YORK – The York County Commissioners have been busy beyond the board room, as they each do committee work and budget work is starting for the year.
During committee reports this week, Commissioner Randy Obermier said he continues to meet with a LB 663 group (on the state level) and he had the opportunity to speak with the York Optimists Club.
“We also had our meeting of the York County Visitors Bureau,” Obermier said. “That budget is pretty easy to deal with. Sure, we don’t know what gas prices will do to the revenue (which comes from lodging taxes), but the revenue has always been quite consistent. We will also soon have a grant application coming through which was submitted from Henderson as they want to build an all-inclusive playground there.”
Obermier also noted how he and the other budget committee members will be “jumping in this week.”
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Commissioner Deb Robertson said she recently met with Lori Byers from the York County Aging Services office “and we will be talking more about her budget this week.”
Commissioner Joe Burgess said meetings will soon be held for the boards of directors for the Southeast Nebraska Development District and Blue Valley Community Action. “And Blue Valley has been doing 60th anniversary celebrations in the different counties they serve.”
Commissioner Andy Bowman said he has been spending “a lot of time with the roads department, especially as we are talking about budgets.”
He said there are concerns about weed infestations for the county “as leafy spurge seems to be starting to be a problem here right now.”
He also noted how he recently attended a webinar regarding data centers, as well as the “state of the county” event held last week.
Commissioner Daniel Grotz said he recently attended the York County Development Corporation’s executive committee meeting “and the biggest topic was the budget. Lisa (YCDC Director Hurley) and I talked and she will be coming here in the next few weeks to talk about the budget request and make her report.”
Regarding an agreement with Fillmore County to share the services of the emergency manager, Grotz said he and Obermier had a meeting with Fillmore County “and we came to a pretty good set of words regarding sharing costs and the standard agreement.”
Grotz and Bowman also said they have been conducting interviews for several jobs at the roads department.
Grotz said he, Assessor Kurt Bulgrin and Clerk Mary Melby recently had a meeting regarding the upcoming valuation protest process and he sat in on the previously mentioned data center webinar. “I found it very interesting, in that data center webinar, how it was very clear they do not want to focus on water use because it is not a popular thing to talk about anymore.”
Grotz said he also sat in on a webinar regarding the process of adjusting values after a property is destroyed. “We remember how property was destroyed here in 2022 due to storms and we had to declare some properties to be completely or partially destroyed, which altered their valuations.”
