While they haven’t said no, Powell City Council members appear very reluctant to let a local businessman move two of his properties out of the city and into rural Park County.

At Monday’s council meeting, only one councilor backed Dash Storage owner Mike Birdsley’s request to deannex his roughly 8 acres of land on the eastern edge of town. After Councilman Troy Bray moved to approve the request, nearly 30 seconds of silence followed.

“Guess you’re stuck,” Bray told Birdsley.

However, after some more discussion, the council decided to keep the request alive for at least a few more weeks: They re-tabled the measure to do more research.

Building in the city comes with more regulations and fees than in rural Park County — including a requirement to install curb and gutter — and Birdsley has been hoping to move his property out of the city from the get-go.

The two lots sit on the far end of East Seventh Street, east of Powell High School and the One Health clinic.

Dash Storage has constructed a set of storage units on the western lot, while the eastern lot has been graveled and fenced but is otherwise undeveloped. Curb and gutter would have to be built along the front of the western lot if and when the property is developed.

“It’s about money,” Birdsley reiterated to the council on Monday.

Council concerns

At their Nov. 17 meeting, council members voted 5-1 to advance a resolution that would deannex both lots. But when the measure came up for the second of three required readings on Dec. 1, councilors expressed unease about the precedent they might be setting. 

Councilman Steve Lensegrav said the move amounted to “going backwards” and might lead to other landowners seeking to get out of the city. He questioned why the city would agree to the request.

The council voted to table the resolution and continue the conversation with Birdsley.

At Monday’s meeting, Birdsley’s engineer, Scott Lewis of Granite Engineering, suggested the city should “take the attitude that we need to have a good product, and that people would like to get into the city, instead of the opposite, ... where everybody’s fighting to get out of the city,” he said, “because I don’t think that’s the case.”

Lewis also said that rather than worrying about precedent, the council should consider requests like Birdsley’s on a case-by-case basis.

“Precedence is kind of a fickle argument, in my mind,” Lewis said, “because I don’t have to look too far to find exceptions to most every rule in the city of Powell.”

There’s no city sewer service currently available to the parcels and because of the lay of the land, Birdsley would have to install a lift station to get service. Lewis said such a station, if designed for commercial purposes, could cost between $350,000 and $400,000.

It’s among multiple expenses that Birdsley is hoping to avoid with a move into the county. When he built storage units on the western lot, Birdsley spent roughly $35,000 installing curb and gutter; he doesn’t want to have that requirement if he develops the eastern lot, nor does he want it looming over the property if he sells it.

Council members informally offered to give Birdsley a few extra years to install the curb and gutter, but “I don’t see where that’s much of a compromise,” he said Monday.

The backstory

Up until the recent resistance from the council, Birdsley had understood it would be no problem to deannex the parcels, while some council members were caught off-guard by a request to remove an already-developed property from the city.

The confusion appears to stem in part from a breakdown in communication.

The city’s official minutes of a November 2020 meeting between Birdsley and staff quote him as saying he wanted to deannex the western lot after he finished building the storage units. Staff explained that Birdsley would “need to get the lot to the East to also de-annex” to avoid turning the western lot into a rural island with Powell city limits, the minutes say.

After acquiring that eastern lot last year, Birdsley renewed his attempt to deannex. In a November 2024 meeting with city staff, minutes say Birdsley explained that he wanted to move an easement for a future city street called Market Road and then get out of the city altogether.

The council agreed to move the Market Road right-of-way earlier this year so it wasn’t dividing Birdsley’s two properties. However, he didn’t attend the council’s meetings and it was never mentioned that the change was a part of an attempt to deannex.

At a Dec. 1 meeting, Lensegrav indicated he’d been caught off-guard, saying it felt like “we got played there a little bit, which … kind of digs me a little bit.”

“It’s like, we’ve made concessions for him [Birdsley] along the way, and now, all of a sudden it’s coming back on this deannex thing,” he said.

Birdsley, who wasn’t present for the Dec. 1 discussion, pushed back on Monday, citing the meeting minutes.

“How can you … say that you’re shocked and surprised that I’m even asking for this if you haven’t even went in and done your homework?” Birdsley asked. “You can see it’s very evident: I’ve been knocking on the door, begging to get deannexed.”

Though it’s not noted in the minutes, Birdsley said he came away from the staff meetings with the understanding that the city was fine with deannexation.

“It was, to say the least, very misleading over the years,” he said.

City Administrator Zack Thorington has said he recalls the conversations differently.

Doing more research

As Monday’s discussion came to an end, Bray again moved to support the deannexation of Dash Enterprise’s two lots. He said the other side of the city is a “hodgepodge of little fingers” of annexed properties. And given that Birdsley’s parcels are on Powell’s far edge and lack sewer service, “there really isn’t any reason to force somebody to stay in the city,” Bray said.

But his motion again died for a lack of a second.

Mayor John Wetzel then recommended that the council table the measure for the second straight meeting and look into the issue further. Birdsley made “a couple of good points about doing some more research and looking into this” and “it would be a little hasty to bury his $2,000 right now,” Wetzel said; that was a reference to fees Birdsley paid to get his request before the council.

Councilman Zane Logan agreed with the mayor’s idea, as did Lensegrav, who said he wanted to review the minutes from the staff meetings.

“I’m taking what you said to heart there,” Lensegrav told Birdsley. 

Wetzel asked his colleagues to “come kind of prepared to make a final decision” when they take up the subject again.

The council could reconsider the proposal at their next meeting, on Monday, Jan. 5.