The Broken Bow City Council met in regular session Tuesday evening at the municipal building. Under new business, Council considered giving a conditional use permit(CUP) at 704 South 8th Ave in Broken Bow. The owner wants to start a business allowing commercial firearm and archery sales and services from a residential district.
During the public hearing, Zoning administrator Jacob Holcomb said notifications went out to everyone within a 300 foot radius of the proposed business, including Custer Christian School, and no one expressed any concerns. Holcomb said there’s a whole list of requirements that the owner will have to meet before he is able to open his business at the address, but before that he needs the council to approve a CUP.
Council exited the public hearing, then a motion was made to approve a CUP at 704 South 8th. All council members present approved the CUP.
Council then opened a public hearing to potentially change the zoning classification of Residential Multifamily to Commercial Highway at Sargents 3rd add block 1 lot 3 1.10 acres Broken Bow.
Holcomb explained where the property is located and why they’re requesting a zoning change.
“This is the old Golden Living block, it’s that entire block right there next to Tractor Supply. When this sold originally and once Gateway Motors took ownership and starting storing cars there, we should have went over there and gotten it done then. This doesn’t affect anything as far as how the property is taxed. The county has been taxing this on a commercial basis since the ownership change. It’s more just getting our records in order and correct”
Holcomb said the Planning Commission has recommended approval of the zoning change. Council then exited the public hearing and made a motion to approve the change of zoning for the property. All council members voted in favor of the zoning change.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Library Director Megan Svoboda gave the Library’s annual report for Fiscal year 2023-24.
“During the 23-24 fiscal year, the library checked out 34,795 items. And then another thing we’re really excited about is the Libby app, we checked out over 11,500 digital items just from our library patrons. So that is a huge amount, and that is like comparable to Columbus-sized libraries actually, so that’s pretty exciting.”
Svoboda added that visitors to the library continue to steadily increase, and said they’re on track to break records. Broken Bow school is bussing students to the library with ongoing construction at the school. Svoboda said her goals for this year include updating technology, increasing the library’s budget, and maintaining their building. She received several compliments from council members after her presentation.
At the end of the meeting, Mayor Rod Sonnichsen said the City was able to meet with railroad officials about correcting levy breaches near a railroad crossing. Sonnichsen said they will continue to meet periodically with the railroad before building up mounds of dirt near the crossing, which will help divert more water into the proper place.
The Mayor also said traffic improvement suggestions will be brought up in February Council meetings.
Council adjourned at 6:20pm, the next meeting is set for February 11th at 6pm.
