City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Norfolk City Council meeting July 6, 2026. We're going to call this meeting to order at 5.30 p.m. I want to inform the public about the Location Open Meetings Act posted in the council chambers and accessible to members of the public. At this time, we'll have a moment of silence and then pledge allegiance right after. With 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. Roll call, please.

Granquist.

Here.

Arns.

Here.

Webb.

Here.

McCarthy. Beckman. Here. Jensen. Lange.

Here.

Hildebrand.

Here.

Mayer.

Here. All right, at this time we'll start with the special items, and we're going to have Steve give us a presentation on the 2026 chip seal project.

Thanks, Mayor.

It's been the talk of the town, Steve, for four weeks here. So, have at it.

It's more comments than presentations, so... Wanted to take it kind of take an opportunity here at one of the first council meetings ahead of for following the chip seal project Just going to give you an update Obviously there's been a lot of conversation going on social media about about the project What I would share with you is that within the within our engineering department Street Department? No, you know we are no happier with events of the project Than what I've been reading in social media by much of the city that's had to drive down those roads We've had to divert staff Over to that what should have been about a one-week project now. We're we're in week three And we're still still working on it to define exactly what? What happened with that? These chip so projects. I would say we're currently we're falling in that one and a half to two percent that don't go exactly as planned We've reached out. We've brought in Jeb row is the is the oil supplier to the project they supply oil in a five-state region We're working with the contractor Friday, I'll be in Lincoln visiting with the DoT in there and their asphalt research program and Right now, just based on the data we have, reviewing the process, what's occurred is what we would refer to as bleeding and or floating of the oil. Exactly why is what we don't know, but that's essentially what happened the oil bled through or floated to the surface We have a good a good seal the aggregate is embedded in the is embedded in the oil And so from a seal perspective you know I'm not concerned about about the outcome the final outcome of the project and But we do want to get to the bottom of why this project is falling into that one and a half or two percent that don't go quite as planned and so As as that conversation wraps up here in the next week or so I plan on presenting the findings at the infrastructure subcommittee next Monday As I mentioned it wasn't the typical process so I Typically, these things last from the time you shoot the oil to the time you're sweeping it up. It's about four days per segment. You shoot the oil. That oil goes down. This particular oil goes down at about 280 degrees. You drop the chips behind it. There's three pneumatic tire rollers that are rolling the aggregate in. They make three to four passes, and then you open that up to traffic. And generally, we don't see this bleeding or floating of the oil. The rock chips sit on the ground for up to 48 to 72 hours, roughly three days, and then we sweep up the aggregate. So from a process perspective, from a materials perspective, everything went as planned. It's just kind of that bleeding, the fact that we had to have traffic on that bleeding for as long as we did. We never did shoot more. Just to answer a few questions that came into my office, people were thinking that we were shooting oil on those segments multiple times, and we didn't. We shot oil on each segment one time. It was the week of the 15th that we shot the oil. We dropped the chips. Because of the bleeding, we were dropping chips every two or three days in some of those segments to get more chips embedded in there and try and keep that oil from continuing to float. I mentioned a meeting with Bob Ray from the DOT this Friday. The chips, in terms of where we are, we anticipate the chips to be, they're sweeping those up. As soon as those are swept up, the final process would be to restripe the streets. We're watching that right now. We want to be sure that the striping is going to take. So it'll probably be next week before we restripe those. ASR, I had some questions on why we chip sealed a couple concrete residential streets. And the reason for that is those streets are exhibiting high ASR, which is alkali silica reactivity, And from a pavement management and maintenance perspective, we need those pavements to last as long as we can. So we're trying to get another roughly 10 years out of those. If I had pictures up here and could show you what Gulfview looked like there on the west side of town four or five years ago, it was in pretty bad shape. It was a tough street to drive down and look at the deterioration there due to that ASR. We did some concrete repair in there. We put a chip seal on it We were very happy with the outcome of that. We did reseal that just to get a better seal on it And based on that we sealed a couple streets out in suburban acres this time We did El Dorado And those really came out very well. Visiting with Jebro, they're actually going to keep their eye on this from a research perspective. They're very interested in this. They've been wanting to see this done for probably the last two decades, haven't found a city willing to do it. We don't anticipate doing any more for another five years. We want to see how this holds. It does, again, it's providing a very solid asphaltic seal. It also, that asphalt works down into the joints when that oil is shot. It gets down into some of that ASR activity. And I think it's going to, I'm pretty confident it's going to hold that together for us and provide, you know, again, as part of our pavement management and provide a good 10 years The oil that is shot, this is what's called a class A oil. Between the oil that was shot, this is a cut oil. Again, it goes down about 280, 85 degrees. It's cut with diesel and jet fuel. Most of that sets what we call set. It evaporates out, and then that's what causes it to go from a liquid to a solid. Most of that sets out... pretty quick, usually within about the first half hour to an hour. The last, say, 5% or so, it might take two or three weeks for that to set out. So if you're out there walking on it, yeah, you might smell a little bit of an oil or fuel odor. That will go away in a couple more weeks. There was some damage on some storm sewer inlets. I've got a couple calls from those out in the out in the suburban acres area. The contractors is not a storm sewer contractor, so they're hiring one of our local storm sewer contractors to fix those lids. I would expect those to be fixed here in the next, probably by the end of July. In the future, would we continue to do chip seals? Yes, I can't say that we're not gonna do chip seals in the future. From an asphalt street perspective, once you lay down a new bed of asphalt, preferably you wanna be sealing that about every five years. Why, you wanna keep the water out, That's what degrades our streets, and then you also want to keep the UV rays off the asphalt those tend to break down the asphalt Compound it gets brittle prison breaks away from the rocks and in your deterioration starts, so I can't say we won't do them Certainly we want to understand again Why this one didn't go quite as planned so that we can work around that and avoid that in the future? Micro seals are certainly an option We did a bunch of micro seals kind of in this downtown area here six seven years ago Those hold up again about that five years most of those areas should be resealed again Disadvantage to them they cost about twice as much as a chip seal So as we're just trying to manage manage that budget make that budget go as far as we can and maintain our streets I do think we will micro seal again, but I would say it'll be a combination of micro seal and chip seal going forward. In terms of the sweeping, I guess just one thing on the sweeping side. During the sweeping process, the contractor did have two sweepers. One of them was totaled in an accident, and so that did slow things down there during that first week of sweeping activity. With that, I don't have really anything else to say. I don't know if council has any questions for me. If there's any comments made, I know tonight's a public comment period. If there's comments, I'll certainly consume those comments, but I don't know that I'd necessarily be reacting to those tonight.

Well, I think it's going to be important when you do get the information back on what caused these projects to be such a, you know, to last as long as they did and be as problematic as what we've all been taking phone calls on for the last month here. I think everybody's, a lot of the council have taken a lot of phone calls and they voiced their frustrations. I've heard their frustrations addressed at me firsthand, which I understand. And so, yeah, it's been an interesting project. I hope it doesn't. in the ability of a future council to have the ability to use the chip sale process within their, um, streets for, you know, budget purposes. But as of right now, I think it's getting pretty hard pressed to get any council and ever do a chip sale again after that situation. So, but you know, things change and we'll see what I would hope. I would imagine by the next, uh, city council meeting, you should have all the information you need to maybe address what, what the failures were. That's what I was hoping.

You said you were taking it to infrastructure, but I want it brought to council because some of us are not on that committee, so I'd like to bring it back to council for the public.

I'll have a written report that I present to infrastructure, and we can bring that to council. That would be great. Thank you.

That would be great. All right. Anybody have some questions for Steve or want to make some comments at this time? Hold on one second, David. Okay. Well, that will... in that segment of our city council. Now we're going to open up to public comment period where you'll be able to come up. I just want to remind everybody we do have the five-minute deal. And so if you start going over five minutes, we will let you know. And then when you come up, state your name and sign in. And those are the only rules we have, except for maybe try to be nice to us. I know the chip sale might be on everybody's mind tonight.

Are you ready, Kyla? I'm ready. David Jans. And first on the chip sale, I traveled in Sunday on Thursday.

Side-by-side licensing, $50 a year.

I don't know why they don't prorate it. It expires December 31st every year. I think you have a couple options. I don't expect to be reimbursed. That would be a nightmare. My license plate is 392, so I'm guessing there's 392 side-by-sides licensed. I think the first option, probably the easiest, would be Just continue. If you get stopped, you have a registration in there. It tells you the date you licensed it. And mine would say July whatever. Second options, which would be expensive, getting stickers that say the month, like we do with our vehicles. $50 is not much, but mine should have been $25, and it's my money. So I think that needs something to be looked into. End of that. My second point is electric minibikes on the streets. They have no pedals. I watched one almost get hit going into Menards. I have one coming down my street at least twice a day. I looked up the ordinance and it says electric or gas are only for rural. They're not be there. It needs to be reinforced if something bad happens. I was at Skyview for the get together. In the middle of the afternoon, a kid on an electric mini bike rode right through the grass by the lake. It's got to come to an end. OK. Third point. My street that I live on, which is Clearfield and Dover, August 19 of 2023, I filled out the complaint form about my road. Took all the pictures and everything. One section got repaired. A lot of tar got put on. I brought an example tonight of what's coming up. It's just coming up. They asphalted one piece. I did show the mayor a picture of a curb that they put a little tar on and asphalt and didn't fix. It's time to repair the road up there, period. End of subject. And the last point, I guess I'm cruising along. The milk plant. I travel it every day when I'm training dogs. And it just reeks on First Street down there. I don't know if they're exceeding. I don't know what's going on. Are they getting fined? Is it getting taken care of? Is it going to improve? I would not want to live down there. I mean, just driving by with my air conditioner on, I can smell it. I was here when they talked about the fines and everything when they do it. Are they getting fined? Is it getting handled, or is it slipping by? Forgot your nap, Frank? It's all right. They need to be held accountable for what they're doing to the community down there. That's all I got. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else?

Mayor and Council, Brad Brooks. I'll give you a little bit of good news. I heard a lot of positive comments about the Big Bang boom. It appears that the traffic dissipated in a orderly manner for the most part and I think Whoever planned all that deserves to be commended. But one thing that I did notice, and I think it needs to be addressed. Individually, a lot of the residents in town shot off fireworks. And I mean a lot of fireworks. I was a little concerned for a while that I might lose a roof down in my area. Luckily I didn't. But we're now 36 to 48 hours afterwards and all the trash and crap left over is still there. When All that stuff gets washed into the storm sewer and everything. I can just hear the people talking about it. Somehow I think we need to come up with a policy that anybody that's shooting off fireworks needs to have a set number of hours that they get it cleaned up and presentable for trash people to haul it off. It's just ridiculous. We're a great city, but somebody coming through and driving today couldn't say that when you look at the piles of stuff. So... I don't know exactly who would be responsible. I would guess the council needs to look into it. So that's all I've got. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Sasha Bone for record. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and community members. I stand before you once again with an opportunity to speak. As I mentioned last month about NOVA, which Norfolk's Opportunities for Vision and Action. I think it still has a good ring to it. It's about demonstrating what a great community we have and what we offer. As we look back on the month of June, July's will come next month. I'm looking forward to that. But for June, I want to take a moment to recognize what these numbers and activities truly represent. Christian Cross Festival, 10,000 attendees. Great American Comedy Festival, 2,500. Norfolk Express Soccer Tournament held their 29th annual tournament, approximately 2,000 people. Norfolk Recreational Baseball Tournament, 38 teams, roughly 2,000 people. The Norfolk Library had 56 event programs during the month of June, as well as 1,832 signed up for the summer reading program. The Northeast Nebraska Farm Toy Show at Lutheran High was over 400 adults because kids are free, so we don't know how, I didn't get those numbers. The Farmer's Market, on the weekends in June, there was 1,000 people. The concert series for two concerts alone were 1,300 attendees. The Northeast Nebraska All-Star Football Game, 72 players and families from across 52 towns in Northeast Nebraska came here. Nebraska D-League basketball tournament, 130 teams from across the state of Nebraska, over 4,500 people. Aqua Adventure numbers for June, 8,294. I have not yet confirmed whether it's the season pass holders or daily admissions, however, so that final attendance might be off. But on average, that's about 276 people per day. So over 33,826 people in the month of June for 11 family-friendly events. These outcomes are not by chance. They reflect alignment between city leadership, local organizations, service providers, and our community. One thing is clear, Norfolk is a family-friendly community. Demonstrates Norfolk has created something meaningful. These events are not just activities on a calendar, they reflect what is working well. As we look towards our future investment, the question should not simply be what can we be the first to do, it should be what best fits Norfolk, our values and the long-term needs of our community. One opportunity to consider is an indoor activity center, a space designed around year-round family engagement, recreation, and connection. This investment builds on what we already know that works, families participating, visitors coming, opportunities for local businesses, restaurants, hotels. An entertainment district may create some activity, but it's often more short-term in nature. I want to be clear, I'm not opposed to it. I support it if it's safe and aligns with the Norfolk's family-friendly identity. With limited city funding as it is, we have a responsibility to look at the full impact of each investment, the financial return, community benefit, long-term value. This is not about limiting growth. It's about being intentional. We had the opportunity to continue building a community where families choose to spend their time. Being the first community in Nebraska to do something is exciting, but being the community that makes the right investment for the right reasons is what creates lasting success. As we make these choices for Norfolk's future, we need to focus on what creates lasting value, not just what creates immediate attention. Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House and Senate. She's known for integrity and courage, emphasizes doing what is right over what is politically easy, reminded us, quote, the right way is not always the popular and easy way, end quote. Our job is to make the decisions today that builds the Norfolk we want tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Jim McKenzie, at the last city council meeting on June 15th, I saw one of the most egregious and intentionally fragrant violations of public trust by this council that I've ever seen. And I am exempting Sue Beckman and Jeff Jensen from this. This doesn't apply to you. You are advocating for an open and thoughtful public process. The issue at hand was the public drinking ordinance, aka entertainment district. Despite testimony at the meeting by three citizens and two council persons requesting more time to research, learn, and communicate to the wider community on allowing public consumption of alcohol, the ordinance was intentionally rushed through the process and passed on all three readings in one meeting. Councilman Hildebrand motioned to cut off all debate and vote immediately. This had the chilling effect of stopping any further discussion amongst the council and the public. Then after approving the ordinance on a six to two vote, which Sue and Jeff opposed, Councilman Ahrens motioned to suspend the rules and pass this ordinance on all three readings in one meeting. I suspect that this was discussed multiple times in subcommittee meetings that are not open to the public and are now not recorded. In Nebraska, cities are required to have three separate readings to pass an ordinance. The purpose of three readings is a legislative safeguard designed to prevent hasty lawmaking, ensure transparency, and allow for public feedback. State law mandates this process so that the community and the council have adequate time to review, debate, and understand the impact of proposed laws before they take effect. However, that's not the way we operate. You pass an ordinance in one meeting that allows the formation of districts that embrace the open consumption of alcohol. The city already had on its website, even prior to this vote, a proposed district in downtown Norfolk stretching from 8th Street to 1st Street and including the old ALCO area and from Brosh to Madison Avenue. An eight and a half block long, two block wide area with no physical boundaries of any kind. It's obvious we have the cart before the horse and there's already a plan for where this is going. I don't care that there's gonna be future meetings on the formation of the actual districts. This was the enabling legislation and it deserved three separate readings and three separate meetings for citizen input. Learning and an adequate review process was important. There's no excuse for ignoring the public process for an ordinance with enormous potential legal and social effects on our community. I've spoken with a local police officer who is 100% against these entertainment districts. He firmly believes that the open public consumption of alcohol in these virtually uncontrolled areas will result in many negative outcomes. I too am concerned for our families, our children, our grandchildren, and the character of our community. As elected officials, we need to do better. We need to embrace open, public, and transparent process. That did not happen on June 15th. Thank you.

All right, anyone else? No one else coming up? Okay. We'll end this portion of our meeting and move on to recommended actions. At this time, I'd like approval of the consent agenda, please.

I will be abstaining from the consent agenda due to Item 16, approval of the agreement with Midwest Bank.

Your Honor, I'll be abstaining as well. All right. All right. Please vote. We need a motion. We need a motion. I made a motion. Second. A motion. Second. Now we have a motion. Second. Please vote. Okay. Sorry.

Voting in the affirmative, Grantquist, Lange, Webb, Beckman, abstaining, Arntz, Hildebrand. Due to a hung vote, Mayor had to break the tie. Voting in the affirmative, Mayor Clawson. Motion carries.

Can I get approval of the full agenda, please? So moved. Second. Motion second. Please vote.

All council members present voting in the affirmative. Motion carries.

All right, that brings us to the public hearing and related action, item number 24. I'd like to open this hearing to comply with the provisions of NRS 18-1755 to acquire a property located at 804 East Monroe. And for discussion, Lyle, you're taking this one?

Yep. Okay. Yes, Mayor. Good evening, Council. Lyle Lutt, Operations Manager for the City of Norfolk. On the table before you now for discussion is a purchase agreement, which is the first step to accomplishing, yes, accomplishing your second highest priority as discussed in a strategic planning session in March of this year, specifically the wastewater treatment and expansion. This purchase agreement is for property generally located at 804 East Monroe Avenue. Thank you, Val. For the citizens that are unfamiliar with this address, it's in the southeast portion of the community and would be a tract of land lying south of Monroe Avenue, east and directly adjacent to the transfer station, north of the Lyman Ritchie pit area, which is there and farther south, good Val, and west of the Porter's construction pit. It's approximately 20 acres and includes a dwelling. The dwelling will be vacant upon closing. These are the results of a negotiation that's been taking place for almost a year. There's a couple questions that I assume that you have or maybe others may have. Why is the city purchasing this parcel, this property? To accommodate the needs of the wastewater treatment plant expansion and growth. Is it going to change the protective berm that's been recently installed around the WPC plant? This will not have an impact on that berm. How is this being paid for? Utility revenues. For those that follow along in the CIP agenda from the work session on June 29th, the agenda packet, page 29, excuse me, 22 of 36 under WPC, it has this purchase, this property purchase in there. Finally, I would like to note that the sellers have been wonderful to work with. The discussions were honest and forthcoming and very professional, and I appreciate their cooperation and communication. I'll take a stab at answering whatever questions you may have.

Is that the most current picture of that property? I thought the line with Richie was up closer.

Could you go to the GIS image, please?

Just so people can see what the property looks like today.

2020, and we'll do a time scan, please. So that is not a current picture. That's one off of the GIS just for clarification to show folks where the community is. She's pulling this up.

I appreciate that.

You'll be able to see the Lyman Ritchie facility pond pit growing north, encroaching on this parcel. Luckily, the GIS has a number of this GIS, anyway, transitioning to the different form of GIS in the not-too-distant future, the beacon version, I believe.

Yeah, it's not very good.

This is handy because of the multiple years of images. Can you go to about 2020, 2019, please?

Who do we need to call about that?

You need to contact your county about that.

Might have to do that.

2019, and you'll notice that area right there, that was from 2019 from the flood, from the folks that remembers that. Still same image there, 2022, please. You can start to see where the pond is forming, or the pit, I should say, the pit is forming. Go to 2023. Slightly bigger, 2024. To there. And also, can you point out where the south borderline, that's it right there. So you're correct in that image being 2024 is probably, it's reasonable to assume it's expanded since then. So their growth is to the north.

Good question.

Others?

Yeah, so acquiring this property is essential to the future expansion of our sewage treatment facility. So we want to go into a little bit about that, or if everybody is familiar with what is going on there, but what this ground will do and why it's so important for future.

I will note, you want to touch on that here just briefly? Note that from your strategic planning session and prioritization, you recognize the importance of wastewater treatment plant expansion. And I said this isn't necessarily the first step, but it's one of the first steps to allow that process to take place. Go ahead, Steven.

Mayor and Council, so this particular parcel is important for two reasons. One, that's where our sewer plant is. And as we continue to grow as a community, we would look to continue growing that facility in that area. It's in the southeast corner of the community. That's the prevailing direction of winds would be to take that south and east out of town. I realize the wind doesn't always blow favorably, but generally that's why you locate these in the southeast. So I like to say to people, today we're a community. The wastewater we received there includes all of Woodland Park. So we consume about 28,500 citizens' sewer at the plant. As we grow as a community, as we reach 35,000, 45,000, 55,000, you can imagine that this plant is gonna have to grow with the growth of the community. And so locking in some land for growth is important, especially as you look at how fast um, some of that land to the, to that Southeast of us is being consumed for, for, um, sand and gravel. Secondly, as a function of the master plan that we're working on, um, for, um, industrial, industrial treatment and expansion of our, uh, wastewater treatment facility for residential and commercial growth, um, We also need that. So the future of that site, it's either going to contain an additional SBR system. The SBR is that black square there. That's a four cell sequencing batch reactor. So we will have another four cell sequencing batch reactor as a function of the expansion. And we will have lagoons that are taking industrial waste. In probably about a year from now, we'd be able to show you an actual footprint of what's going to be in that 20 acres short-term as well as long-term.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Stephen, but the cost of this is factored into the long-term financial plan for the enterprise fund?

Correct, yeah. We maintain that 10-year financial plan, and so this is factored into that.

Other questions, comments, or concerns?

Steve, I'm just wondering, will any of this property be able to help us with the issue we have going on with milk specialties?

Yes. A lot of the issues, well, A, just the general load that they need and have a little bit of trouble staying in.

I would say a lot of trouble, Steve. I'm sorry.

Well, yeah, they had some issues over the weekend, bad timing. But the odor at the plant due to some of the storage and treatment activity that's going on at the plant Which is you know a little deeper into the community and so that odor as they do have Overloads or as they're storing material and treating it on site that odor is much easier to get into the community and the surrounding neighborhoods. So by building infrastructure down here, they'll be able to reduce what they're doing on site and send that directly to us. So the front end of the master plan will be the lagoon. So the industrial, we're going to separate, um, the milk specialty sewer, and we're going to separate the Highland dairy sewers. Those, there'll be separate sewers that come into this facility here. So we'll be taking that dairy waste stream out of our sewer stream. It provides some advantages to us in terms of treating that and being able to discard the solid waste. Um, because there's no human waste in it that can be disposed of pretty easy.

Steve can, I don't know, maybe the question's for Rob. Can I get a report on what milk specialties has gone over the load for let's say the last six months and what their fines were and how those were paid? I'd like to see that data. Yes. Thank you.

Getting back to this agenda item.

Steve, how long do you think before we push infrastructure into, so we start using this ground?

Would say we'd be pushing into this ground Well, we it'll be there'll be a plan to push into the ground probably in 12 months I would expect we'll be pushing into the ground the we're still waiting to hear on the 38 million dollar federal federal grant I expect to hear on that this week following that will We're discussing what's called a whiffy alone That would provide a 30 to 35 year term loan for the other portion We'll be capturing some capital contribution as well from from Actis nutrition So as we get all of that together You're going to see multiple agreements starting to come through here in the next three to four months around all of that engineering agreements I would expect The federal grant is supposed to be in the ground by the end of 2029, or at least we're supposed to be sequencing maybe the first two phases of a three-phase project into the ground by the end of 2029. So that's pretty quick. I'd say a project of this magnitude, typically probably four to five, six years to get it in the ground. We're going to be using a mechanism called Construction Manager at Risk. where we bring that contractor in and work with them up front, and that's going to allow us to get this done by that deadline.

Other thoughts, comments, or questions?

Any other discussion before we close this hearing? Members of the public have anything to say before I close this hearing Okay with that we'll close the hearing move on to consideration approval of real estate purchase agreement between the city of Norfolk and Gary L. Beller and Jeffrey J. Beller Providing for the city's purchase of property located at 804 East Monroe Avenue for the price of $495,000 Move consideration your other second motion a second and second Who's taking this one? Okay, Lyle.

In the event there's more questions that have popped up, I will field them to the best of my ability. I'm wondering about timing. If this gets approved, we'll drop it off at the closing agent tomorrow or within the next couple days, and as soon as we can get the box checked on that, we will in likely a month or so.

All right, thank you, Lyle. Anyone else? Any other questions? Anybody from the audience here this evening? All right. Seeing none, we have a motion to second, so please vote.

All council members present voting in the affirmative. Motion carries.

Bringing this to our regular agenda this evening, item number 26. Consideration of ordinance number 59 70 annex and a tract of land generally located quarter mile west of the intersection of East Benjamin Avenue and highway 35 on the south side of Benjamin Avenue This item was tabled at the March 2nd 2026 City Council meeting Yes, so first we will need a motion to remove this from the table if you'd like to discuss So move your honor second right motion second To pull off the table, please vote.

All council members present voting the affirmative. Motion carries. Now that it's been removed from the table, we'll need a motion and a second to consider the ordinance.

I'll make a motion for consideration of ordinance number 5970. Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. So... Steve, will we lead in discussion?

Yep. Mayor and Council, this is an annexation for the area you see up on the screen in pink or purple. This is the 10 acres that is Hawks Crossing subdivision that is currently under construction. Sewer, water, and paving are complete. And so we would desire annexation to bring those that infrastructure into the city. Back when this was first brought to the table, there was some conversation, one or two of the council members wanted to have some conversation on drainage in this larger area, not necessarily specific to this, but within this larger area up here in the northeast side of the community. Following that, we did pull together a meeting with the developer and NRD. Northeast Community College was there. They own the property directly north of this. There's some drainage issues related to the approach off of Benjamin Avenue there. So we did have that meeting. I think that was mid-April and discussed those issues. One of the things that was an outcome of that is NRD NRD took the 2019 drainage study that was done for this drainage basin and asked their board if there was some interest in pursuing or assisting the city with a project up in this area. They did give the green light to that and asked us to bring back some more hard engineering around exactly what we want to do, what the engineer's estimated cost of that project might be. So we will work on that over the next several months. First part would be to bring in a contract with somebody to look specifically at what we would do. I would expect that's gonna be focused on detention and some channel, channel modifications through that lower part of this drainage area that comes to the south of this. It goes through the Randy Walters property down through the Robert Huntley property. Eventually it crosses Highway 35 and works its way down across Highway 275 and all the way down to the river. And there is a conversation somewhat related to all of that that was addressed in that 2019 study. And so that whole basin and how that drains needs to be looked at. But I think relative to this particular annexation and the issues related to that, I think we've answered those questions. Northeast Community College is in the process of designing a little different outfall for the stormwater that comes down the, the curb and gutter there and hits Benjamin Avenue. That is causing some erosion right at the edge of the shoulder as that water exits the approach into the community college property and turns around and tries to get into the ditch. So I believe they're working on designing some flumes to go in there along those gutters and would get that installed sometime this fall. So that's kind of just a little bit of the history there in terms of why we tabled that. Any questions? One thing I would note is this can only be passed on first reading. State law requires three readings.

Just looking at the GIS maps, so this track that we're not going to annex now, there's not a city levy, they're not paying city taxes, and I was just looking in There's another 20-acre parcel in the Walters addition that doesn't have a city tax. But then I look at Huntley's ground along 35 there, and he's paying a city general fund tax. So why wouldn't we annex all this in the Walters addition? Why are these being left out?

So I think directly to the south of this, that that is in city limits, so that's what we're attaching to there. So that south boundary... Run your pointer across that south boundary. Yeah, that that pink line there is the north boundary of city limits currently So I don't know if that answered the question The property that would be directly west of this that's part of the that that Kevin Herman Owens or Kalyn Herman Owens there will be another annexation coming in for this very quickly for that piece and When this was brought forward, there was just a desire, because they were pushing this 10 acres forward, there was a desire to get this 10 acres annexed as a function of that current development. But there will be, in fact, I think they've already got that drafted and it's basically sitting on their desk ready to send to us as soon as we approve this one. And then as you go, I think as you go that puts you up against Randy Walters' property, and that is the city limit line right there on the very left side of that page, so then that would all be brought in. Did that answer the question, Councilman? Or am I missing something yet?

Well, there's just a track inside the Walters. I just think they didn't have, wasn't paying into the general fund, so I'm not sure why that, and it looks like it would be inside city limits, so it's further to the west of this lot here.

I think, is that right? I think, is that the 30 acres right up against the church?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

So I was just wondering. And so that is on the radar to remind Randy to annex that. I don't know when he intends to push into that, if he intends to push into that tree shelter or shelter belt, or whether he intends just to leave that shelter belt alone. So that's a conversation that is on my radar to have with Randy. And the county has asked for that annexation to occur as well.

All right. Any other discussion? Anyone from the public? All right. Short title, please.

In ordinance of the City of Norfolk, Nebraska, to annex to said city the part of the north half of the northeast quarter of Section 24, Township 24 North, Range 1 west of the 6 p.m., Madison County, Nebraska. All council members present voting the affirmative. Ordinance number 5970 passes on first reading only.

That brings us to item number 27. Consideration of resolution 2026-21 appointing John Robertson as finance officer for the city of Norfolk effective July 21st, 2026.

I move consideration of resolution 2026-21. Second.

All right, motion and second. And welcome here. We'll go into discussion a little bit here, but welcome, John, to the meeting this evening. If you'd like to say anything, go ahead.

John, would you like to speak on this?

Would you like to speak on yourself, John? I appreciate it very much, Mayor Clauston and Scott and the staff here, for your endorsement and the ability to come on board. I'm not looking forward to filling Randy's shoes. He was the city administrator... he started the year after I was born so I'm looking forward to learning all that voluminous information that he had in his head hopefully can pick it up as quickly as possible so I can be an asset to the city so appreciate your confidence in me to get on board and moving as fast as possible so I started last week on Wednesday and I'm bothering Sheila as little as possible but she's my encyclopedia right now So thank you.

You came in the perfect timing. We've got two meetings this week on the budget, and so we look forward to everything. We're looking forward to working with you. So at this point in time, anyone else have anything to say? All right. Please vote.

All council members present voting in the affirmative. Resolution 2026-21 is adopted. We are adjourned at 6.21 p.m.