BROKEN BOW – The Custer County Board of Supervisors held its first meeting of May on Tuesday, May 9 at 9 a.m. on the top floor of the Custer County Courthouse. Only Supervisor Bryner was absent.
Kevin Racicky, chairman of Mason City, appeared before the board with Chris Miller of Miller & Associates of Kearney with a request for county ARPA funds to help with an ongoing wastewater and sewage maintenance project.
The project, a combination of about 15,000 feet of sewer lines and manhole covers, is on a time crunch; ideally, Mason City would like to see it completed prior to an upcoming FEMA road repair project. All told the proposed cost would be $98,000.
Miller told the board that the only reason that Mason City was approaching the board was because of an unexpected financial pinch.
“With the FEMA paving project, the village had to use its ARPA money to cover those additional costs. The intent was to use the ARPA money to cover this project, but instead, it had to go to FEMA costs.”
Mason City’s initial bid on the project, put out in October, came back at a staggering $800,000, virtually all of the city’s ARPA funds. To help offset the cost, the village borrowed money from the USDA.
As it stands, Mason City currently holds $15,000 to go toward the project, and on Tuesday asked the supervisors for an additional $40,000.
Supervisors Chairman Barry Fox acknowledged a rash of water management issues across the county in no small part thanks to the immense flooding in 2019 but worried that uncorking an old issue would leave the supervisors, and the county budget, underwater, given the problems the county is currently facing.
“If we open this back up, I can tell you, there are a lot of people who’d like to try and get access to these funds as well. There are also things like childcare that people have been beating down my door on since day one, which are pretty big issues.”
District Seven’s, and Mason City’s own Sara Parliament would move to approve the $40,000 for Mason City, but the motion died for lack of a second. Mason City does have alternatives to raising the money, though, one of which is running a bond. The village is currently using about 44 cents of its maximum 50-cent tax levy.
Sheriff Dan Osmond presented 2 local bids for the replacement of the heating and air conditioning unit in the jail. With the heating element on its last legs, according to the Sheriff, a purchase would be necessary before winter; wait times on two proposed units were between 27 and 40 weeks, which didn’t account for installation.
The board ultimately approved a bid from Taylor Heating & Cooling for a $17,000 Rheem to be installed as soon as possible; the unit was the only of the three options readily available.
The board’s agreement with DHHS was tabled, as was the possible sale of county land. One bid from Myers Construction of Broken Bow was taken under advisement for sidewalk repair.
The interlocal agreement between the Extension Office and Custer County was renewed by unanimous vote; the biggest change was implementing uniform language so the contract matches those in other counties.
The meeting adjourned at 11:33 a.m., with the next scheduled for May 30.
