The Powell City Council plans to ask voters this fall to approve a temporary, 1% sales tax to help build a new senior center.

The proposal still needs to be fleshed out and discussed with other government officials around Park County, who will need to collectively decide if they want to pursue a new tax and if they want to include other projects. But after hearing from Powell Senior Center leaders about the need for a bigger facility and of the dearth of other funding options, Powell council members endorsed the concept of seeking a specific purpose tax to pay for a roughly $7.3 million facility.

“I certainly appreciate the work you guys have done and wholeheartedly support it,” Mayor John Wetzel told senior center leaders at a Monday meeting.

Senior center leaders said Monday that they want to pursue a countywide tax that could incorporate other senior-focused projects in Cody and Meeteetse. However, council members in those communities and Park County commissioners have yet to formally weigh in on that idea.

Seeing a need

Leaders of the Powell Senior Center have spent years planning for a new facility.

The current center on North Gilbert Street was constructed in the 1950s and formerly served as an auto garage.

“It is a typical hodgepodge,” said Wes Vining, who serves on the center’s board.

The floor space is spread across three different levels and only about 2,500 of the 6,000 square feet can be used to provide services, leaders have said, as the other areas aren’t easily accessible for those with disabilities or limited mobility. Parking is also limited, which has led some seniors to stay away from the center, Vining said.

Still, the facility stays busy serving the area’s growing population of senior citizens — including serving up an average of 183 meals a day from a “very small, inadequate kitchen,” Vining said.

He and other leaders of the nonprofit that operates that center, Powell Senior Citizens A Go-Go, say it’s not feasible to fix all the issues. As just one example, there really isn’t any room to expand in the residential neighborhood.

At one point, they intended to build near the Rocky Mountain Manor, but they later decided to purchase the VFW’s former property on South Fair Street. The organization demolished the old clubhouse and then donated the 1.69-acre parcel of land to the City of Powell in order to boost their odds of grant funding. They want the city to own the new facility and then lease it to Powell Senior Citizens A Go-Go.

Architectural plans are ready for a 8,600 square foot new center, but what’s missing is the cash to actually build it. Despite exploring state and federal grants and seeking funding directly from the Wyoming Legislature, Vining said they’ve had no luck.

“We’ve exhausted a lot of attempts,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of positive words, but we haven’t had as much action as we would like.”

The senior center is now hoping to turn to a 1% specific purpose tax. If placed on the ballot by local government leaders and approved by voters in November’s general election, the local sales tax rate would rise from 4% to 5% until a specific amount of money is collected.

Had the new senior center been constructed last year, it was projected to cost about $7.3 million. Vining said that number is expected to rise with inflation, but he said the group wants to ask voters for less than $8 million.

Next steps

State law does allow cities and towns to pursue a sales tax increases within just the boundaries of  their municipality. However, because there are no general and specific purpose taxes currently in place in Park County, the law indicates that a Powell-only tax could last no longer than two years, which would likely not be enough time to generate $7.3-plus million.

In some past specific purpose taxes, the City of Powell, the City of Cody, the Town of Meeteetse and the Park County government have each included their own projects and presented them to voters as a joint package. For example, a $13.68 million tax that passed in 2016 widened Absaroka Street in Powell, upgraded sewer lagoons in Cody and Meeteetse and improved the South Fork Road and replaced bridges in the county; the tax was in place from April 2017 to April 2019.

Officials from the municipalities and the county have been discussing the potential tax and possible projects for months, with some mixed views expressed at a Cody City Council meeting in August.

Ultimately, at least two out of the three municipalities (Powell, Cody and Meeteetse) and the Park County Commission must agree to put a countywide tax on the ballot.

“I think we need to continue the conversations with the other entities …,” Wetzel said Monday, “to develop the language for the ballot, and start going to all the entities for the formal approval.”

The local government officials have some time to come up with a plan; Park County Elections Deputy Katie Johnson said her office likely wouldn’t need to have the ballot language in hand until perhaps July.

(Editor's note: This version of the story adds more clarity about the theoretical possibility of the City of Powell pursuing a city-only tax.)