City Council - Regular Meeting

I did today. That's right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to North Flat City Council meeting here on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. Calling the meeting officially to order. We have a invocation by Von Farnber from the Rock Church, please. As always, thank you guys for allowing the ministerial to open up the meetings with prayer. And so, let's go ahead. Jesus, we thank you uh for tonight and the city council is going to be going over a handful of different uh points of discussion. And Lord, we pray for each moment of discussion would be filled with grace um and as well with uh wisdom and discernment. Lord, we continue to pray for blessings on our city, um on our county, and Lord, all the residents that call North Plat home. We also pray an extra special blessing on our uh city council men and women with their health, their household um and their jobs. We thank you for this in mighty name. Amen.

Amen. 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.

Thank you everyone. Current copy of the open meetings act the state of Nebraska is posted on the wall at the back of the council chambers. Meeting procedure. The public may address specific agenda items the pleasure of the mayor. If recognized by the mayor, please identify yourself by stating your name and address. Please address the council through the mayor and limit your remarks. We respect our city employees and request that any complaints or criticism of employees not be aired into public meeting. Concerns about employees should be brought to the attention of the city administrator or the mayor. Individuals in violation will be declared out of order. Consent meeting. Oh goodness, I got ahead of myself there. I apologize. Calling the meeting officially to order. Angie, would you please do the roll call? Nly. Dye here. B here. N

here. Garrick here. Landers here. McN here. And next time say something earlier if you would please.

Sorry about that everyone. Okay. Did I forget anything else? No. All right, moving on. Consent agenda. All matters under the consent agenda are considered by the city council to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. Any city council member may however remove an item from consent by request. Number one, approve the minutes of February 17, 2026. B. Place on file treasures report for January 2026. C. Approve the application by Skyline Liquor for a special designated liquor license on April 3, 2026 from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. at First National Bank, North Plat at 2011 North Die Street, excuse me, for business after hours. D. Approve the mayor's appointment of James Okconor to the Historic Preservation Commission. E. Approve the mayor's appointment of Tammy Kashki to the board of adjustment as an alternate member. F. approved the updated North Plat Public Transit service contract, sorry, a bipocal issue here with Great Plains Health and authorize the mayor to sign necessary documents.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. A motion by RER. Second by BS. Mr. Mayor. Yes. May I request that item F be removed from the consent agenda, please? Okay. Any others? Second. I do have a second. Okay. All right. So, we'll vote um items A through E, please. Calling the question on items A through E. Mr. Lucas.

Yes. I I think our city attorney just has some items to share with us on F.

Yes. Um I just Thank you, Councilman Lucas. Um I had meant to send out a revised agreement to everyone. The version of the agreement that was presented in the council packet was actually an outdated version of the agreement. What got approved last year had a couple provisions um that didn't get changed and updated in the version that went out to everybody in their packet. So I just wanted to touch on those real quick so everyone was aware. Um so one of those items was that um and and again this is what has been happening over the last year. Um rather than having a 20 mile radius around city limits um we had agreed last year to a 30 mile radius for transportation. Um there was a provision in paragraph 1D um that uh that charges an additional fee for a roundtrip service um that's outside of uh city limits. And then at the end of the agreement uh we had negotiated something with the hospital and again it was in this contract uh this this prior year uh that we called it an indemnification and a hold harmless provision that applies to both sides. So that if there was some sort of an an event that causes liability that the hospital created they would be responsible for it and the same on our end. Um and so they're pretty standard provisions but I wanted to touch on those. Um and then if if um assuming that everybody's okay with those because again they're the same provisions that were in the agreement that was approved last year. Um if if somebody would make a motion to authorize the mayor uh to negotiate and sign we can that would give us enough authority in my opinion that we could make changes on the version that the mayor would sign for this year.

Mr. Mayor. Mhm. I move to approve u an authorization for the mayor to negotiate and sign the necessary documents of the updated Northplat public transit service contract with Great Plains Health. Second. Motion by Luca, second by Dy. Any discussion on that item? Ed. Mr. Mayor Bill, do we need to upgrade our charges? We weren't proposing any any changes to any of the the So that correct number was what we voted on. Yes. Thank you. Other questions or comments?

Seeing none calling the question on item F as motioned. Item F is passed as motion. Moving on to the regular agenda. Adopt the resolution accepting Sustainable Beef's verification of its payroll requirement, declaring Sustainable Beef's obligation to repay the Quality Growth Fund loan forgiven and cancelling Sustainable Beef's corresponding promisary note.

Mr. Mayor, I move to adopt a resolution accepting Sustainable Beef's verification of its payroll requirement, declaring Sustainable Beef's obligation to repay quality growth fund loan forgiven and cancelling Sustainable Beef's corresponding promisary note. Second motion by RER, second by Vols. Any discussion on this item? Gary, could I prevail upon you to give us a one or two minutes since it's been a while since we acted on this and kind of remind the public what we're doing here, please?

Yeah. Um, the quality growth fund of course allows um this is adopted by the voters. U not only the funding but the plan itself. And in it, it allows us to do what's called performance-based loans. In essence, they're grants, but they have a performance standard to them. And uh so we use that as part of the incentive package to entice sustainable beef to choose North Plat as well as develop here. And uh it did have its uh associated public hearings uh which they had many throughout their entire process, but it's one of the incentives that are are very critical when we're we're trying to uh uh create additional uh payrolls here. Um, and to Sustainable Beef's credit, they have far exceeded uh the standard we set in front of them as far as the threshold of number of employees, the the investment they made, and uh the tremendous impact they've had on our economy and our community. Uh I think you've seen the the fruits of the benefit of this project as well as many others that have come forward in the in the city with all the economic indicators that have been uh broken four consecutive years when we're talking about retail sales, lodging revenues, valuation growth in the community, um and uh to your credit, property tax reduction when it comes from the city perspective. So, um, we've checked the mark on a lot of different things and, um, congratulations to the company for, uh, not only meeting the standard, but exceeding it. And, uh, this is when economic development works. It's when you have programs like this and you have great projects move forward. And as a result of them choosing North Plat, we've also been been successful in doing several housing projects uh, as a result of it. So, I highly encourage the council to meet the city's obligation that they've met the standard and the loan should be

forgiven. Thank you, Gary. Uh, just some additional information. Where did Don go? Don, would you approach there just for a second so I can ask you a couple calls? We wanted to make sure that in the event of uh uh future audits that the city goes through, you all know we do annual audits, that that we would be able to appropriately document this. So, Don reached out to our auditors yesterday and said, "Do you feel the documentation we have is appropriate on this issue?" And they said

yes, they concurred. Um they validated the reports from their payroll reports that were submitted to the city. They also um highly uh commented that with great uh compliment the uh company who works with sustainable beef um from a payroll perspective and they were willing and they uh provided a letter to the city um basically verifying the numbers that were contained in the payroll reports that were submitted. So, um, we feel good about the documentation that we received from Sustainable Beef and appreciate them cooperating with us in that request.

Thanks, Don.

Other questions or comments Ed Mayor, thank you. Um I attended a league meeting here I don't know week and a half ago maybe and u it's interesting that more plant came up very frequently as far as kind of a bright star in the state and I think we can thank sustainable beef uh for a lot of that and so I just wanted to public publicly thank uh Mr. Briggs and what he's done with the rest of the people this facility out here. This is really quite an accomplishment when you consider that a town of what maybe maybe 26,000 people and we have an investment of roughly a half a billion dollars in a new facility and that's a pretty major major accomplishment. So, thank you very much.

Thanks, Ed. Other questions or comments? Seeing none, calling the question on item number two, please. Item number two is passed. Item number three, adopt the resolution accepting Sustainable Beast verification of its payroll requirement declaring Sustainable Beef's obligation to repay the Northwestern Energy Economic Development Fund loan forgiven and cancelling Sustainable Beef's corresponding promisary note.

Mr. Mayor, I move to adopt the resolution accepting Sustainable Beast verification of its payroll requirement and declaring Sustainable Beast's obligation to repay the Northwestern Energy Economic Development Fund loan forgiven and cancelling sustainable beef's corresponding promisary note. Second motion by RER, second by Dy. This is the the other half of this particular loan. Anyone have any questions or comments on this one? Mr. Mayor,

I know Gary already said this, but I just want to reiterate this for the public that the this process went through the quality growth fund committee. They made a recommendation. It came to the council and we agreed to the loan structure. And so I think we're simply just resolving to do what we already agreed to do. Rick, correct? Okay. So there's nothing um there's not any changes that I'm aware of. And so it's great to see a agreement go full circle and finish just as we had all planned. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Seeing none, calling the question item number three, please.

Item number three is passed. Item number four, authorize mayor to sign all necessary documents with Kidwell for door access and camera system upgrades. Mr. Mayor moves to authorize the mayor sign all necessary documents with Kidwell for door access and camera system upgrades. Second

motion by RER, second by Flanders. Lane, you want to talk about this one, please. So this was in front of the council a meeting or two ago and at that time we had been presented with um terms from Motorola who will actually be the equipment provider through Kiddwell for this and they had um determined to us that they would be able to give us um five years with no interest. After the council agreed to that, they came back and said they were not able to honor that and that was through the source well pricing. So Kevin and the IT department went back to Kidwell, who will be the ones actually installing the equipment and they were able to come back with a a lower price on the equipment itself, but we had to then go out and find financing over the five years for it. And that's so that'll be items number four and five when you actually consider the financing. So overall, it's going to cost a little bit more than it would have without zero financing, but we were able to get financing and a lower cost on the equipment itself. So um that's the change and that we felt we had to come back to the council since the terms changed on that item.

Thank you. Questions, Brad? Um did we approach any local vendors to see if they could provide this type of service? Kidwell is the authorized for Motorola equipment and so that is why we went with the Kidwell for the state for the territory is Motorola required. Is that why or what?

Motorola equipment was already be was part of the um rec center and to keep all the equipment the same we felt we should have the same system throughout the city. That was a reason for that. Does this change the service or any contracts after the equipment's installed? Um because are we going with a different company? We going directly same company. Same company. It's the same company. They just can't honor different contract. Okay. So, we're still going to have service and everything that we need after because that's always the biggest issue is you know people show up and they install the equipment but trying to get the service and issues taken care of.

We would still have that. Okay. Other questions or comments? Seeing none, calling the question on item number four, please. Item number four has passed. Item number five, authorize the mayor to sign all necessary documents regarding the use of municipal light and water funds for an initial payment to Kiddwell in the amount of $167,890 for door access and camera system upgrades. Mr. Mayor, I move to authorize the mayor to sign all necessary documents to use municipal light and water funds for an initial payment to Kiddwell in the amount of $167,890 for door access and camera system upgrades.

Second motion by Flander, second by Mcn. So originally with the the first time we went with this, we were going to um finance at 0% over the five years for the whole system. Um we had money budgeted from municipal light and water for their portion of it, which going to go for the the different parts of light and water. And so we felt to kind of save some money off the um financing if we paid outright for that portion of it with cash. And that way we would be financing a smaller portion and save some interest that way. And so that's why this is broke out in two separate pieces. Thank you. Questions or comments? Brad?

So if I recall, the the original agreement was we were going to peacemail this out over several years and then the financing came up and they're like, "Oh, we'll just do it all at the same time. We're still on the do it all at the same time." Correct. Didn't you didn't look at the peace meal it out now that we got a paper up front. There's going to be some price increases in March. And even though it's uh the next item, item six has financing costs, we felt that overall with the price increases that we're seeing on things, it would probably still be cheaper to do it all at once instead of trying to piece fill it through. Gotcha. Other questions or comments?

Seeing none, calling the question item number five, please. Item number five is passed. Item number six, accept the lease proposal and authorize mayor to sign all necessary documents regarding lease purchase financing with US Bank Corp Government Leasing and Finance Inc. for security cameras and on-site servers and door access controllers and equipment for multiple city buildings. Mr. Mayor, I move to accept the lease proposal and authorize the mayor to sign all necessary documents regarding lease purchase financing with US Bank Corp. Government Leasing and Finance Inc. for security cameras and on-site servers and door access controllers and equipment for multiple city buildings.

Second motion by Lucas, second by McNe. Might as well go for the trifecta loan. So um Don went out to our local banks and as well as US Bank um for financing options and um US Bank came back with the most favorable financing on this. And to kind of go along with what um Brad had asked previous, we because some of our camera systems um are quite old and some of them are also on the list that the state of Nebraska says we need to get rid of because the Chinese made components, we should just do it all at once instead of waiting. Ed,

Mr. Mayor Lane, who offered us a no the no interest feature that Motorola

Motorola direct had and then they came back and said they could not honor that. And I believe this is this is at 3.95% on this financing. So this helps us keep our budget instead of one big hit on the budget, it helps us over the five years is keep it fairly smaller smaller amounts over five years instead of one big amount of this year. Other questions or comments? Seeing none, calling the question item number six, please. Item number six has passed. Item number seven, accept the lease proposal and authorize the mayor to sign all necessary documents regarding lease purchase financing for US Bank Government Leasing and Finance, Inc. for one Bobcat UW56 and one E60R R2 series Bobcat compact excavator with extended warranties for use by the parks department.

Mr. Mayor, I move to accept a lease proposal and authorize the mayor sign all necessary documents regarding lease purchase financing with US Bank Corp Government Leasing and Finance, Inc. for one Bobcat UW56 and one E60R2 series Bobcat compact excavator with extended warranties for use by the parks department. Second give that one to Nick since he's been doing them all here. Motion by Ricker, second by McNe. Lane, looks like you're up again.

All right. So, for quite a few years, most of our departments when we've um gotten Bobcat equipment, Bobcat has offered really good lease um terms or basically rental terms on that over each year. Um in the last couple years, those terms have gotten more expensive on a yearly amount. And so we looked through each of our departments that um has these these types of equipment. And for the parks department, because of the relative few hours they put on them per year, um we did analysis and determined that it would be smarter to buy them outright and keep them for 12 to 15 years. Um which would allow us to keep our payments closer to what we had budgeted the last few years in the in the 8 to $10,000 range instead of going up above that. And so this this allows with this financing to keep those payments that way for the next I think seven years. And then years eight through whenever we would have to replace that equipment, we would have no payments on there. So it actually it's a few years down the road, but longterm on the budget for for the parks department, we should have some savings in in years 8 through 12, 13, 14, however long those that equipment would last.

Ed, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Um, how how long is the extended warranty waiting for? Um, the aisle four years. Four years extended. Okay. It's a fouryear extended warranty. What What is that extra? How much extra? I don't remember. I'd have to go back in the paperwork to see how much that cost. Do you remember, Lyall? $4,100. Okay. Thank you. Per unit. Per per unit. I assume this is the budgeted expense, correct? Yes, it it was budgeted as a rental or lease payment, but now we're going to transfer it over to a lease purchase payment.

Other ty I assume this is right, Bla, but I want to check because I don't see it in US Bank's documents. The city will own this at the end of the lease term. Correct. Okay. Correct. Who does who does the work on Bobcats here in town? as far as re repair work. Yeah, it's Bobcat out it. Correct. Okay. We do some in our shop, but if it's warrant covered by warranty, we take it there. Okay. What do you normally see through that for warranty work? What's the original warranty on that? Just out of curiosity. Anybody know? Well, he negotiated all this. So,

mayor, council, um, we normally just lease them for a year. So, it's always been covered under the warranty each year we have leased them out, right? That's why we're getting extended warranty on it because Okay. It wouldn't been a normally just a year uh warranty as a new machine. So, we're getting the extended warranty to carry that out. Gotcha. So, you you you haven't been taken to a to a are you seeing a lot of warranty work? No. in the first year. So, we really don't know what the warranty is on. The only thing $8,200 for two machines. That's that's a that's a pretty good chunk for an extended service contract to be perfectly honest with you for four years. I don't know. Yeah. I I can't. But you guys did the analysis and you think it's right.

We we talked with Adam in the shop as far as what some of the repairs would cost on some of the normal things they see that would fall under warranty and and he thought it it made sense. Okay. It may be close to a wash, but he thought, you know, if we had one more major thing happen, it made sense on there. Okay. All right. I I can accept that. Thanks. Okay. Thanks, L. Yeah. Thanks, La. Other questions or comments?

Seeing none, calling the question on item number seven, please. Thank you. Number seven has passed. Item number eight is pulled from the agenda because it requires a bit more work. Item number nine is pulled from the agenda at the request of the would it be petitioner? Would that be the appropriate term? Claimment. There we go. Which brings us to item number 10, approve the claims. Mr. Mayor, I move approve the claims. Second.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to abstain from voting on the claims. Motion by RER, second by Volos. Record show Mr. Dy is abstained. Calling the question on the claims, please. Claims are approved. Public agenda request. We respect our city employees and request that any complaints or criticisms of employees not be aired into public meeting. Concerns about employees should be brought to the attention of the city administrator or the mayor. Individuals in violation will be declared out of order. If anyone has a public agenda request item, please approach the microphone. Tell us who you are, where you live, and what your agenda request item is, please.

Mr. Rer, Mr. Mayor, I move that we adjourn. Second by RER, second by VS to adjourn. Calling the question on adjournment. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. See you on St. Patrick's Day.