Why do we use to the flag of the United States of America?

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under the justice.

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.

Peggy, please take roll.

Mayor Nicola More.

Here.

At the primary election scheduled for May 12th, 2026.

Shall the City of Carney be authorized to establish a good life district economic development program for any area within the city which is included in a good life district established pursuant to the Good Life Transformational Projects Act.

And shall the city be authorized to appropriate the local sources of revenue collected within such good life district program area, which may include the local option sales tax and use taxes and occupation taxes established pursuant to and as permitted by the Good Life District Economic Development Act, provided that the city shall not use any property tax dollars for such program, but may appropriate sales tax receipts collected within the good life district and remitted by the state of Nebraska for such program.

Presented by Brenda.

Okay, Brenda Jensen City Manager.

And I'll apologize because normally Michaela pretties up all my PowerPoints and she was on vacation.

So I you get kind of called.

So first and foremost, what is a good life district?

It's really truly a state program to incentivize or try and um you know jump start transformational projects.

So it was originally created um by the legislature in 2023, amended in 24 and 25.

So we've had a few um kind of adjustments to the program, which has shifted a few things.

But the nuts and bolts of it are um to attract out-of-state visitors, introduce new to market retailers and stimulate infrastructure investment.

Um because of our size of city uh and within Buffalo County, we have a few benchmarks that we have to hit.

Um they're different than the say than the ones that Omaha um has to hit, but that I've just kind of outlined them there because we've heard why a good life district in a certain area of Kearney or why different things like that.

And this is um really the main reason why is because you have to have more than a hundred million dollars of new investment within 10 years, um, and 20% of the sales that are generated within the area have to be to out of state residents.

So we have to prove over the 30-year program that we're continuing to attract out-of-state um visitors to come and spend money within the district.

Um you have to do surveys or yeah, so we have uh proposed that we would use um a software like Buxton or Placer, which is um a data source that we already utilize to show that.

Um we can also back it up with um luckily there's a lot of hotels that are right adjacent to ours, so hotel received different things like that to prove it to the state.

And they've um within our application, we had to submit all that, how we would um show that data over time, and so they accepted and approved our source.

Would credit card billing and debit card billing, would that be would that work for that?

That would work, yep.

If we were able to access that and and get it, or you know, if they just looked within the Department of Revenue at the state and looked at that too, that would be another way that they could prove it themselves, but um or provide it to us, and we're happy yeah, we would be happy to collect that information and at least evaluate it.

Um but yes, and so one of the other things 50 new jobs, but again, in an area this large, that's not very hard to hit, and then it is a 30-year program.

So we were approved in July of 2025, and that started the 30-year clock, so it will run until um July of 2055.

Um what are the main benefits?

Um, I'm not gonna go through all of those, but honestly, the the main benefit is that money, the state sales tax rate will still be at the 5.5%, but half of it will be rebated back to the city to then put into um development costs or refund development costs within the district.

That's the most important point, right?

Is we're not increasing taxes, there's no new taxes.

Um it's truly like if you're the customer, I'll show on the next slide.

If you're the customer, you're not even going to know the difference.

But what it does is instead of sending all of that 5.5% of the state sales tax to Lincoln, uh, we get half of it back to reinvest within the good life district here in Kearney.

So keeping money local is always a good thing.

So that's that's really the main highlight point.

Why why don't you have a residential on there for high density residential options?

Um it that is another, yes, that's another thing too.

Um it I will admit that's not what the program is intended to do.

They want it to look at retail things that are gonna generate um sales tax, but that is something that as part of the plan within this 200 acres, there is high density responsibility.

That's not the primary part of the plan, but it's allowed to admit.

Yes, it is allowed.

There's limitations on the money that's utilized for high density residential.

Um, it can only be 20% of the funds can go towards residential, because again, the state is trying to stimulate sales tax growth.

So essentially, if you in the good life district, um, and actually this is happening now because our our uh application was approved in July in 2020.

There's one entity that's open right now within the good life district.

It happens to be the sportsplex.

So if you're spending money at concessions on taxable items at concessions at the sportsplex, we are getting rebated the money currently.

Obviously, that's not a massive money generator, so it's pretty minimal right now.

But same thing when drop zone opens or Texas T-Bone.

Um, what's going to happen is your receipt for any of your items, you know, if it's a hundred dollars, it's this is exactly what it's gonna look like.

You're gonna pay the state sales tax of 5.5%, local option sales tax is gonna remain the same at one and a half percent.

Um, and then on the back end, so again, the customer won't even necessarily won't know because they're paying the exact same rate that you would pay anywhere else in Kearney.

Um, that money then is rebated back to the city because the city was the applicant in this case.

So the 2.75 cents um or percent in this math scenario, it's $2.75.

That's rebated back to the city of Kearney.

So where is the good life district?