'New era' of air transportation discussed

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

By teaming with Kearney, McCook has an opportunity to usher in a new era of air transportation for Southwest and South Central Nebraska.

That topic was one of the highlights of Monday night's meeting of the McCook City Council.

The plan -- called a "dual hub, single carrier" arrangement -- has the potential to establish six scheduled airline flights daily: three to the west to Denver and three to the east to Kansas City.

The flights to Kansas City would originate in McCook and stop in Kearney before heading to Kansas City, while the Denver flights would start in Kearney, stop in McCook and proceed to Denver.

The Kearney Air Transportation Committee came up with the plan, and brought it to McCook earlier this month as a way to save scheduled air service and preserve Essential Air Service subsidies.

To make the agreement binding, the City Councils of both McCook and Kearney have been asked to approve the plan. Council members from McCook are looking at the agreement favorably, but the McCook Airport Advisory board has asked to review the agreement before final approval is given.

In the opinion of the Kearney leaders who came up the plan, it has the potential to greatly increase -- perhaps even double -- airline traffic out of McCook and Kearney. One of the reasons is that the cooperative plan would connect Kearney and McCook to Kansas City, which is served by one of America's leading low cost airlines: Southwest.

Following a favorable report from Doug Vap of the McCook Airport Advisory Commission, the McCook City Council voted 4-0 to take up the contractural agreement at its Dec. 15 meeting.

In other business at Monday night's meeting, the McCook council acted upon the following matters:

* WATER RATES -- On third and final reading, the council members voted 3-1 to increase water rates across the board by approximately 25 percent. This will generate more than $250,000 per year in additional funding, but City Manager John Bingham says the increase still falls $216,000 short of meeting the city's water funding needs. Council members Jerry Reitz, Jim Kenny and Mayor Jerda Garey voted for the water rate increase and Councilman Dick Trail voted in opposition. Councilman Phil Lyons was absent.

* DIESEL PLUME ATTORNEY -- To represent McCook in its legal dispute with Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad over the diesel plume, the City Council voted 4-0 to hire William J. Delmore of Mandan, N.D. The lawyer, who is involved in a similar diesel contamination suit in Mandan against the railroad, will be paid $145 per hour plus travel and expenses. Delmore is associated with the law firm of Kelsch Kelsch Ruff & Kranda.

* CONSERVATION EASEMENTS -- By a 4-0 vote, the City Council authorized the use of city sales tax funds to purchase conservation easements at the municipal water well sites north of McCook.

The options are called conservation easements because, "We are not purchasing land. We are not purchasing water. We are purchasing the right to use the water under the land," said City Manager John Bingham. Also, engineer Greg Wolford added, the easements will protect the water from overuse and chemicals.

* RETAIL POWER AGREEMENT -- The council voted 4-0 to wait until the Dec. 15 meeting to discuss the Retail Operations Agreement with Nebraska Public Power District. Under terms of the current agreement, NPPD pays McCook 12 percent of revenues from McCook rate payers on an annual basis. McCook has until Dec. 31, 2004, to sign the agreement. If the city does not, the annual percentage paid to the city could drop to 10 percent. During the discussion, council member Dick Trail brought up the possibility of negotiating with other power providers -- including McCook Public Power District and Southwest Public Power District -- to see if a lower rate for electrical users could be obtained.

In a wide range of other business Monday night, the council:

-- placed water quality, a wastewater treatment plant and ordinance changes for construction development as top priorities, although a formal vote on the Top Ten list was not taken;

-- reappointed Mark Wacker and Dale Dueland to the Planning Commission; and reappointed Carl Philo to the City/County Airport Zoning Board;

-- approved a settlement of $55,000 from Lloyds of London for medical claims resulting from treatment for Frances Search, a city employee who is deceased.

-- authorized the sale of the remaining hooved animals at Barnett Park, including one donkey, one steer and two llamas. This will allow the removal of the west pen, which needs extensive repairs, and will also allow for the cleaning of the storm water channel that runs through the pen.

-- selected W Design Associates to provide engineering services for the development of a Master Trail Plan for McCook. As part of the agreement, W Design will waive the $3,000 fee for the plan development if the firm is selected to design the trails.

At the start of Monday night's meeting, Councilman Trail moved that the absence of Councilman Lyons be "unexcused." Trail said he could understand Lyons missing the meeting if he were ill, but said he did not regard play practice as a valid excuse.

The motion died for lack of a second.

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