City Council - Regular Meeting

The Columbus City Council meeting for July 6, 2026 will now come to order. In compliance with the Open Meeting Act, a current copy of the act is posted in this meeting room. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll?

Bulkley?

Here.

Alarcon? Here. Barr?

Here.

Hemer?

Here.

Jablonski? Here. Lopez? Here. Polinski?

Here.

Roth?

Here.

Schilling?

Here.

Mayor Bulkley, the roll has been called.

Thank you. Mr. Council President?

Our Father, thank you for the opportunity to serve our fellow citizens. Please give us your wisdom and guidance to make the proper decisions entrusted to this governmental body. May our conduct show respect, honor, and courtesy to each other as well as to all our citizens. Amen. Amen.

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening. I welcome everyone to tonight's City Council meeting. If at any time during our meeting this evening anyone would like to come forward and speak to any item on our agenda, we welcome you to come forward to the podium. We'd ask that you give your name, your address, and we'd ask that you keep any comments to five minutes or less. With that, we'll move on and start with our consent agenda.

Item four is the consent agenda. The following items are considered to be routine by the City Council and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a City Council member or citizen requests, in which event the item will be removed from the consent status and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda. Item 4A, minutes of the June 15, 2026 City Council meeting. 4B, reappointment of Russ Straley and Brian Carney to the Board of Appeals for three-year terms. Item 4C, Title IIIB, supportive services. Title IIIC, nutrition. And Title IIIE, family caregiver support. Grant funding from Northeast Nebraska Area Agency on Aging for the Senior Center. Item 4D, resolution number R26-84, authorizing payment of various improvement projects. Item 4E, finance department report. And item 4F, payroll and bills on file. Mr. Mayor and council members, is there anything you would like removed from the consent agenda?

Mr. Mayor, move the items on the consent agenda be approved as presented. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to reports of city offices.

Item 9A is Columbus in Focus from the General Administration team.

Betsy Eckhart, Director of General Services. This is the second quarter update of the general administration team. The quarter at a glance employee recognition monthly banquet was completed. Two dedicated public servants retired. Am I doing all of just Tammy's right now? Is that what's happening? Okay. Okay. Two dedicated public servants retired after nearly 75 years of combined service. The housing study stakeholder meetings were completed. Four grants closed, totaling more than $408,000. Social media reached over 50,000-plus followers, and the new How City Works video series was launched.

Okay.

Do you hear me?

All right, Tammy Ornder, Human Resource Director. So June was our employee recognition month. It was the first year that we did this, and it was a great success. So each week on Monday, we had something different. Monday was the breakfast. The following Monday was, see if I can get this straight here, the coffee drink. And then it was the ice cream. And then our lunch, we had it at barbecue. And it all turned out great. So what we'll do is we'll have a meeting with the committee to wrap up and see if there's any suggestions. And then these here are the new recognized people that were submitted for the different stuff that we have. So Power and Progress was awarded to Matt Weiland. He is a police officer. Well, actually, he recently resigned after his nomination was approved like within a week or so. He turned in his resignation and he felt really bad. He's like, I can't accept this. And I'm like, no, you do. and then Jackie Anderson in the library. Productivity went to Jonathan Lovell, he's in City Hall. Exemplary was Matt Sokep, one of our IT. Citizen Volunteer was Samantha, I think it's Dedrickson, She is in the library every day, so if you go in the library, she's on first floor. I think she stays in that one corner, but she cleans all the videos, does a lot of work for the library. She's just there every day. And then we had two retirees, Brian Husenfeld, police officer, and Captain Todd Falcon, and it was kind of crazy because they both started within a year, and they both retired within a couple days. So that was kind of an overview of our June kickoff month was a good month. Any comments? Thank you.

Jean Van Iperen, Planning and Economic Development Coordinator. You'll start seeing probably this month we received a Columbus Visitors Bureau grant to help promote Columbus. We originally applied for it for the TRACS Creative District, the TRACS Side District, and Parks and Rec and when we went before the board they asked that we do more of a marketing campaign for all of Columbus and so that's kind of what we're doing. Still plugging the downtown area a little bit more but so you'll start seeing ads being pushed out on Facebook. You may hear something if you're traveling to like norfolk grand island fremont area you might start hearing some radio ads and that type of thing that will be running those through on the summer just promoting columbus as a destination for recreation arts and shopping and so uh... second thing that my department dinner my area did is we close out for grants this month uh... total project costs for all four of these grants total was five hundred fifty four thousand five hundred and seventy dollars the total grant value was four hundred and eight thousand plus change and so that means only twenty three point four percent of City taxpayer money was invested in these projects with over $16,000 coming from the community in in-kind services or in private donations. Three of these grants were art-related grants, and the fourth one was the Safe Streets for All plan that we had developed. And then the last thing that we did this month Um, our housing study consultants came out and did their stakeholder meetings. And so that's, um, kind of one of the final steps they're working on finalizing their data and implementing the suggestions or the feedback that they received from in the community. And so they'll, we'll be getting a draft copy of the housing study shortly, and hopefully we'll have something to counsel in August. So I think that's.

Did that study cost us?

I'd have to look. I'm not really for sure, but I want to say it was around $40,000. Forty? Yeah, I think so. And that's about in line with what we had paid the last two times that we had done it, so.

Matt Lindberg, public communications manager. The mission has been to keep our community informed and connected. So the city is all over social media. We currently have accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram. We're dabbing in TikTok a little bit, not a whole lot. But Facebook remains our biggest platform. We have the most followers there. We have 50,000 plus followers collectively across our eight Facebook pages. They're coming from not just Columbus, but Schuyler, David City, Lincoln, Omaha, other Nebraska communities, some from all over the United States, and a few dozen from overseas, Pakistan, the UK, so maybe former residents or people that just really are curious about what's happening in Columbus. We've also had a lot of success with video lately. We launched our How City Government Works video series online, and the first two episodes garnered 20,000-plus plays. On average, our videos are averaging 10,000 to 15,000 plays in a week after they're released. So you may have seen some starring Sherea, Chuck, our public works director, Chris. I don't know if Jerry's been in there yet. You've seen our police and fire chiefs in videos. They've been very cooperative and very good about that. And then those are a couple of graphics to the side that have done really well on social media. I was a little disappointed more people didn't show up to the council meeting after the Star Wars-themed one, but there was a lot of good feedback from it. Recent in-depth stories driving engagement. These are all topics we've covered through our news flashes. We have people that subscribe to City News Alerts on the website for free. They can get them text notification or email. This is also garnered, republished in different media outlets, and we're getting media requests from them. And then these are just some ideas that we developed. New city seals or temporary city seals. for the 250th anniversary of America. I worked with city leadership on the main one there, and then worked with the fire chief on the fire department one, and our police department came up with the other one. All of those got an amazing response online, so that was good to see. Any questions? All right.

Hey, everyone. Shreya Schott, city clerk. I'll keep this super simple with my numbers. So resolutions, we had 34 in the past three months. Ordinance 7, we had a handful of public records requests and some topic of consideration forms in there as well. Sold 15 cemetery spaces, filed three property liens, and then we had a lot of... Licenses that were renewed so we had garbage hauler licenses with seven of those 12 firework Permits were issued as well as 12 registered tree services, and then we also had some SDLs that were approved as well I'm representing IT today IT

is finishing the migration of the Microsoft 365. They are working on the GIS portal upgrades. They've been working with Commonwealth on the Frankfurt Square lighting improvements. They put in new payment terminals over at the concession stand at the Pawnee Plunge. They are continuing to do their server upgrades and desktop deployments.

All right, Chris Norquist, Director of Finance. So some things that have been going on in the finance department is obviously our budget process. So there's been a lot of work that's been done on developing our 26-27 budget with the CIP, personnel requests, the cost of living adjustments, all those things, and then boiling it down to what is our operating expenditures for this next year, which determines property tax levies. So that's an ongoing process, but it's been working on that for the last couple months now. Another thing, and I remember there a couple months ago I brought this up when I presented the TIFF stuff, but we did have two projects that paid off this year. One was the Hobby Lobby and the other is Ramada and the amounts are there on each. It's kind of worth noting that the Hobby Lobby project paid off about five years early and the Ramada is about four years early. So those were pretty good projects that really developed. Don't really have anything else on that one. The other thing related to TIF is this year, every year as of July 1st, we have to file the notice to divides on any of the new projects that are on there, are developing. And this year we had 10 notices to divide that we had to file. Normally there's only like maybe a couple. So all those projects are listed there. It's kind of like I said, there's a lot of those moving forward. So any questions?

Okay, that's the end of the general services presentation. Any questions as a whole?

Thank you all very much. Thank you. Move on to new business.

Item 13A is appointment of Henry Juarez Basilio as a police officer.

Council members, with your permission, the mayor wishes to submit the name of Henry Juarez Basilio for appointment to police officer position at the July 6, 2026 city council meeting. Per council rules, the two-week waiting period is waived for an appointment of a police officer. The Civil Service Commission certified him at their April 6, 2026 meeting. Mr. Juarez-Basila is a resident of Columbus, Nebraska, and a graduate of Schuyler Central High School. He served as a military police officer for the Army National Guard in Kearney from 2018 to 2024. and is currently enrolled at the Central Community College in Columbus, where he's pursuing an associate degree in information technology. He is currently employed at Becton Dickinson. His qualifications include military police basic training, weapons safety, basic IT troubleshooting, and certifications in CPR, first aid, and AED. Upon appointment, he will attend the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center and participate in the Columbus Police Department's field training program. This is a budgeted position. Do we have a motion from the council? Mr. Mayor, move for this appointment.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Henry is with us. Would you please come forward and introduce yourself?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Henry Basilio. I live here in Columbus. Currently, my wife stepped out with my son. I'm pretty sure you guys saw that. It may be a lot of energetic. So about myself, I was working at BD. Last night was my last day. And I just want to thank you guys for having me a part of the Columbus Police Department. I really appreciate it. I mean, if you guys have any questions,

Welcome and good luck.

Item 13B, application from Knights of Columbus for a special designated liquor license at 26th Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, August 7th, 8th, and 9th, 2026 for Columbus Days.

Mr. Mayor, move the application from Knights of Columbus for a special designated liquor license for August 7th, 8th, and 9th of 2026 be approved.

Second. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 13C, comments from the mayor and city council members in compliance with the Open Meetings Act. No discussion may be held on this item.

Any council members have any comments for discussion this evening? I have nothing this evening, so we'll move on to resolutions.

Item 14A, Resolution R26-85, awarding bid to Danielle's Approach LLC in the amount of $245,070 for PAPI on Runway 32 and a beacon project for the airport. This is CIP 26-15.

Mr. Mayor, move for the adoption of Resolution R26-85. Second.

We have a motion and a second to approve resolution number R26-85. Any discussion?

Is there any federal money with this, or is this all budgeted money?

There is federal money with it, correct, Rick?

Yeah, we received this Nebraska Aeronautics Commission grant for $371,000, which was actually more than we were asked for, believe it or not. So it really makes this project go a lot better. Yeah, so there's money involved.

Okay. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? All right. Seeing none, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 14B, Resolution No. R26-86, approving the Medical Collection Services Agreement and Business Associate Agreement with Automated Collection Services Incorporated for collection processing of delinquent accounts for emergency medical services.

Mr. Mayor, I move resolution number R26-86 be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-86. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 14C, resolution number R26-87, authorizing submission of grant application to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in the amount of $250,000 for the Pawnee Park West Trail Connection Project.

Mr. Mayor, move the resolution number R26-87 be adopted.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number 26-87. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. This council meeting is adjourned. We will move immediately into our next meeting, which will then be...