Rail spur project not moving forward

Kimball for Economic Growth and Sustainability (KEGS), had a meeting on February 6, 2014, at the High Point Welcome Center. At the meeting they received an update on the ongoing rail spur project as well as information concerning Marketing Hometown America.

At the meeting on the sixth, both Wilson Bowling and Daniel Ortiz were present to talk about the rail spur. Bowling started by giving KEGS an update.

“Since the last meeting we went and spoke to AVI in Cheyenne. After taking a look at the design that we showed them they said that it would almost be crazy to do it. So they gave us another idea of another place we could go but once again the land owners were not willing to sell. So right now we’re at the point where the council and the LB840 has to decide if we need to put this up to the voters to change the language in the plan to take away the taxation, because at this point there’s nothing we can do with the rail spur,” Bowling said.

The report from Bowling caused concern. A project that has been in the works so long, nearly fifteen years, is stopping, and it hasn’t even really started. However, the rail spur is a voters’ issue. Bowling made the point that although the council and LB840 committee has tried to come up with solutions the public really has the final decision in the matter.

“Right now we’re trying to consider what options we have. The city council and LB840 committee can’t make these decisions. We have to make a recommendation and put it on the ballot. So at this point we’re still trying to decide what we’d like to do and of course get public input as to what you would like to see the rail spur money to go towards,” Bowling said.

Due to the wording of the bond that was set up for the rail spur, the money that has been taxed from the people can only be used for the rail spur project. This prohibits the funding from being used to better the city elsewhere. The LB840 board have been trying to figure out an alternative use for the funds that they could present to the city council, as expressed by Daniel Ortiz at the KEGS meeting.

“So in the March meeting is when it’s gonna be brought back up for them to consider options and figure out what to present to the council what options are available. Kind of what Wilson said you have either option A, which is toxic because that just deals with doing away completely with the LB840 plan. You have option B, of trying to develop another project that we could accomplish with the funds. You have option C, which is just collecting the tax as it is and don’t use it for anything since it’s connected directly to the rail spur,” Ortiz said.

Getting another city project funded through the rail spur funds was expressed to be the best option. However due to the wording in the current bond the funds are tied directly to the rail spur. So an alternative project for the funds must be presented to the city council, if they see it as feasible then a rewording of the bond would happen.

“We have a call in with our bond company, they’re trying to track down some information in terms of what liability or what type of ramifications falls back on the city for bonding and trying to adjust a proposal, so that could be a little more complicated to do,” Ortiz said.

The LB840 board is is very interested to see what kind of ideas for the funding the people might have. KEGS had suggested working on the underpass and cleaning and fixing up downtown Kimball.

The LB840 committee is going to be suggesting ideas of what to do with the funds to the city council. So unless the public gives suggestions of what they want to do with the funding they won’t see anything they like on the ballot for the general election in November.

“Right now we have some very vague ideas about projects we may want to do, but we definitely haven’t narrowed one down. So that’s why I say that it’s definitely open to suggestions. If anyone has any ideas I’m sure the LB840 board along with the council would love to hear them,” Bowling said.

As far as the funds go a brief update was given on those as well.

“Approximately $390,000 has been collected as of August 2013 from the property tax that was passed for the rail spur. Approximately $508,000 has been spent on engineering firms and legal fees. The CDA borrowed from Board of Public Works $200,000 and another $150,000 from the Economic Development Fund between 2010 & 2011. The rail spur project was originally bid out twice. The first time in 2009 the bid came in at nearly $3.8 million, and the second time in 2012 bids came in between $4 million and $4.4 million. Both times the bids involved land being donated to the city for the development. That is not the case anymore and if the rail spur project is to continue the cost of acquiring the land would need to be factored in. However, all reasonable options to acquire the land have been expended,” Ortiz said.

If enough public interest is generated, a public hearing could be held to share ideas for what should be done with the rail spur funds. A plan must be figured out soon though, not only does it have to get on the ballot for the November general election, but the bond has to be reworded as well.

The LB840 committee meets at the city council chambers on March 11.

Shaun Evertson was present at the KEGS meeting and shared what things were happening with Marketing Hometown America.

“We will be having two interns coming here for eight weeks in the summer. We got them free housing and they’ll be working with the different committees in order to help us figure things out, as far as our marketing home town America strategies, as well as helping the county,” Evertson said.

The interns will be reporting to the steering committee.

Kimball’s web presence was also touched on and it was said that a web portal is what is in development. A web portal is a specially designed web page at a website which brings information together from diverse sources in a uniform way.

If a person was searching for restaurants in Kimball on a search engine, it would bring up a lot of results that weren’t relevant. It would show the person restaurants in Kimball, South Dakota as well as Kimball, Nebraska. A waste if the person merely wants to explore Kimball, Nebraska. However, the web portal is being designed so that it would be the most commonly searched item concerning Kimball, Nebraska. Then the portal would have a designated area that would list the restaurants in Kimball, Nebraska and have links to those restaurants web pages or locations. The idea is to generate more internet traffic concerning Kimball, Nebraska. Which will lead to more people being interested in what Kimball has to offer.

“We’re not coming at anyone with our hand out. we’re really trying for a grassroots type of thing. So hopefully we would want to find a volunteer to maintain the web portal once it’s up and running.

A web portals maintenance really only calls for maintaing the links to the various websites that the portal takes internet users to. So if a website changes or is shut down the person in charge of the portal would update that.

The touch screen kiosk that the High Point Welcome Center will be getting soon was also discussed. Not only the kiosk, but also on March 25 the Welcome Center will be having a visitor. Executive Director Nebraska Tourism Commission, Kathy McKillip, will be visiting the High Point Welcome Center. Caskey said that she hopes she’ll have the kiosk up and running then.

KEGS briefly discussed the possibility of disbanding, however, with the rail spur project needing a new direction they decided to remain a group and scheduled their next meeting for March 13.