Council Summaries - Feb. 2 and Feb. 16, 2021

Individuals and media outlets are encouraged to contact the City Administrator for additional details or clarification on the following material. Regular meetings of the Crete City Council are held on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 6 p.m.; Council Standing Committees may meet prior. View a list of City Officials and current council and committee meeting agendas.

Summary for Crete City Council meeting - Tuesday, Feb. 16
View this Meeting Agenda and attachments

This meeting was held in the Community Room at Crete Public Library to accommodate social distancing.

The council approved the Consent Agenda items:

• Minutes of the following meetings: Legislative and Economic Development Committee Feb. 2, Public Works Committee Feb. 2, Public Safety Committee Feb. 2, Council Feb. 2
• Treasurer’s Report
• Claims against the City

The council held a public hearing on the 2021 One & Six Year Street Improvement Plans and then adopted the plans.

• City Administrator Tom Ourada explained these are required by the Nebraska Department of Transportation in order for the city to be included in the state’s transportation improvement program. Plans must be completed by a certified street superintendent, making Crete eligible for state funds. The city typically receives between $650,000-$700,000 annually for street projects.
• Plans first go to Planning Commission for review and a public hearing. The 1-year plan is unchanged with the exception of an asphalt overlay on 12th Street and Linden Ave, which was taken out; gap paving project plans for the north side of town were also modified and now reflect engineer’s estimates. The 6-year plan is unchanged from what was done last year.

The council granted Lamar Advertising a special exception use for an outdoor advertising sign in the railroad right-of-way across from Nestle Purina. 

• City Attorney Kyle Manley and Building Inspector Brad Bailey were primarily handling this request. Kyle explained the application is to replace a sign that was damaged by a car accident almost a year ago and since then the city has made changes to the sign ordinance. There is a special exception for signs of this type, which the council can approve or deny for this location.

The council adopted Ordinance 2120 on its third and final reading: An ordinance relating to the annexation of the Crete Municipal Airport. With that action, the Crete Airport will now be entirely in the corporate limits of the City of Crete.

Officer reports:

Tom Ourada

• City officials are continuing to work on details regarding the Crete Core ingredients expansion.
• Weather challenges - The Water Department was working with the Street Department the last couple weeks moving snow, and today (Tuesday) they were fixing a broken water main in -27 degree weather. Street crews have been putting in long hours moving snow and making streets passable.
  • At about the same time, but unrelated and about six blocks away, a transformer blew and was on fire today (Tuesday), which also had the Electric Department out in sub-zero weather. They also spent the weekend chasing a blink on one circuit; so they spent the better part of the weekend in the very cold weather checking all devices on that circuit.
  • Wastewater plant staff stayed overnight at the plant to manually operate equipment that was freezing in the sub-zero temperatures.
  • All City administrative, office, and Library staff have been working in 60 degree temperatures indoors to conserve energy while helping customers and their situations. Police officers were not only out in this weather, but dealing with 60 degree inside temperatures as well.
  • The city is trucking in fuel oil to operate the power plant. Tom explained the city is generating power to go out on the grid, so it is not really benefiting the City in this particular situation. The city leases the power plant capacity to their power supplier, MEAN (Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska), who puts it out to Southwest Power Pool.
  • Tom said our people are very well-trained and they are rocking it in some of the most adverse conditions. He is really proud of our city employees who know what they’re are doing and do it very well.
• Tom also reported people continue to push snow into right-of-way and block sidewalks and right-of-way with snow. This is a violation of city ordinance and violators can be cited for doing this. In some instances it doesn’t seem like it would be an issue, but in a lot of situations it does cause issues and the city can’t say it’s okay in one situation and not okay in another. Officials will be making efforts to contact these people to stop violations from occurring.
• BRAC (Blue River Arts Council) would like to be on a future agenda for approval on a contact with their architect. City officials will work with the Finance Committee and BRAC on an agreement and a process that will let them move forward with the things they need to do without appearing in front of the council for specific items.

Mayor Dave Bauer said he appreciates everything city employees have done during a couple of rough weeks. He talked to several businesses, everyone was very understanding. He thought putting things on the website and social media let people know where they can go for facts.

Meeting adjourned. 

Summary for Crete City Council meeting - Tuesday, Feb. 2
View this Meeting Agenda and attachments

This meeting was held in the Community Room at Crete Public Library to accommodate social distancing.

The council approved the Consent Agenda items:

• Minutes of the following meetings: Finance Committee Jan. 19, Council Jan. 19
• Treasurer’s Report
• Claims against the City

The Council approved the Coulter request for an Administrative Subdivision.

• City Attorney Kyle Manley explained there are issues with the attached plat for this request. The property owners are asking for an administrative subdivision from one to two lots on property on South Boswell that was annexed into the city by the adoption of Ordinance 2117 at the Jan. 19 meeting. Manley recommended the council approve the subdivision and that City Administrator Tom Ourada be authorized to work with the surveyor to fix the plat issues.

The Council approved Ordinance 2120 on the second of three required readings: An Ordinance relating to the annexation of the Crete Municipal Airport

Officer reports

• Joy Stevenson, Library Director
  • Thursday, Feb. 4 is an online training for the new Libby audio and ebook app from Overdrive;
  • The library will help in the coordination of the tax assistance program again this year. Protocols have been developed between Doane and the library. The documents will be dropped off at the library and Doane students will complete the tax returns remotely. All documents will be returned to the library for the clients to collect;
  • She received photos from BVH Architecture, which hired a professional photographer to take photos of the completed library;
  • Upcoming ‘One Book, One Community Read’ - Friends of Crete Public Library helped with funds; they are still in the process of selecting the book and related programs.
• Shelby Brown, noting today was her last day as Human Resources Coordinator with the city, thanked everyone for the opportunities working at the city, saying it was an “awesome experience and I will take it with me through the rest of my career.” 
  • Mayor Dave Bauer said the time she spent with the city has been great and as HR Coordinator, she developed the area like the city hadn’t had before.
• Ryan Hinz, Ward II Council Member, reported on the Lincoln Food Bank distribution in Crete with over 300 participants. The Food Bank reported over the last 12 months, 200 tons of food have been given out in Crete.
• Brian Carnes, Ward I Council Member, reported an individual commented on use of the parking lot at 12th and Norman.
• Tom Ourada, City Administrator
  • He talked with Jeff Ray from JEO who recommended waiting on seeking Comprehensive Plan proposals until mid-year when census data comes out. It could be beneficial to have that data for prospective consultants to consider when they make their proposals. Ourada said it makes good sense. He and Kyle Manley will take that recommendation to the Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 15.
  • - The continuity of operations plan is always being looked at and considered; the governor extended meetings for elected officials, in a virtual capacity, until the end of April.
  • - The city fully intends on opening the pool this year, with guidelines if need be. He has asked Dan to work on this. The fire and police department members who wanted to be vaccinated have been; Public Works is next on the list.
  • - Snow removal - He reported that generally, the city did a pretty fair job with hiccups here and there. Good people learn from mistakes and good departments always evaluate after this type of situation. The city kept every piece of equipment moving 24 hours a day and the new snowblower paid for itself with efficient snow removal in the downtown area. They will always get complaints from people who think it should have been done another way, but it’s unreasonable to expect an alley to be done at the same time as a highway or major thoroughfare - that budget scenario would be unmanageable. He believes they will do even better next time.
  • - There was a request for group rate on 10 parking spaces in the lot at 12th and Norman; the request is not unreasonable, however, the council set a rate at $25 and Ourada didn’t know how members want to work it. He recommended a future agenda item to address the latitude to consider and talk about a group rate.
    • Travis Sears said he didn’t want to get into situation of negotiating new rates for each person who requests one.
• James Yost, Assistant Fire Chief 
  • - Presented Crete Volunteer Fire and Rescue’s 2020 call statistics, a project coordinated by department member Will DeHart. Yost said they were about 100 calls down from 2019. He said members felt there was a lot of fear of going to the hospital with COVID and that may have been a big factor in people not calling for ambulance service in 2020.
  • - The department is waiting on a date for zoom meeting to conduct a pre-build conference for the new tanker build.
• Mayor Dave Bauer said he was very pleased with the snow removal effort by all city crews involved. He also recognized the Street Department with 2-3 newer members, who encountered their first big snow storm as employees.

Meeting adjourned.