City reconsiders annexation of Work Ethic Camp

By GLORIA MASONER

City Editor

After a request from Work Ethic Camp Superintendent Raleigh Haas, the McCook City Council will reconsider its decision to exclude the facility from consideration for annexation.

During the citizen's forum of the regular meeting of the council Monday night, Haas explained he had been out of town during the original discussion on the issue at the council's Sept. 15 meeting.

Haas told the council that zoning, as well as response time of fire and ambulance services were important to WEC since it is subject to accreditation through the American Corrections Association.

Haas asked Councilman Phil Lyons to explain a comment at the previous meeting stating that he didn't feel the city needed a correction facility within city limits.

Lyons told him the city would be responsible for supplying services. "This city is already strapped. The state won't be paying any property tax. We'd bring in 100-200 prisoners, but they (won't) bring in any revenue."

Haas told him it was a trade-off. "You have to consider the service the offenders provide to the city of McCook -- the thousand of hours they've dedicated to this city."

The council will reconsider the annexation of WEC at its next meeting.

The city will work in cooperation with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, Educational Service Unit No. 15 and the University of Nebraska at Kearney, to begin making improvements to ponds at Barnett Park.

The Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund grant is for $151,874. That money will go toward transportation of the UNK Mobile Environmental Lab, and kits and collecting materials for area students. It will also go toward the excavation to dredge the ponds, reinforce the banks and grass for reseeding.

The city will only be responsible for in-kind services including the time spent to remove the existing cement slabs being used to stabilize the banks, relay new bank stabilizing materials, replant damaged grass, keep books and remove the sludge from the ponds to another area of the park.

Federal funds equaling $75,000 will be used for the dredging equipment.

McCook Public Works Director Marty Conroy said he believed the estimated in-kind contribution, totaling $37,725 was over-estimated.

"We can do the job quicker and cheaper than what's listed," he told the council.

"This will be a face lift for the entire park," he said. He also pointed out that the dredging process will remove sediment that has blocked the natural springs that flow into the ponds.

The community and students involved in the project will also help research ways the city might be able to decrease the population of geese at the pond -- one of the major contributors to the sludge plugging the ponds.

During a public hearing to discuss levy special assessments for the grade and gravel districts, water extension districts and sanitary sewer extension districts at the McCook Business Park, Greg Wolford asked the council to reconsider the 6 percent interest to be paid on the city- funded portion of the assessment.

He requested the city consider charging 1 percent over the amount of the current interest rates the city receives from lending institutions.

Lyons raised his objections to the decrease -- to 4.5 percent -- saying the last special assessment charged by the city was 6 percent and he saw no reason to give the EDC special treatment.

"I think, to offer a sweetheart deal to the EDC just because two members of the EDC board are sitting here is a disservice to the community," he said.

However, Councilman Jerry Reitz who, along with Mayor Jerda Garey, is part of the EDC Board of Directors, agreed with Lyons.

"This would be a slap in the face to the people who live on M Street," he said.

A motion to set the special assessment interest rate at 1 percent over the current city interest rate and a second motion to set the rate at 4.5 percent failed unanimously.

The motion to set the rate at 6 percent passed unanimously.

During the council comments portion of the meeting, Dick Trail told the council he thought the city should make a better effort to make the "customer feel he is right every once in a while."

Trail was responding to an Open Forum in Monday's Gazette from Jeremy Bains. Bains said the city had been responsible for a sewer leak in the basement of his house.

City Manager John Bingham told Trail city policy required the city to refuse a claim and submit it to the city's insurance carrier. Once the company investigates the claim, and if the claim is denied, the claimant has the right to take the case to court.

"If the council wants to change the way we do business, we can certainly talk about it," he told Trail.

His intention was not to change the city's policy, Trail explained, but to improve residents' attitudes and perceptions of the city."