Commissioners approve change at intersection

The Kimball County commissioners approved an intersection change at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting.

After a public hearing in which no members of the public spoke, commissioners voted unanimously to remove the curve at the intersection of County Road 44 and County Road 37 north of Kimball.

County Highway Superintendent Dave Hottell said the intersection was dangerous due to its shape. In addition to the regular intersection of the two roads, there is a curve on the northeast side that also connects them.

Hottell said Tim Baxter of Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association recommended a study to put up a yield sign, but Hottell said that would be an expensive process.

“If somebody comes around there, they’ve got no clue what’s coming from the other direction. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a yield sign there or not, there’s a potential for an accident,” Hottell said.

After talking with the state engineer in Scottsbluff, Hottell said the easiest solution would be to close the curve. To do that, barricades would be installed for a time until the area returns to its natural state.

“We’d put barricades up for a while, until everybody knows there’s no road there,” Hottell said. “Then if they run through the barricades, there wouldn’t be an accident, there wouldn’t be anything dangerous. Once they know there’s no road there, the road is closed, we’d put it back to natural.”

The commissioners were also presented with information from Shaun Evertson, veterans service officer, on new hours and help for his office. Evertson hired Sheana Hendrickson to work part-time in the office, which will now be open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each Monday through Friday. The office was previously only open three days each week.

Hendrickson will start out working 20 hours per week through the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30. She may work up to 29 hours per week in the next fiscal year. At the same time, Evertson will work fewer hours and change his pay rate from salary to hourly. Evertson’s position is also part-time, and he will work fewer hours than Hendrickson. This was done at Evertson’s request.

The county also:

- Opened bids for a new loader/backhoe for the highway department. After looking through nine bids, they commissioners voted to buy a Kubota LL301 for $28,995 from Cheyenne Kubota.

- Approved an increase in fees for drug and alcohol testing of employees who drive a county vehicle. The county will now pay $69.30 for alcohol testing and $44.10 for drug testing to Kimball Health Services. The previous fees of $29.50 and $26.50, respectively, were last changed in 1996.

- Approved a budget for the county shuttle. The county’s portion of the budget will be $14,090, an increase from $13,472 from the previous year. The remainder of the approximately $78,000 budget comes from state and federal funds.

- Heard Kimball County Manor administrator Bev Schnell report that the new addition is finished, but the manor is waiting on state approval for occupancy. The manor came in below the $1,454,350 bond, and will use the excess $286,000 for carpeting and wallpaper improvements in the pervious structure.

- Approved requests from Jerry Berggren of Berggren Architects to view the county officials’ inventories and distribute a questionnaire for department heads on space utilization. Berggren is in the beginning stages of forming a master plan for the county courthouse.