All right, please join us with a pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of America.

One nation's okay.

In accordance with section 84, 1412 of the Nebraska revised statutes, a current copy of the Open Meetings Act is available for review and is posted on the wall of the council chambers.

Um Peggy, please call roll.

Mayor Nicola Shutter.

Schmidt Stratman.

Here.

All right.

There are no oral communications.

There's no unfinished business.

So we're gonna go to our first public hearing.

Only public hearing.

Public hearing one is the presentation of the half cent sales tax capital improvement plan for the city of Kearney presented by Brenda Jensen.

That's very small.

I apologize in advance.

But uh Brenda Jensen, city manager.

So per our requirements, when we approved the half cent sales tax, we conduct a public hearing every year to talk about what we're planning.

Um primarily we're really just talking about what we're planning for the next fiscal years.

We're talking about fiscal year 26 already.

So I'll just kind of walk you through what's on the spreadsheet.

Um the first, so we we estimate for next year, we're estimating about 6.25 um rounding up, but 6.25 million um in revenue for the half cent sales tax.

We do have a policy that 10% of that is reserved for a fund balance.

So what we're looking at from a spending standpoint um is close to $5.6 million.

Um so that's what shows down down there at the bottom from a rev or from an expense standpoint.

Uh the first 10 items are debt payments that we are obligated to make, which total about 1.67 million.

You can see that there's one item in there that we won't pay this um fiscal year.

So it'll be there's really nine items that we will be paying or nine projects that we'll be paying for.

Um additionally, a couple of the other things that we include within our special sales tax every year, are just what we would call I'm gonna say regular street projects or kind of regular operating or maintenance for our streets.

Uh, during the vote of the half cent sales tax, we had stated that we would spend at least 50% of this funding on streets.

So this is a portion of where that comes from.

Um we have ADA every year we do ADA curb ramp or sidewalk projects.

So we set aside $75,000 for that.

Um we try to do an asphalt project every year or every other year.

If we have a little bit larger project that we're planning on, we'll save two years worth of money and do the larger asphalt project, you know, the next fiscal year.

But we have 390,000 set aside for that.

Um miscellaneous street repairs again, just general whatever comes up during that next fiscal year.

We have 380,000 set aside and then 30,000 to do residential street curbs, which is a fun fact that gets you one block of curves to replace curbs.

So uh that's kind of in obviously we're targeting older areas that have broken um or shallower curbs that aren't making.

Can you talk about how we decide which streets that we put the 75k or the 30k into?

Yeah, so on the sidewalk, it's I'm gonna say a little bit more methodical.

We try and target um where we have missing sidewalks first.

So we've done a complete analysis of all of our sidewalks, and then we've actually gone through and overlaid where do we have schools, um, grocery stores, and other kind of general retail that people might walk to.

Um, and we've highlighted where we have missing links of sidewalks, and so every year we try to target those areas um to go and and fill in so we can um at least minimize gaps of sidewalk.

And so we're still working through that one.

We haven't completed all of those yet.

So that's kind of how we work through that from a sidewalk standpoint, and then anytime obviously we're doing sidewalks in an area, we're gonna clean up the ADA um ramps to make sure that it's in compliance.

Um, the curbs, I'm gonna say Luke might be able to clarify a little bit for me, but we've kind of been targeting the pioneer neighborhood, that's some of the older area.

Um, and one block at a time, it's gonna take a little while.

So that's we we try and you know, again, we've done asphalt repairs there too, um, or replacement.

And so again, we try to make sure that um if we know we're gonna do asphalt repair next year, we might not replace the curb at that point in time because we'll do it when we do the asphalt project or vice versa.

So try to make sure that there's a little bit of strategy behind it.

Um so outside of that, we do we plan um a dump truck or plow replacement every they're on a 15-year cycle, so we have 15 within the public works department.

Um we have about three others in utilities.

Um, but so we buy one every year and we replace them at 15 years, usually within that department, then they get transferred.

We don't usually sell them out of public works because they end up going to another department, and then one of the older ones out of a different department gets put on the auction list.

Um, so we keep our equipment for quite a while.

We take really good care of it to try and maintain and make sure it's operational for us for when we need it.

Um and then one of the other items on here, not exactly a debt, but a pledge that we had made is 220,000 to the UNMC rural health.

If you remember a couple years ago, we had pledge five million dollars over 15 years.