The Custer County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday morning in the courthouse in Broken Bow. All supervisors were present.
Wind turbine project south of Mason City moves forward
The Prairie Hills Wind turbine project south of Mason City took a step forward during the meeting, with a road agreement being put in place between the county and Invenergy, the company in charge of the project. The only item to decide on besides the agreement itself was whether the townships or the county wanted to be in charge of overseeing that the agreement was fulfilled satisfactorily.
“Basically this agreement obligates us to repair the roads to ‘as good or better’,” said an Invenergy representative in the audience, “It establishes a funding mechanism to repair that. It establishes that we need to do a road study, as Barry talked about, and that establishes bond amount. (Highway Superintendent) Chris’ and your entire department are very confident and wanted to make sure that the county is basically being protected and that’s why it took a while.”
Representatives from the Algernon and Elk Creek townships were on hand at the meeting and agreed with moving forward with the county overseeing the agreement being fulfilled. Supervisor Gibbons was the lone ‘no’ vote against the agreement, citing an issue with completion timeline dates in the verbiage.
The agreement points to just short of 30 miles of road in the two townships that will be traveled upon during transport of turbine materials.
Arnold township completes repayment of loan from county
Tony Eggleston came before the board representing the Arnold Township and the subject of disaster loans that had been granted to the township for repairs by the supervisors following the 2019 flood disaster.
Eggleston said that the project was completed at the end of 2023, all paperwork was submitted by this time last year, and that in the fall of last year an inspection of the work was completed. The project was approved and finalized, but Eggleston said that as of Tuesday morning the payment they are set to receive in the amount of $218,463 has not been received from FEMA.
Two loans of $100,000 each had been received by the township from the county, which Eggleston said were used as seed money toward being able to invest over $600,000 of work into the township following the damage from 2019. He thanked the board and boards past for the loans as well as past extensions while handing a check for the outstanding balance ($95,873.23) to board president Chip Blowers.
Directive on Corner Township roads discussed
Road conditions in the Corner Township were among discussions on Tuesday with Highway Superintendent Chris Jacobsen. He as well as County Clerk Connie Gracey and supervisors stated that they had been receiving complaints about the condition of roads in the township.
The Corner Township was terminated in May of 2024 due to no appointments being made to the township board. After township business started being conducted by the Board of Supervisors, during levy allocation, the board cited the need for road improvements and a possible levy increase for the township. A town hall was held, which had no attendees from the township, and the levy increase being sought for the improvements was voted down by residents.
Supervisor Barry Fox did say that he was working with County Attorney Steve Bowers on a possible solution to help with funds to get some work accomplished, but for the time being the roads department will do what they can with the township’s very low budget.
Other business from Tuesday’s meeting
- Comp time was approved to be able to be donated to a shared leave bank, joining sick and vacation time as an option.
- A $27,748.66 match request for Region III Behavioral Health Services was approved (Down $395.15 from last year). Region III contracts with and manages a network of community-based behavioral health providers across 22 counties in central and south central Nebraska.
- The board accepted the Certification of Distress Warrants, presented by Custer County Sheriff Dan Osmond
- Four zoning resolutions were made. Two of the resolutions regarded property line setback distances, one regarded construction batch plants (a conditional use permit will now only be needed if a plant is needed over 11 months of time), and commercial greenhouses (were listed in more than one location, one was removed)
- A letter of support for Central Nebraska Community Action Partnership (CNCAP) was signed by the board amid possible budget cuts
- Services presented in a previous meeting from Voluntary Insurance Partners were denied by the board, citing the availability of similar programs already existing for employees
- Several laptops and filing cabinets were declared as county property surplus
