Illegal Laramie City Council Agenda Item

It seems to be a trend nowadays for government, at all levels, to try to dictate rather than to represent the will of the people, even when it is required to present an issue to the public for a vote. An item on this Tuesday's City Council agenda is a good example.

Resolution 2026-22, to be considered at the Laramie City Council meeting of February 16, 2026, is titled "Authorizing a Site Lease and a Facilities Sublease Agreement." At first glance, it seems as if it's some sort of unremarkable leasing arrangement. But if you dig in and read the attached documents - you can find them at https://www.cityoflaramie.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02172026-3802

in Item 13 of the agenda - you can see that this isn't so. In the first document, the City of Laramie agrees to lease City Hall to an out-of-state bank: FNBO, the First National Bank of Omaha, for 7 years. FNBO is to deliver a lump sum payment of about $2 million. But will the bank actually occupy or use the buildings? Nope. Instead, in the second document, FNBO leases the premises RIGHT BACK TO THE CITY, for more money than it paid, with the "rent" payments to be made over time.

In short, what we have here isn't a pair of leases; it's a loan. In fact, the City's "sublease" even contains an amortization table showing the amount of "interest" the City is paying out - yes, it actually uses the word "interest" - and it comes, in total, to more than a third of a million taxpayer dollars. The City is borrowing $2 million, and paying a substantial amount of interest, to spruce up its offices - perhaps because its downtown employees want digs as posh as the offices in the newly built Municipal Operations Center north of town.

Can it do this? Yes, but there's a condition. The Wyoming Constitution - Article 16, Section 4 - states that "No debt in excess of the taxes for the current year shall, IN ANY MANNER [emphasis mine], be created by any county or subdivision thereof, or any city, town, or village, or any subdivision thereof in the State of Wyoming, unless the proposition to create such debt shall have been submitted to a vote of the people thereof and by them approved."

In short, an article of the Wyoming Constitution - which every member of Council has sworn an oath to uphold - states that instead of trying to disguise the loan as a leasing arrangement and pass it as a resolution, Council must put it to a vote.

Fortunately, now is a convenient time to do that. The City and County must go to the voters this spring to continue the Special Purpose Excise Tax - one of our extra pennies of sales tax - and so there is already an election scheduled. All Council needs to do to conform to the law is to put this item on the same ballot. But will it? Not if it approves this resolution, which appears to be intended to deceive the public and flout the law.

What's more, if we look back at recent City expenditures, we can see that $2 million just happens to be roughly the amount that the City spent to have a contractor fly drones over every property in the City, mapping out "impervious surface area" for the stormwater drainage tax - which ALSO, according to Title 16 of the Wyoming Statutes, was supposed to be approved by the voters rather than being imposed unilaterally. Had they not spent that money before the legally required election, perhaps they would not need to borrow the amount now at considerable expense.

What we see here is a disturbing trend: the Laramie city government increasingly trying to find ways to bypass voters, impose taxes, and spend our money without the voter approval that is clearly required by law.

If you're concerned about this trend, you can contact the members of Council at the e-mail address council@cityoflaramie.org. You also can - and should - show up at the Council meeting on Tuesday the 17th, when any member of the public can have 3 minutes to speak directly to Council. It's important that we tell Council not to flout the Constitution (and thereby violate their oath of office) and to trust us as voters to vet the way they spend our money.