April 21, 2025 at 6:00 PM - Beatrice Regular City Council Meeting

Discussion:  Mayor Morgan noted Beatrice has been a Tree CIty for 35+ years.  Mayor Morgan presented to Councilmember Eckhoff.  Nebraska's holiday, commend past Councils & Mark with planting trees, beatrice has done awesome job.  Veterans park...tree planting event tomorrow

Discussion:  Mayor Morgan presented to Councilmember Eckhoff.  Alex great group to be part of, thanked for getting group back together, several things that will be going on

Dakota, colab with chamber & NGage, 2023 bring back, advisory members plan social/networking events, business engagement, 20-40ish...county-wide.  50+ members.  high percentage compared to others.

Discussion:  TT - body oversees LB840 funds, met last week.  2/28 $671,485.  all outstanding loans current.

Discussion:  Chet, under oath, change of ownership nothing from zoning dept any concerns
Jay, under oath, background no concerns, 
Ted appreciates owner being here.

 

Discussion:  tt - civil service appointment.  gone through guidelines, applications, testing, interviews, certified up to 3 names, recommendation to appoint Jay effective immediately.

DOyle - happy process worked out, done great job.

Mayor - history, philosophy management assign, leadership is earned.  chief has done great job earning 

jay thanked officers, coummuntiy, council, etc.  proud to work for city

Discussion:  Nebraska CLASS couple years ago, onwer passed away recently, merger with NPAIT, approve...largly made up of counties, ppd, recently municipalities, invest allowed by state statute, better interest rates, similar to NE Class...Exec Director is Walker Zulkoski, former NGage Director

Barnard - dealt with NPAIT, with county, 
doyle apprecate work on this

Discussion:  pulled until 5/5

Discussion:  Larry Wolken, 1921 Irving Street, get this town cleaned up, getting worse, start cracking down.  

Galen Rieger, 2532 SW 45th Road, erosion issues through farmland, lived here 45+ years.  1993 map, 2020 map, 2025 city initiated several actions for bike trail through riverside park.  actions have caused significant erosion to farm ground.  approached city several times, nothing was done until map 3 - lake dug?  bike development caused issue, blocked & created 2nd outlet to river, still didnt' satisfy 3rd leg dug.  that's when issue with erosion.  proposal to install concrete dam to mitigate & prevent further erosion, cut field in 2.  restore field into 1, restore & stabilize west side install riprap to prevent further erosion.

 

Discussion:  q2 jan-march, city proposal - Choc lovers complete  192; E3 - 9 businesses...48% 75 visits; downtown business directory 25%
website refresh underway, working on 

50% - quarterly reports/financials

additional information - business involvement - mainstreet nebraska & Main Street America?  - conclusion had luncheon at Vals', tour of downtown, met with boardmembers, gave A+++ rating.  awards issued - City, Karlene, Tall Tree & Kala's; 
list of E3 grant recipients

in addition to business involvement with grants, working with 13 marketing & advertising plans.  4 businesses opened during Q2; 5 startups in progress.
marketech conference  - grow nebraska, offered all main street businesses a discount to attend marketech conference in March in Kearney - a few reached out, was interest

downtown properties - 15 commercial properties regarding rentals/sales inquiries, 5 upcoming/current renovations

community leadership involvement - 40+ community leaders contacted, 3 retired business owners iwth youth mentorship opportunities
spoek at sertoma, kiwanis, rotary club
presented Laureen & Dana with awards

Chocolate lovers, feb 1st 25 buisnesses 192 registered, 137 made to every business.  mostly beatirce, lincoln was next largest.  30 across nebraksa & ks, iowa, NC.

95% discovered at least 1 buisness they didnt' know was in town - reached out to help with marketing

upcoming beer & wine festival May 3rd.  Ribfest - June 21st.

doyle - construct downtown directory vs. inventory?  when done, sumarize what will end up with?  Virginia - prodominately digital directory within downtown district, depending upon budgets, may do some print copies. featured on website, for purpose of serving public
inventory tracker??  when inventory, what do you inventory - booms tracker?  vacant, occupied, residential, commercial, reuqired maintenance, tracks height, if tenant, 2nd story occupied (tenant)

Discussion:  Q3 report.  jan-march; process of executing industrial sighting study, steering committee to meet with Olsson to kickoff project.  evaluate parcels to identify potential development, infrastructure capacity, site access, zoning, investment readiness.
also taking look at target industry analysis - target industries, food processing, bitcoin, warehouse, etc...ag, look to do analysis if we still need to look at this, or shift focus based on findings. mfg will likely stay in, some industries such as biofuel production is prob not going to show up, but something many are looking to add to their target industries

business support/recruitment - ad in site _________ magazine, generated a few leads, FDI alliance international worldwide site selection publication - hopeful to see leads, did promote all gage county.  
GSLI solutions - 3 active leads ; 9 BRE visits lengthy discussion on challenges, needs, etc., trust building...shortest 2 hours.  

talent retention recruitement - unique oppportunity to partner with STate DCI, firm based out of New York & Denver, "good life is calling"  connected with other individuals why chose beatrice, overall helps aggregate data & figure out what draws them here & how to market to US for people to choose us.

active recruitement projects - heavy lift, had as of march 31, 15 active projects - 1 week within last 2 months, dakota came over to NGage, 2 recruitement projects.  3 local, 2 _____, 10 from NDED.  hosted 2 site visits, both international visits in mfg sector...point where submit proposal to state, state to firm, firm decides where they want to look at. 2 sent here to view.  good opportuity to showcase & build trust.  1 of 2 has been here 3 times since November. see we are viable place to be successful.

barnard - if we have weaknesses, what do you see we can do to help?  not seeing greenfield sites move, they are looking at vacant buildings, they do not want to own.  tossed around bringing back spec building.  current weakness, going where readily available, we don't have that.  other weakness, incentives - chopping block at state level.  workforce - we can show in our rfp, pull our 9 counties, over 200,000 of a workforce.  take lancaster out, large blue-collar population that commutes.  we have data to show back up.  scc welding, should be able to help

ted - 15 projects - 10 from state level.  what does that look like?  it was the later..used to be NDED picked based on what they knew.  has been lot of work on Rachel's end, staff, etc., they know what we have availale, they are now calling. also bridged with other partners, nppd, did you get this project, 2 on 2 occasions, never happened again.  building relationships.  TED - can also contact if needed.  Rachel - governor has been first hand helping. support of state..people are noticiing state wide.  keep building houses.

Terry - indsutrial site & target industry - timeline?  Rachel - target in motion, will present findings soon.  will be able to fine tune.   olsson will likely complete within 6 months.  by september orginal
site?  2 separate sites - not just industry sector.  finance, investments, retail service based, supply chain, taking lincoln/lancaster out we will have some things show up & will work with NPPD board.  TErry - data to recruit for downtown? Rachel - could probably drill down, regionally, with beatrice specific could likely use for Main street

Discussion:  heritage heights & corral crossing - demos current, utility bids due thursday, san sewer, storm sewer, streets
taxiway - starting next monday
RCRP grant - froberry park - chautauqua park will be going out soon, pickleball will need to be rebid, working through number of projects for that grant.
Ted - close?  TT - little udner, but fairly close
Gary - chautauqua - TT - closer to tabernacle