Benefactor offers to loan funds to pay off arena

Red Willow County commissioners tabled for a week any action on an offer from its arena benefactor to help the county pay off the loan on the now three-year-old Kiplinger Arena on the fairgrounds in McCook.

To build the arena, McCook-area farmer and rancher Tom Kiplinger pledged the full amount and paid half up front. The county borrowed $285,000 from the Nebraska Association of County Officials (for 15 years at 4 1/2 percent interest) to pay for the remainder of construction costs. Kiplinger was to repay the loan with his estate, if not sooner.

The NACO loan will be paid in full in 2017; the county has 12 years left on the loan.

However, Kiplinger has now made an offer to help the county retire that NACO loan, Commission Chairman Earl McNutt said during the commissioners' regular meeting Monday morning.

McNutt said that Kiplinger would like to pay off the NACO loan himself and replace it with another promissory note for the unpaid balance in which the county pays him (Kiplinger) 5 percent interest on the principal over 20 years. He will forgive the principal payments.

However, Red Willow County Attorney Paul Wood doesn't think the county can accept Kiplinger's offer. "There are only certain ways that counties can go into debt and borrow money, and this isn't one of them," Wood told commissioners.

Wood said that after extensive research, he found no authority for the county or the county board to borrow money this way.

Commissioner Leigh Hoyt told Wood, however, that people he talked to about the offer felt it could be done. Wood suggested that Hoyt have his people contact him, and they would research the matter deeper.

Commissioners and Wood will discuss the offer at the commissioners' Sept. 5 meeting, at 11 a.m.