to do that at as low of a rate as possible,” he continued. “We came across this opportunity with Sandhill Energy for these solar facilities. [With these facilities] we could strategically place them in our member communities that would benefit them, benefit MEAN and our 67 communities as a whole.”

Reed explained that if the project was approved, MEAN would sign a purchase power agreement with Sandhills for a solar facility. The facility would then be constructed within Torrington’s distribution system. In return, Sandhills would have a lease agreement with the city and pay them for the use of the property. 

Sandhills would be completely responsible for the construction, maintenance, operations and anything associated with the facility itself. Reed said the plan is the city of Torrington would not have to be involved with the future operations of the facility but would benefit from the annual lease agreement. 

“We think that it’s a good project for both MEAN and the city of Torrington,” Reed said. “Although MEAN would own the generation from the facility, Torrington’s load would be carried by that facility.”

According to Raki Giannakouros, the executive vice president of Sandhills Energy, Sandhills Energy is passionate about distributed generation. Whenever possible, they try to bring in utility-scale pricing through distributed resources in smaller communities like Torrington.

“We’re hopeful about a mutually beneficial partnership here that benefits not only all the members of MEAN but specifically Torrington and its community members,” Giannakouros said. “[These benefits are expected through] the rent of the property, through the visibility of solar and energy production and property tax increases. We estimate that this project would raise about $60,000 in property tax revenue for the city.”

Giannakouros also said that Sandhills will be responsible for repairing the facility if anything happens to it, like hail or wind damage.

While answering questions, the representatives did say that based on the model study completed for Torrington, they are confident the facility will be able to handle any extreme high and low voltage incidents. They have included a visible pull breaker for the city, in addition to the remote breaker, for extra safety for city workers. 

Dana Youtz, the city’s electrical supervisor, voiced that he has several concerns with the project including the quickly evolving technology, potential harmonic problems and potential issues to the city’s system. 

Another concern for Youtz and members of the council is damage from severe weather systems. According to the plan, the solar panels that are going to be used are rated for three-inch hail hitting it at 60 mph.

The council approved continuing with negotiations for the project with a three to two vote. 

City Attorney James Eddington read the first of three ordinance readings relating to the prohibition of fowl in the animal control district.

“This is a housekeeping matter where we accept out the R6-A zoning in the last sentence,” Eddington explained. 

The R6-A zone was created to allow limited agricultural use, however, the animal control district ordinance was not updated. Before this change, it still did not permit chickens inside of the city limits. 

The council approved the reading. The final reading will be on Nov. 7.

The council approved the updated contract for the WAPA Firm Electric service contract. There were no major changes.

Eddington read the second of three ordinance readings to establish the change from R-3 and C-1 to R6-A for Lot 7 and 8, E. 101.8’ Williams Subdivision.

At the Sept. 19 meeting, resident Carl Carlson explained that he requested the zoning change so he could continue to have his chickens. He was under the misunderstanding that he was outside of the city limits, however, recently realized he was not. He has had chickens for seven years. 

The zoning for R6-A permits the resident limited ag use, including having up to 50 chickens. 

The council approved the reading. This is the second of three required readings for this ordinance. The final reading will be on Oct. 16. 

During the mayoral informational part of the meeting, Doby asked for residents to continue to watch out for increased bicycle, motorcycle and pedestrian traffic.

He also announced that Van Clement, the program director of the Wyoming Chapter of Alzheimer’s Association will be at the senior center Thursday, Oct. 12 from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

The next meeting of the Torrington City Council will take place Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. in the Torrington City Council Chambers at 436 East 22nd Avenue.