City finds more funds for air base

The McCook City Council found an additional $55,000 Thursday night to be used to offset a loss on the sale of the McCook Army Air Base.

During its final budget workshop, the council voted unanimously to transfer to items to the fund that will go towards repaying the $1.1 million the city lost after it sold the property in 2002.

The property was purchased by the city of McCook to be used as a new well field, however environmental concerns arose and the city tried to back out of the deal. The owner, Kim Swearingen sued the city and won his case in Red Willow County District Court.

During Wednesday night's meeting, the council transferred around $275,000 to be used to help repay the loan. Thursday night's actions will reduce the amount taxpayers must come up with to $765,000.

The cuts were made to the grant writer fund and the emergency enterprise fund. The emergency enterprise fund totalling $44,959 was held in reserve for special circumstances. "If this isn't an emergency, I don't know what is," Councilman Phil Lyons told his fellow council members.

The REWARD Grant writer funding was removed from the budget on a motion by Councilman Lyons.

The REWARD program is a group of six entities, including the city of McCook, Red Willow District 17 Schools, Mutual Fire Organization, Red Willow County, Community Hospital of McCook and the Economic Development Corp, of which each contributes $10,000 each year over a contract period of three years to a grant writer consultant.

The grant writer has billed the REWARD program according to actual hours worked and has not yet used about $97,000 of the funds the participants have contributed over the past two years.

The City Council unanimously agreed to remove this year's contribution from the city budget and asked CIty Manager John Bingham to approach the board members of the REWARD program to ask them to consider using the reserves to offset this year's contributions.

The council also discussed the proposed increases in water and sewer rates and were told by Bingham that the issues would be brought back before the council at a later date.