The Wayne County Commissioners and Wayne County Board of Equalization met Tuesday morning at the Wayne County Courthouse. During the meeting chairmen and vice-chairmen were voted on for the new year and the commissioners heard from Wayne County Attorney, Amy Miller, about the restoration agreement with Kingery Construction.
The commissioners began the meeting by voting on chair and vice-chair for both the Board of Commissioners and Board of Equalization. Jim Rabe was re-elected as chairmen of the commissioners while Dean Burbach remained chair of equalization. Terry Sievers, who attended his first meeting as a commissioner was named vice-chair for both.
Once again, the Wayne County Courthouse Restoration project needed to be discussed. Kingery Construction, who had the low bid on the project, sent over an agreement in December, but the commissioners voted to approve pending the Wayne County Attorney's approval. Because then-county attorney Michael Pieper declined to go over the agreement, the commissioners needed to wait for Amy Miller to be sworn in.
Miller told the commissioners that she could not, in good conscience, tell them to approve the project. Miller said the agreement contained references to material she was not provided and she didn't have the background of the project to give her approval. She did tell the commissioners that if they planned to approval there were several changes they should add to the existing agreement.
The commissioners were hesitant to approve the agreement without an attorney's approval.
"We've come a long way through the process," commissioner Dean Burbach said. "I think anytime we make a big decision we need someone to back us up, but I think we have too much time and money involved in it to just give it up."
The agreement was approved by a vote of 2-1. Sievers voted against approval.
Wayne County Emergency Manager, Nic Kemnitz updated the commissioners about his office. In the prior meeting, Kemnitz reported that he was working on repairing a damaged coax cable on one of the County's radio towers.
Tuesday morning he reported that the repair process was underway. He also announced Emergency Management would have several training events coming up. On Jan. 23 and Jan. 25 the State of Nebraska will be holding a video conference to train on new incident software. The demonstrations will revolve around a bus crash and suspected epidemic outbreak, respectively. On March 8, Wayne State College will play host to an Economic Recovery Workshop.
Highway superintendent Mark Casey was next in front of the commissioners. Casey asked the commissioners to approve an agreement with JEO Consulting for supplimental engineering on the on-going Temme bridge project.
Wayne city administrator Wes Blecke and Wayne mayor Cale Giese came before the commissioners to discuss the importance of having one of the three commissioners on the Community Redevelopment Authority (CRA). Both Blecke and Giese said they wanted to continue the working relationship with Wayne County and the City of Wayne, a sentiment shared by the commissioners.
"We've got to work together. That's the important thing, it's just common sense to me," commissioner Jim Rabe said.
Several tax issues were heard by the Board of Equalization, and Terry Sievers was named to the vacant Northeast Nebraska Juvenile Services, Inc., Wayne Area Business & Industry Committee and CRA seats.
The next Wayne County Commissioners meeting will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. at the Wayne County Courthouse.
