City Council - Regular Meeting

Columbus City Council meeting for July 20th 2026 will now come to order in Compliance with the open meeting act a current copy that the act is available in this meeting room on the agenda table Madam clerk, would you please call roll?

Oakley here Alarcon here bar here humor here Jablonski here Lopez here Polanski here Roth here Schilling here mayor Bulkley the role has been thank you.

Mr. Council president.

I

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.

By the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed 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 council meeting. If at any time during our meeting anyone in our audience, if they would like to any item on our agenda we'd invite you to come forward and State your name and address and we'd ask that you keep any comments to five minutes or less With that we'll move on to the consent agenda item for 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 the City Council member or citizen requests a

and which event the item will be removed from consent status and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda. Item 4A, minutes of the July 6, 2026 City Council meeting. Item 4B, minutes of the July 6, 2026 Community Development Agency meeting. Item 4C, resolution number R26-89, authorizing payment of various improvement projects. And item 4D, 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 discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to public hearings.

Item 7A, public hearings. Citizen Advisory Review Committee report of activities in accordance with the Columbus Economic Development Plan.

Is there anyone here to speak about or to this plan? Anyone speak against this plan? Any particular questions about the plan? May I remove the public hearing and be closed? Second. We have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor, signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 7B, this is not a public hearing. The application from Clark J. Grant on behalf of CRH Limited Company for preliminary plot of Hall's Culligan subdivision on the southeast corner of East 23rd Street and East 12th Avenue. The Planning Commission recommends approval.

Council, any discussion or any questions?

Why is it not a public hearing?

It's the preliminary plat. It's just here because immediately following this is the final plat, which does require a public hearing.

Okay. Mr. Mayor, move the preliminary plat, Halls, Culligan subdivision be approved.

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

Item 7C, public hearing application from Clark Grant on behalf of CRH Limited Company for final plat of Hall's Colligan subdivision on the southeast corner of East 23rd Street and East 12th Avenue. The Planning Commission recommends approval.

Is there anyone here to speak for this public hearing?

My name is Paige Ritz on behalf of Life is Golden LLC. Address is 245 Sandy Bank Street, Lee, Nebraska, and I am requesting final plat of this subdivision.

Do we have any questions or comments for Paige? Thank you. Anyone here to speak against this public hearing?

All right. Mr. Mayor, I move that public hearing be closed.

Second. We have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion carried.

Item 7C1, resolution number R26-90, approving the final plot and development agreement.

Mr. Mayor, I move resolution number R26-90 be adopted.

Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-90. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. That brings us up to reports of city offices.

Item 9A is an update on the Nebraska Department of Transportation Loop River Bridges project by City Engineer Rick Bogus.

They seem to keep making progress. Probably since the last time we talked, they made a lot of visual progress, and they're always making progress, but this is the one that people really get to see. So they're actually done pouring the deck part of the southbound bridge. They have the... south side of the bridge connected from the road. They still have the shouldering and the islands to do, but they've got that connected. Then they'll work on the north side of that. Longer term, they are probably a few months ahead of schedule. And so they were going to move traffic over early in 27. They now plan on moving traffic to the other side around Thanksgiving, maybe right before Thanksgiving. So that'll be nice. That will also What that does, it also allows them to start removing that temporary bridge in October, November, December, that kind of timeframe, to get that out before the typical March floods and March icing events. So that temporary bridge should be gone from that side. So then next year, what they'll do is they'll just be patching that north side bridge, finishing it up, and hopefully that few months they're ahead will be a few months earlier they can finish the whole project.

Any questions for Mr. Bogus? One question I would have, you mentioned patching the north side. So just what is going to happen? I mean, they're not redoing the north side. They're patching the north side. Do you know any more of that scope? Just to give the public the general information.

Yeah. So when they went into the design of the project, they did an evaluation of that north brown bridge. This would have been a few years back, right? And they decided that it did not need a total redecking, that they would just patch the holes, patch the bad spots, fix the railings, things of that nature, just kind of fix it up. That would last a long period of time. During the past few months, we asked the DOT to take a second look at that. There's probably a lot more patching now than there obviously was a few years back. And with the additional traffic on it, there's a lot of holes. We asked them to take a look back to see if they would do a total redecking on that northbound bridge. They did evaluate it. They had their bridge engineers come out and talked about the high levels of the DOT. There are some things that prevented that from occurring from their side. One of them would be they have a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers section 408 permit that wasn't in the 408 permit to re-deck it, so that would be a little length to do that. They also have the NEPA stuff that's the environmental that would have to go back and do a lot of things. So timing was an issue. And of course, money is an issue. It's harder, it's a lot more money than to do that in timing. We thought maybe since the contractor was here, they could maybe do a change order to this project to do that. They have decided not to move forward. So it's back to the original bid plan, which is to patch the bad areas, fix the railing, fix that north end up the best they can. That would be in addition to it. If you recall, that north end had that dip, and they put the asphalt wedge in there. They'll go back and fix that the best they can, too. It will not be a total rebuild of that intersection. Again, if they totally rebuild it, they're back to the 4048 permits and everything. So they'll go back and they'll make it smoother and tie in a little bit better in that. They're hoping that the new deck would, after it's patched and they put the mill in and everything, they're hoping to go about 10 years. That's the rough number on their part. So they'll have to go the other side about 10 years for a decking anyway.

Okay, thank you. Well, I think one thing that you said that's very important for the public to understand is you said it's going back to the original bid, the original concept. What's happening really is nothing that has changed. You had asked for some change, but they didn't go with it. This is originally what the plan was, which I think some public probably didn't totally understand that. So I'm glad for you to explain that. Any other comments or questions for Mr. Bogus? Appreciate the update, Rick. Thank you.

Item 9B is Columbus in Focus from the General Services team.

Betsy Eckhart, Director of General Services. This is the Columbus in Focus for the General Services team. The past 90 days, we have been working on refining our priorities and action items according to our strategic plan. or our strategic priorities, which is workforce, efficient delivery of city services, community relations, and collaboration. So we are redefined in some of those action items.

Jerry Hopkins, library director. Our slide talks about return on investment. So this is for the 24-25 year where we have the entire year's worth of data. So it's based on how much people would pay for books if they checked them out, movies, that sort of thing. And we come up with an average of cost for that. For instance, a book is averaged at about $20, even though some books will cost $60, some cost $10. So it comes up with an average. And then it takes how much money we spend from taxpayer dollars and subtracts it from the total that the citizens would pay for. And that comes up with $1.21 million worth of savings to residents if they had had to purchase all of the materials that they used at the library, subtracting how much it costs to actually run the library. So that explains that. Does anybody have any questions for me?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jean Van Eyprin, Planning and Economic Development Coordinator. Part of my job is overseeing the creative district and the Columbus Arts Gallery. We offer exhibits on a monthly basis to local and regional artists, and our gallery is totally free to the public. We have had, in the last three months, 723 unique visitors come through the gallery, and of that, that consisted of Columbus residents, 42 other residents from, residents from 42 other communities, as well as eight states in one foreign country. We also offer workshops and educational classes through the gallery and we had 79 unique participants in those. Our average class size is limited usually to 10 or 15 participants. It depends on the artist and the skill that they're learning. And our gallery is not staffed by city workers the majority of the time we rely on our docents who are volunteers to the gallery. And so our docents in the last three months worked 163 hours for us. And so that is, we are very appreciative of our docents in order to provide that service to the community. And then another part of my job is the liaison for the Business Improvement District. They have been very active for the last three years. We're starting our fourth year, we'll be starting our fourth year next year. just within the last 90 days part of our Mission is to promote the downtown and so we have a very active social media presence our social media posts saw 300 over 360,000 views we've promoted over 243 unique events and We increased our followers by 307 and we featured 17 different businesses. And what that means is that once a week we run a little spotlight on one of the businesses within the district so that people get a feel for what is downtown so that they can come and visit. We've also ran 11 different social media campaigns and we've written 22 different blogs. And what that is is just stories telling about the downtown, what it has to offer. It may include the sculpture walk, any of the things going on in the gallery, the community mural that was painted as part of the Columbus leadership class, those types of things. And the BID, the biggest thing that they've done in the last 90 days is finish the Frankfort Square permanent lighting project that was started. This was a project that they worked on for over two years trying to find a contractor and get it up and going. And so now we have permanent lighting in Frankfort Square.

Matt Lindberg, Public Communications Manager. I'll keep it fairly simple. In my job, my role is to work with city departments to share the city's story, connect with residents, and highlight the impact of the good work we're doing on an everyday basis. So most recently, I've been working with members of the engineering department and Keep Columbus Beautiful on some informational or educational videos about oil spillage. We're seeing an uptick lately of people leaving oil in different parts of town, just cans of oil everywhere. So we're going to be Recording those videos in English, Spanish, and French to try to address it across the community with people of all backgrounds. I worked with the Trax Creative District in Jean on a marketing plan for them. And we've been putting out some kind of just Graphics about Vitality Village and showing the progress that has been made in the last few years. Those have been doing really well. And then Betsy and I host the Cities podcast, bringing on elected officials and members of the staff to talk about city programs and what we're up to. And we've been getting a good response from that. Our viewership continues to go up steadily. So, yeah, that's it.

Sydney Moracek, Parks and Recreation Director. Starting out with the Pawnee Plunge, I just checked the numbers right before this, and it's pushing 30,000 check-ins so far this summer. The biggest day was June 28th, and all the kids were excited about it, but it was 1,236 people in one day, so it was a busy day. And for swim lesson programmings, there's currently 185 kids registered throughout four sessions, so that's a pretty good number. And those are membership counts on the bottom obviously the household is and the punch cards are becoming more popular as we're seeing And then recreation side we had 11 tournaments from April until June We had six softball tournaments which averaged 30 teams a weekend for baseball averaged 23 teams a weekend and then we had one adult softball slow pitch and which was new this spring, and they had about 20 teams. We have 20 teams in our summer co-ed softball, so nine men's and 11 co-ed. We've done five weeks of beats and eats, and then we have three remaining this summer. Parks and Rec has also applied for three grant applications. Any questions?

Any questions for any of our I'd like to make a comment where you go right ahead sir.

Thank you very much I am just amazed at the number and quality of programs that the city is sponsoring The library is just going nuts. Thank you very much Likewise parks and rec there's something going on almost every night every afternoon I'm Kudos to you

Thank you. Well, and I think you could add one comment to that, Councilman. When we talk about green spaces in our parks, one area that wasn't even highlighted is our golf courses. And, you know, we know they have seen unbelievable play, unbelievable tournaments, and they are in pristine shape for this time of year. for the conditions that we've had. So kudos to them also, but I totally agree with you, and I think everybody up here does too. Thank you for those comments. Good job. Good job. All right. Okay, all right. Move on to reports from council committees.

Item 10A is the Public Property Safety and Works Committee of July 20th, 2026. Item 10A1 is request from Keys Development LLC to vacate the 10-foot utility easement abutting the north right-of-way line of 14th Street within Lots 1 and 2, Block A, Sauk Pond Addition to the City of Columbus. This is at 14th Street west of 48th Avenue and west of the existing houses. The committee recommends approval.

Second.

Second.

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

Item 10A1, request from Keys Development. Excuse me. Sorry, I just read the, my computer jumped around. Item 10A2. Request from CRH Limited Company to vacate the 25-foot access easement in Lot 2 Sandbar Subdivision to the City of Columbus, Platt County, Nebraska, a minor subdivision of Lot 2 Block C Sand Subdivision, Platt County, Nebraska. This is at the southeast corner of 23rd Street and East 12th Avenue. The committee recommends approval. Mr. Mayor, I move the report be adopted.

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

Item 10A3, minutes of the January 21st, 2026 American with Disabilities Compliance Committee meeting. The committee recommends approval.

Mr. Mayor, move this report be adopted.

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

Item 10A4, the Traffic Control Device Committee Report for the second quarter of 2026. The committee recommends approval.

Will this report be adopted? Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt this committee report. Any discussion? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to new business.

Item 13A, appointment of Christopher McElwain as police officer.

Council members, with your permission, the mayor wishes to submit the name of Christopher McElwain for appointment to police officer position at the July 20, 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. McElwain is a resident of Omaha, Nebraska, where he graduated from Northeast High School. Throughout his professional career, he has served as an armed security officer for both government and private entities, an armed detention officer, a field training officer, and a Federal Reserve law enforcement officer. He holds certifications in crisis intervention, CPR, first aid, AED, basic life support, and firearms instruction. He is also certified to provide instruction in realistic de-escalation techniques and field training. In 2018, Mr. Elwain received the Silver U Award in recognition of his quick response and heroic actions that ultimately saved the life of an individual trapped in a burning vehicle. Council members, do I have a recommendation?

I would move to approve Christopher McElwind as police officer and be ratified.

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. Christopher is in the audience. Would you please come forward, introduce yourself, and let us say hello to you.

Hello. I'm Christopher McElwain. I want to thank Mr. Mayor, the City Council, and Chief Stryker for appointing me to this position. I look forward to serving the community of the City of Columbus with professionalism, integrity, and respect. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome.

Item 13B is a request from Butcher Saloon, LLC, doing business as Glers Tavern for a lottery sales outlet location at 2301 11th Street.

Mr. Mayor, move the request from Butcher Saloon, LLC, for a lottery sales outlet location be approved.

Second.

I 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, quote, and field and order, purchase order number one from Great Plains Nursery in the amount of $26,657 for tree replacement within the city parks, the full amount to be reimbursed through the Nebraska Inflation Reduction Act Community Forestry Program. Excuse me.

Mr. Mayor, I move that the quote and field order number one from Great Plains Nursery for tree replacement be accepted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to accept this quote. Any further discussion?

Just a question.

Yes, sir.

How many trees does $23,000 buy? $26,000. That's a couple more trees.

It buys 137 trees. 137.

Yep. Thank you.

And just to reiterate, Full amount is to be reimbursed through the Nebraska inflationary reduction act community forestry program grant perfect so all right Any other comments seeing none all those in favor signify by aye those opposed nay aye Motion passes.

Item 13D, quote from Pro Track and Tennis in the amount of $47,200 for resurfacing of the Centennial Park Tennis Courts. This is CIP number 26-26.

Mr. Mayor, I move the quote from Pro Track and Tennis for Centennial Park Tennis Court to be resurfacing be accepted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to accept the quote from Pro Track and Tennis. Any discussion? None all those in favor signify by aye those opposed nay Motion passes Item 13 e 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 with comments this evening?

Yes, sir, mr. Last week at Hy-Vee there were a large amount of police officers that came to the restaurant area, and they sat down and discussed things with the participants of the breakfast group, and it was very well accepted. The people there thought it was fantastic that they Police Department would take time and come out and sit down with them and chat about it. So, Chief, appreciate that. Very well accepted.

Very good. Any other comments? Anyone? All I would add, and I know it's a busy time of year, but I have made the commitment to try to be available for the people. I will be at the library from 9 to 10 o'clock on Saturday morning for my open forum and would welcome anyone that wants to come and visit about whatever and whatever. All right. We'll move on with resolutions.

Item 14A, resolution number R26-91, accepting the deed of dedication for Sauk Pond subdivision, the eastern lots located on the north side of 14th Street west of 48th Avenue. The Planning Commission recommends approval.

Mr. Mayor, I move that resolution number R26-91 be adopted. Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-91. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 14B, resolution number R26-92, amending the bylaws of the Columbus Planning Commission. The Planning Commission recommends approval.

Mr. Mayor, move for the adoption of resolution R26-92. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-92. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 14C, resolution number R26-93, amending the criteria for administrative review of special designated license applications.

Mr. Mayor, I move resolution number R26-93 be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-93. Any discussion?

Could we maybe let the public know what a special designated license might be?

Sure. A special designated liquor license is when a liquor license holder applies for a vend outside of their normal venue.

We just left the word liquor out.

Yeah, technically it's called the special designated license. It gives more context, I understand.

A little more context. I thought maybe we were going to have Brent Roth doing tennis lessons or something.

That would be outside of the scope of R26-93. Thank you for clarifying. We have a motion and a second to adopt resolution number R26-93. All those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to ordinances on their first reading.

Item 15A, ordinance number 26-13, vacating a 10-foot utility easement abutting the north right-of-way line of 14th Street within lots 1 and 2, block A, Sauk Pond Addition, to the City of Columbus, Nebraska. This is at 14th Street west of 48th Avenue and west of the existing houses.

Mr. Mayor, I move that the rules be suspended and ordinance number 26-13 be read by number only.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and read ordinance number 26-13 by number only. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Ordinance number 26-13.

Mr. Mayor, I move that ordinance number 26-13 be adopted. Second.

We have a motion and a second to adopt ordinance number 26-13. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Item 15B, Ordinance Number 26-14, vacating a 25-foot access easement in Lot 2 Sandbar Subdivision to the City of Columbus, Platt County, Nebraska, a minor subdivision of Lot 2, Block C, Sand Subdivision, Platt County, Nebraska, southeast corner of 23rd Street and East 12th Avenue.

I move that rule be suspended. Ordinance Number 26-14 be read by number only.

We have a motion and a second to suspend the rules and read ordinance number 26-14 by number only. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes.

Ordinance number 26-14. I move that ordinance number 26-14 be adopted.

We have a motion and a second to adopt. Ordinance number 26-14. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Brings us up to unfinished business.

Item 19A, the annual performance evaluation of city administrator Tara Vosacek.

I move that the City Council go into closed session at this time. The subject matter to be discussed in closed session shall be performance evaluation of City Administrator Tarabasacek. The reason for going into closed session is for the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual. I, Mayor James Boakley, and City Attorney Neil Valores will be included in the closed session.

The Council President has made a motion to go into closed session at this time. The subject matter to be discussed in closed session shall be the performance evaluation of City Administrator Tara Vosacek. The reason for going into closed session is for the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual. I, Mayor James Bulkley, and City Attorney Neil Vareras will be included in the closed session. All those in favor signify by aye. Those opposed, nay. Myself and I. Okay, we're all going in.

I need a second. Second.

Second. Third. Motion passes. The City Council has voted to go into closed session at this time. The subject matter to be discussed in closed session shall be the performance evaluation of City Administrator Tara Vasecek. The reason for going into closed session is for the prevention of needless injury to the reputation of an individual. I, Mayor James Volkley, and City Attorney Neil Flores. Yes, we do.

I move to exit the closed session.

Second.

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