Welcome to our meeting.

The date is November 18, 2025.

The time is 7 p.m.

This is an open meeting of the Grand Island City Council.

The City of Grand Island abides by the Open Meetings Act in conducting business.

A copy of the Open Meetings Act is displayed in the back of this room as required by state law.

The City Council may vote to go into closed session on any agenda item as allowed by state law.

At this time I ask that you stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Council President Shear.

Present.

Councilmember Stelk.

Present.

Councilmember Conley.

Present.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Haasie.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Councilmember O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock.

Present.

Councilmember Lamfear.

Present.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

Also present are Jill Grenier, the city clerk.

Patrick Brown, the City Administrator.

Carrie Fisk, the City Attorney, and Keith Kurtz, the Public Works Director.

Individuals who have appropriate items for city council consideration should complete should complete the request for future agenda items form located at the information booth.

If the issue can be handled administratively without council action, notification will be provided.

If the item is scheduled for a meeting or study session, notification of the date will be given.

If council members have no objection.

Hearing no objection, 8A will be withdrawn from tonight's agenda.

Second housekeeping matter, Council members, uh do you wish to remove any items from the consent agenda for additional discussion?

Hearing none, we shall continue.

A sign-up sheet was available in the lobby for individuals wishing to provide input on any of tonight's agenda items.

If you did not sign up to speak on an agenda item, please come forward.

State your name and the agenda topic on which you will be speaking.

No one has come forward, so we shall continue.

Mr.

O'Neill, I assume you have a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Yes, Mayor.

I move that we approve consent agenda items A through R.

Mr.

Hawsey.

I second that motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Public hearing 7A.

Public hearing on acquisition of utility easement 22 Deers Avenue, JP and PC of GI LLC.

Please present.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

This is a 20-foot easement to service Woodhouse Auto.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Mr.

Brown.

I move to approve 2025 TAC 398.

Mr.

Pollack.

And I would second that.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

7B public hearing concerning a development plan for CRA area number 37 to allow for redevelopment of property located at 611 Kerry Avenue, Central Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska for residential purposes, lots 49 to 54 of Belmont Addition in Grand Island.

Please present.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

The item before you this evening is a redevelopment plan brought in by NMN Express.

Um that is a company owned by Paul Jonas and his family.

Mr.

Yonis is here.

Uh if you have any specific questions for him.

The proposal is to build a 24-unit apartment building, um, 181 bedroom, six two bedroom on this half block on Fadley and Kerry.

This block has been vacant since the early 90s.

Um there was a house there prior to that, and it was torn down and it has been vacant since then.

There are other apartment buildings in this immediate neighborhood, the hospital, the old Lutheran Hospital immediately to the north.

So this scale of development certainly fits within this area of the city.

He is requesting $925,000 of tax increment financing for workforce housing.

Um this workforce housing he is actually building for his employees.

Umyees at his hotels.

He's got two new ones that are opening up in Grand Island over the course of the next year, and this will provide housing for Yonis employees.

The 925,000 is slightly less than would then we anticipate that this will generate.

It should generate a little over a million dollars in increment over 15 years, so this should pay off in less than 15 years, and maybe depending on what property values do, substantially less than 15 years.

The planning commission did hold a public hearing on this and did pass a resolution finding that the use of this property for an apartment building is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

The CRA has reviewed the application and approved the plan and recommended approval to the city council.

If you approve this this evening, I will send things forward to have contracts drawn up so that they can officially get started on the project with more than just dirt work that they are allowed to do ahead of time.

Thank you very much.

Paul, did you want to speak or just if they have questions?

Good evening.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

People say what we do why we're doing the apartment.

We trying to recruit employees to come to work into Grand Island.

The biggest issue right now is the cost of the apartments right now, is very high.

And when you're paying some people between 16 and 25 dollars an hour, it's very hard for them to spend 14, 50, and 1,600.

And to for us, I'd like people to come from Lincoln or Mohammed Cook, Hastings, or wherever from.

We thought to take the initiative.

We did the same thing in Conney.

We do have one, we do have sorry, 98 unit, just we designate those for our employees.

We pay all their utilities for them.

It's very easy thing.

We'll furnish it for them.

They'll come in, they pay very minimal rent, and we as a company we subsidize it for the employees.

The first year when we open it, we might use only half of it for the employees.

We might rent the other half for the first year.

Then as we grow the company after next year, we'll have 500 rooms in Grand Island between the Hampton Inn, Avid and Atoll Suite and the Fairfield Inn as well as the Candleworth.

We're gonna bring more employees.

Hopefully, we'll have room for them to live.

This would they'll have no reason not to come to Grand Island and no reason not to work.

Public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Mr.

Hawsey.

I would move to approve resolution 2025-399.

Mr.

Brown.

I second that motion.

Any discussion wants to talk?

I'm sorry, Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I I appreciate Paul for what you've brought forward.

It is very uh seldom, if ever, do we ever get a TIFF application that doesn't ask for the full amount of the available?

So I appreciate your putting it together the correct way and asking just for what you need.

So thank you very much.

So it's very hard a lot to work with because we have to do we're working with the city.

We're doing some work in the in the alias back there, and we have to move some life ball and the city zone.

We thought we need some effort to get that going the right way.

And Chief Construction here in Grand Island, there'll be the general contractor on that one.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you, everybody.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

7C public hearing on consideration of an amendment to the future land use map for land located west of North Road and south of Enterprise Avenue, consisting of lots 30 through 41 inclusive and lots 60 through 65 inclusive of Grand Island Industrial Park West Subdivision in the City of Grand Island, Nebraska, and adjacent right of way from CI commercial industrial to LMDR, low medium density residential.

Please present.

If you can open the next public hearing as well, it's on the same item, and that way you only have to listen to me talk once.

Public hearing 7D.

Public hearing to consider request to rezone property located west of North Road and south of Enterprise Avenue near Good Samaritan Society, Grand Island Village, from M1 Light Manufacturing Zone to a R1 suburban residential zone in Grand Island, Nebraska, Pretoria Ventures LLC.

Please proceed.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

Um the item before you this evening, it consists of two actions.

The first would be to amend the future land use map from the comprehensive plan.

The property that we're talking about is located just to the west of North Road between Enterprise and Trust.

It was developed by Chief in 1984, I believe, is when it was originally platted.

It was platted as an industrial subdivision and planned as industrial lots.

It is still vacant 41 years later.

Chief sold that to Good Samaritan.

They rezoned it from an M1 to an RD zone almost 20 years ago and have built their facility there.

At that point, I recommended to Chief that they also rezone this piece because it was right there surrounded by residential.

They were not ready to do that at that point.

They are ready to do that now and are requesting that we rezone it to an R1.

With that, what we're doing is changing the future land use map from the commercial industrial proposed use to a low to medium density residential.

The uh the R1 is a suburban density residential.

We would consider that a low density zoning district.

So what this does is make the comp plan consistent with what they are asking to have it rezoned to.

Then the second action would be to actually change the zoning map.

Um with that, you already approved a preliminary plat that is contingent on this rezoning to bring it in for a final plat that was part of the consent agenda that would develop 36 lots on this property.

All of the lots are between 10,000 and 17,000 square feet in the R1 zoning district.

You need 9,000 square feet per dwelling unit.

So even the largest of those lots would not be suitable for a duplex, but all of them would be suitable for single family.

Planning commission did recommend approval of both the zoning change and the comprehensive plan amendment.

Public hearing is now open.

David Ozdick, did you want to speak?

Certainly.

Um my name is Dave Ostick.

I do work at Chief Industries.

Um we have this in front of you, and we hope that you support it.

If you have any questions, I'm just here to ask questions you may have on our development.

They may after their motion.

Thank you.

Fair enough.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I move that we approve 2025-400.

Mr.

Landfear.

Second.

Any discussion.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, there was a question about some earlier questions that came from the citizens about the neighboring citizens about sidewalks, where the sidewalks are going, and then there was a neighborhood garden.

Has all of that been resolved at this point?

No, I'm not familiar with those with those comments or questions.

Chad, can maybe if you can I am not sure about the neighborhood garden and if it is on Chief's property, I'm certain that it would be redeveloped at this point if it was, but I don't know that it's on Chief's property.

Yeah, I didn't understand it to be on, but I was about where the sidewalk was.

The sidewalks with the final plat, we will require sidewalks along North Road.

We will require sidewalks along the cul-de-sac interior to the subdivision.

We typically do not require sidewalks whether where there are rural section streets like trust and enterprise.

So I would anticipate that we're not going to require those until such time as the city comes forward and puts storm sewer in and makes those regular residential streets.

Okay.

Thank you, Chad.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Council members, the companion item to the public hearings is ordinance number one zero zero five two.

Is there a motion to suspend the statutory rules regarding ordinances?

Mr.

Hawsey.

I move that the statutory rules for ordinance number one zero zero five two be removed.

Thank you, Mr.

O'Neill.

I second the motion.

Any discussion.

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Mr.

Navity, I assume there's no more pre-presentation on ordinance number one zero.

Exactly what I said in the last presentation.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Brown.

Move we approve 10,053.

52.

No, we already did that.

We're going to suspend the move.

Oh, that's jumped over there.

Sorry, good job.

Okay.

Try again.

Okay.

I move we approve.

Uh jump back over again.

Mr.

I move we approve 2025 TAC 400.52.

Move reapprove 10,052.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I second that motion.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Ordinance number 10,053.

Consideration of approving ward maps.

Is there a motion to suspend the statutory rules regarding ordinances?

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

I move that we suspend the rules.

Mr.

Lanfair.

Thank you, sir.

Any discussion?

Please vote.

Motion adopted.

Please present.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

The item before you this evening is just to certify that the ward map is correct as it is drawn.

The one of the things that ends up we have you approved this last in November of 21 or October of 21 after the census.

Since then, we've had some annexations with those annexations.

What has historically been done is staff looks at what ward is this next to, and we just add whatever was annexed into that.

There's some question as to whether we had the authority to do that.

They're granted full rights of citizenship.

If they're granted full rights of citizenship, they should be able to vote.

How was the decision made where to put it?

Quite frankly, in all of these cases, it's because it's the only adjacent ward.

You couldn't put it anywhere else, but in an abundance of caution, let's please recertify this map, and we will, as we annex things in the future, we will add a statement that says that it is added to this ward so that we don't run into this in the future.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

I move that we approve ordinance 1000 three.

10053.

We'll go with that.

Mr.

Landfair.

Any discussion?

Mr.

Sheard?

Yeah, I just wanted to uh Chad, I think uh I was gonna ask that same question that you you brought up, or you already answered uh about just in the future it being automatic.

Um I do want to say whoever drew these maps.

I know there's a group that got together and worked on this.

Uh I ran in 2020, and my ward was all over the place.

And now it is cleaned up from what you did in in October of 21.

I think you said so much cleaner, so much nicer.

I think they all look pretty slick.

Um common sense.

So I I appreciate all the work that's been done on that, and this as well.

Thank you.

And there are constraints on how you draw those, and that's where some of this ends up with why is this piece over here?

Because you gotta make things fit.

So thank you.

Motion adopted.

We have completed our agenda, we are adjourned.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our meeting.