BROKEN BOW, Neb.— The Custer County Board of Supervisors met in regular session on Tuesday morning for a meeting that lasted just over an hour. Fee reports were the lone item out of normal start-of-meeting procedures that were not accomplished, as they were pushed to the next meeting on March 31.
In board of equalization discussions, two tax roll corrections (one from 2022 and one from 2025) were made. Permissive exemptions were also considered for approval or denial.
Approval was given to submitted materials from the Boneyard Creation Museum in Broken Bow and to the American Legion Post 220’s baseball field and a house in Comstock.
Denials were landed on by the board for the Callaway Christian Academy and the Wescott Baptist Church in Comstock. In the case of the academy, sufficient documents were not provided to the assessor. The church had seen ownership change, causing ineligibility for exemption.
In discussions with the Highway Department, four armor coating bids were opened at 9:30 AM for projects totaling about 30 miles of road. Bids from Figgins Construction of Red Cloud, Sta-Bilt Construction of Harlan, IA, Midwest Coatings of Norfolk and Modale, IA, and Vance Brothers of Kansas City ranged anywhere from 68 cents per square yard to 45 cents per square yard depending on bid line item.
The bids were given to the highway department to look over in forming a recommendation for the next meeting.
Several pieces of equipment were deemed as surplus and approved for sale at Tuesday’s meeting including road graders, a 2015 John Deere, a 1994 International truck, 2003 Dodge Ram, and other equipment. A printer from the Custer County Attorney’s office also made its way onto the list.
One application to cross right-of-way for Viaero Fiber was approved, stated to be a project that included a crossing west of the fairgrounds in Broken Bow.
Austin Partridge of Northland Public Finance came before the board to discuss the possibility of bonds to help fund a project dubbed “Anselmo South road”.
“I was approached by a vendor of ours that does some hard surfacing. They do not have their summer full and they talked like they would give us a pretty good bid,” explained Board President Chip Blowers. “So the highway department decided to bid a project and to fund the project we would need some kind of a bond. So then I asked Austin (with Northland) here to come give us information on the bond.”
Blowers also stated that just because a project is bid does not mean that a bid has to be accepted. He also said those bids are to be opened at an upcoming meeting.
Partridge shared that rates are lower this year than they were last year at around 3.7% on a 5 year timetable. The example he handed to the supervisors to act as a starting point for discussions was for $2 million over 5 years. That example would put payments around $450,000 a year.
When asked if the bond could be paid off early, Partridge said that a bond length of 5 years or shorter offered more flexibility while longer time length bonds have parameters that often require a certain amount of time passes before being paid off.
The board will next work toward a resolution and setting parameters for the bond, such as what dollar amount it cannot exceed, before documents are gathered for the sale of the bond.
No immediate decision was made, but Partridge encouraged the board to reach out with questions both before and after their opening of the hard surfacing bids.
Discussion resurfaced about a phone contract for the county which is up for renewal in May with Great Plains Communications. It was stated that several companies had reached out in addition to Eakes, who did an evaluation of the county’s systems some time ago. The board is seeking input from county employees on needs in addition to working forward on putting out a request for proposals from providers.
Weed Superintendent Tim Conover presented his yearly evaluation results with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, which reported that he had scored a perfect 3,400 points. The board commended Conover on his organization and great work and accepted the evaluation results.
Closed session was entered at 10:14 AM for pending litigation and contract negotiations. The next Board of Supervisors meeting is March 31, also at 9 AM.
