Johnson County Year-in-Review 2022: January to April

Today we begin our look back at Johnson County’s top stories during the last year as we focus on January through April of 2022.

Sean Bissett was sworn in as the new Buffalo Police Chief during a ceremony at a city council meeting in January.

Mayor Shane Schrader said that due to the quality of applicants, the decision to hire Bissett was a difficult one to make.

In March, Johnson County’s Commissioners voted to approve and accept a tax settlement with Carbon Creek/US Realm in the amount of $22.7 million.

According to discussions, as of March 1, Carbon Creek owed Johnson County $31.7 million, and with the settlement the county will be losing about $9 million which is mostly penalties and interest they likely would not see if the process continued to drag on.

Also in March the Johnson County Cemetery District Board voted again to keep the $400 Saturday Burial Fee implemented earlier in the year.

The board was presented with another petition from community members that want to see the fee rescinded, bringing the total number of signatures to well over 1,400 according to discussions.

The eight-member board voted on the motion, with four voting for and three against rescinding the fee.

Chairman John Zorbas cast the final vote against, and the motion failed because of the tie vote.

Johnson County’s Commissioners rescinded COVID-19 restrictions that have been in place since 2020 by passing a resolution at a meeting in March, in response to Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon’s lifting of all COVID restrictions statewide earlier this month.

The resolution was put in place to allow county government to continue to provide services to the public while keeping public interaction to a minimum during the pandemic, to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and to counter the possibility of closing down entirely due to infected staff.

In April the Johnson County Commission voted to approve the amended shoreline regulations for Lake DeSmet.

The Lake DeSmet Advisory Board worked on the revisions over the last couple of years, and the commissioners have been reviewing the final draft of the amendments in preparation for adopting them.

And those are the top stories in Johnson County from January to April of 2022.

We will have the top stories for the next four months tomorrow.