Custer County Supervisor Districts will remain mostly unchanged following a 4-1 vote (District 2 Supervisor Tammy Kleeb was absent, District 7 Supervisors Doug Stunkel was the lone ‘No’ vote) at Tuesday’s meeting. With the new census numbers being released, County Clerk Connie Gracey has been working on different redistricting lines to even out the numbers for each district. She informed the board that at the state level the representation must be within 5% across the board, but on a county level, this is not the case.
District 5 Supervisor Don Olson said he would prefer the district lines stay unchanged since there is no requirement by the board to be within 5% of each other regarding the number of citizens in each district. District 1 Supervisor Bobby Myers agreed and voted to keep the districts the same. The only change will be in District 2 and District 3 where a district line will be moved to 10th street in Broken Bow.
County Government Day will be on as scheduled for November 15, but was not a smooth decision as masks became the center of the discussion. Many of the Supervisors felt that if schools were not requiring them in the buildings or at sporting events, then there should not be a requirement for the County Government Day. County Treasurer Sheri Bryant asked if each office could make the decision on if masks would be required. She was concerned if there was an outbreak, the courthouse could be understaffed and be forced to shut down as they were when the pandemic began.
After a unanimous vote to not require masks during County Government Day was passed, District 3 Supervisor Barry Fox said the county is leaving the decisions of masks in the hands of schools and each office. Myers did make a motion to cancel County Government Day to see where the board stood, but the motion died for lack of support.
$0.57-$0.87 per Custer County resident will be awarded to the county following the settlement of the opioid litigation Custer County had been involved in with a number of other counties. The Supervisors unanimously decided to accept the funds and direct the funds toward behavioral health programs. Emergency Manager Mark Rempe said these are great programs that support the county.
The Supervisors also approved a work write up for a housing loan of $25,000, referred bids for contractor letting and material for different projects to the highway committee, approved amendments to the 2011 bonds for The Andersons, Inc., and also accepted the quarterly report from Custer County Recycling Manager Kelly Flynn.
