Public comments on proposed cuts in the Seward County Public Transit service hours will be heard at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, before the Seward County Commissioners.
Commissioners set the public hearing date and time at their Feb. 3 meeting, while discussing the transit program’s federal and state funding cuts and the impact on Seward County riders.
Seward County Transit Manager Brandy Hafer asked the commission to set the hearing after confirming the timing allowed the publication of the hearing notice.
She said she is hearing from people who have concerns about the cuts, including the potential plan to limit rides to three days a week.
“It is definitely going to hurt our community drastically,” Hafer said.
Hafer said her office is looking at options to cut the number of days of service as well as options to cut the hours services are provided each day to try to meet people’s needs. Her office has also applied to be eligible for Medicaid reimbursements.
Some riders who use the transit service for recurring medical services like dialysis or chemotherapy may require multiple rides each week. Others may have occasional appointments with specialists at Memorial Hospital in Seward or facilities in Lincoln or Omaha for which clinic appointments are only offered on specific days.
Commissioner Raegan Hain noted it is difficult to keep emotion out of the decisions to be made, but the potential of having to make up more than $60,000 from county tax revenues is challenging.
Commission Chair Misty Ahmic asked Hafer to return Feb. 10 with information on the number of unique riders served by the service and the frequency with which people use the transit service.
“I am so incredibly proud of what you have been able to do,” Ahmic told Hafer when noting the growth in ridership over the past three years. “At the same time, we are looking at cuts in a lot of different areas.”
Commissioners Scott Pekarek and Darrell Zabrocki also noted the difficulty the transit cuts present.
Also at the Feb. 3 meeting, commissioners approved a conditional use permit for Hwy 15 Truck Repair LLC, a truck body repair shop off Highway 15 in one of the buildings that formerly housed Daws Trucking. The business is owned by Allen Hemsath and Cory Stoll.
The property is zoned TA-1 for transitional agricultural use, which does not allow such a business to obtain the conditional use permit. When Jim Daws established his business on that property the business was considered a home business, which allowed multiple uses without a conditional use permit. The home has since been removed.
Other properties in the area are zoned A1 agricultural, which allows such conditional use permits.
Commissioners discussed whether it would be better to rezone the property because of the other properties’ zoning, which would require Daws, as property owner, to make the application. Daws and Hemsath attended the public hearing and commissioners’ meeting.
The Seward County Planning Commission recommended approval of the conditional use permit.
Deputy County Attorney Barbara Armstead said the options had not been reviewed by the county attorney’s office and granting the conditional use permit could set a precedent for other zones in which a specific conditional use is not permitted.
The commissioners voted 4-1 with Commissioner Raegan Hain voting against the measure. She said the board was on a “slippery slope when we are not following the advice of legal counsel.”
In other action, the commissioners on Feb. 3:
• Approved the purchase of a used motor grader after receiving only one bid from NMC CAT that will be paid out of the Inheritance Fund with the stipulation that if the county sells the equipment being replaced, any proceeds would be repaid to that fund.
• Approved an $8,200 supplemental agreement with Kirkham Michael firm for the benefit cost analysis needed for the county’s application for a Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant for the 420th Road paving project.
• Discussed plans to move the emergency management office from the West Wing offices at 14th and Highway 34 to the zoning office in the courthouse as a combined emergency management and zoning position is filled.
• Opened engineering consultant bids for the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to assess safety improvements possible for State Street by Southeast Community College campus in Milford and set a time at the Feb. 10 meeting to award the bid.
• Approved a rezoning fee refund based on a housing density count error in the zoning office.
• Approved a request for 80 hours of catastrophic leave for an employee and heard Human Resources Director Roxanne Knutson report that county employees have donated more than $7,500 in unused paid time off to replenish the county fund from which such leave can be granted for this and other employees in the future.
• Approved employee manual updates presented by Knutson.
