By Morgan Cardenas
editor@wayneherald.com
At Tuesday's meeting, the Wayne County Commissioners received information about a pipeline along with hearing concerns about the community.
During the meeting of the Wayne County Board of Equalization, corrections were made to personal property and real estate issues. The personal property correction was due to having the wrong amount on it and the real estate dealt with recently paid off TIF bonds that will now show a split from the properties of Dollar General (West) and Herman Chiropractic.
To start off the Wayne County Board of Commissioners, Doug Nelson brought up his concerns about theft, vandalism, and drugs in Wayne County and gave some of his ideas on how to deal with these issues. His ideas were to double penalties handed down by the judge, set a reward or bounty and look to deputize property taxpayers to assist law enforcement. These ideas would have to be looked into more with the legalities of them and how possible it would be. Nelson also brought up wind energy security agreements and if this could affect taxpayers in Wayne County. He said that he would like the Commissioners to have a say on who the company sells their company to, if they decide to do that. County Attorney, Amy Miller said the board would either have to implement zoning or could restrict which routes the wind company could go and where they could drive but do not have a say in a private business's dealings.
After, Daityn Murty, Director of Government Relations at CP Strategies, LLC answered a few questions from the public on a five-state, 2,000-mile of newly constructed CO2 pipeline. Murty is a representative of Summit Carbon Solutions and is headquartered in Ames, Iowa. The company is looking to lower greenhouse gas emissions by connecting industrial facilities by strategic infrastructure to store carbon dioxide safely and permanently. There will be roughly 314 miles located in the state of Nebraska with the route of the pipeline still in the works. There are 31 ethanol partners across the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota broken down into 20 ethanol plants who are partnering with Summit Carbon along with six in Nebraska. Murty gave information in the preliminary stage and stated there would be changes later on. Each landowner being affected would have a land agent assigned to them so both parties can work together and be compensated. The project is looking to go online in 2024. They plan to have townhall meetings that will be set up to inform the public on more information next year. More information can be found at summitcarbon.com.
The Clerk of District Court, Deb Allemann-Dannelly, gave an update on the upgrades to the courtroom technology. The board is waiting for both courts to get on the same page and provide a “blueprint” of what audio, sound and video monitors would be needed and where they would go in the courtroom.
County Attorney Miller discussed National Opioid Litigation Settlement Class Action Suit with the Commissioners. The Commissioners would like Miller to sign Wayne County up in support of this settlement however Miller is unaware of how much money each state will be getting but a percentage would go to Wayne County as the board also voted for those funds to be designated to the county.
Finaly, the Commissioners took action on setting the salaries for the 2023-27 term of office. The base salary for the commissioners will remain the same with the possibility to earn additional funds by putting in hours while working on the roads.
The Wayne County Board of Commissioners will next meet in regular session on Tuesday, Jan. 4 at 9 a.m. in the Wayne County Courthouse.
