Storm Water Drainage Hearing

At noon on Thursday, February 19, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Senate File 116, a bill that would put to rest the issue of how municipalities do storm water drainage. Currently, some Wyoming cities - including Laramie and Cheyenne - claim that they can implement and bill for a storm water drainage utility without asking for voters' approval at the ballot box. Storm water drainage infrastructure is expensive, and so Title 16, Chapter 10 of the Wyoming Statutes says that cities must obtain voter approval of any financing scheme for a storm water drainage utility. But cities - prompted by their lobbyists at WAM - are claiming that a few innocuous looking words in a different Wyoming statute exempt them from their responsibility to seek voter approval. Laramie even went so far as to spend millions of dollars surveying every property in town, hiring multiple employees, and even billing citizens and organizations (including the University and the school district) before putting the issue to the voters. Angry town meetings and multiple lawsuits have been the result.

Senate file 116 would clarify municipalities' responsibilities and allow storm water drainage projects to proceed WITH THE APPROVAL OF VOTERS, preserving local control by preventing unelected bureaucrats from overriding the will of the public. And most importantly, it would moot the multiple lawsuits against the cities of Laramie and Cheyenne, which would otherwise create years of delay and uncertainty and waste many thousands of taxpayer dollars on legal fees as they were appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court.

You can speak in favor of Senate File 116 by going in person to the State Capitol or by testifying remotely via Zoom. The meeting will be held in Room W002 of the Capitol Extension, which extends northward from the basement of the Capitol Building. (Maps of each floor of the Capitol can be found at https://wyoleg.gov/docs/CapitolSessionPublicMaps.pdf.)

If you wish to testify via Zoom, you can sign up to do so by going to the Judiciary Committee meetings page at https://wyoleg.gov/Committees/2026/J01. Click on the "Details" button for the meeting (again, it's on 2/19 at noon), and then click the button labeled "Testify" in the window that pops up. Fill out the form that appears, and you will be e-mailed a Zoom link for the meeting.

It's very important that Laramie residents and business owners speak in favor of SF116, lest we be deprived of our right as voters to approve the City's billing scheme for storm water drainage. Currently, many citizens believe that the system is unfair, with large landowners getting off the hook for payment while the little guy gets no such consideration. The lobbyists from WAM will be out in force, and citizens will need to show up to make sure that members of the public are heard.