Carbon County commissioners adopt comprehensive plan, honor child-welfare staff and award 42-month electric contract

The Carbon County Board of Commissioners on June 5, 2025, adopted two planning documents, issued a proclamation recognizing Carbon County Child Welfare Professionals Appreciation Week and awarded the countys electricity supply contract to Constellation New Energy for a 42-month term at $0.09723 per kilowatt-hour.

The actions combine a policy decision the county says sets long-term priorities for housing, infrastructure and outdoor recreation with an operational decision on energy procurement that will determine the countys electricity supplier and price for the next three-and-a-half years.

Tim Staub, the project manager for the county comprehensive-plan process, told the board the two planning documents were developed in a 16-month process beginning in January 2024 and followed a public outreach and discovery phase. "We prepared 2 planning documents for the county, both of them, running parallel to each other, and both so by following the same process where we did a discovery and outreach phase, which led to envisioning and building capacity for implementation," Staub said.

Staub summarized key findings the plan committee heard during outreach: a net loss of housing stock in some places because housing is being bought as second homes; differing housing demands by geography; rising childcare costs (he said overall childcare costs rose about 12 percent over five years and up to about 40 percent for single-parent households);…