Antelope County Commissioners adopted a new snow removal policy when they met last Tuesday at the courthouse in Neligh.

Casey Dittrich, road superintendent, presented the policy that he and road foreman Aaron Boggs have been drafting over the past few weeks, with input from Tim Baxter from the Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Agency, the county’s liability-insurance carrier. Input also came from road crew members and, according to Dittrich, has the “blessing” of county attorney Joe Abler.

The policy establishes protocol for the order of plowing roads, with emergency, priority one, two and three routes identified. The Priority One route includes the emergency route and bus routes for several school districts and will be implemented when school is in session. Priority Two includes mail routes and roads that access occupied residences and businesses. Priority Three includes county roads with no dwellings or businesses.

The routes, excepting bus routes, are included on the public version of the map. Bus routes are on an “internal” version possessed by the road department officials. That version is not public, due to safety concerns, according to Dittrich.

“(We) told schools wouldn’t share…but every operator has a condensed version, showing only their district, color coded by school, so if one school is called off and one has late start, we can prioritize our route that way,” he said. “(It) will also help prevent school bus drivers from deviating from the normal plan and getting stuck, we’ve had that before…if somebody deviates from that, it protects us from liability but, most of all, it just helps us do our job better.

It doesn’t actually get us out of anything, it just gets us in the right spot at the right time.”

Three pages of the four-Page document, while accessible as an official public record, are considered an internal document, according to Dittrich, for use by road department personnel only.

“I don’t think the public wants to read three-and-a-half pages of what to do when you come up on a stranded car in the middle of the road, so we kind of shrunk it down to let the public know what we do, how we do it, when we do it, the order we do it in,” he said.

The fourth Page, that he said includes important information for residents of the county, along with a color-coded map were released for publication. The map identifies state highways, along with the county’s hard-surface, aggregate-covered and minimum maintenance roads.

“The old way of doing things, if it was bad enough or it was still blowing, if it was going to blow until dark, we would go out and run the oil sometimes. We used to do 186 miles of it, this (emergency route) is just under 200 miles total,” Dittrich said.

He said some oil roads have been converted back to gravel and many gravel roads serve more residents than other oiled roads. He expected the emergency route could be covered in less than three hours.

Discussion included commissioners’ concerns about spreading salt/gravel on icy areas.

The road superintendent told the officials, per recommendations from NIRMA, straight-away roads will not be routinely salted. The policy/map identifies 38 areas that will be salted when icy conditions occur, including curves, intersections and 50-feet back from stop signs where county hard-surface roads meet state highways. Baxter’s advice included the need for consistency.

“Once we salt something once, it can be expected. We have pickup-mounted salt spreaders that hold 2,000 pounds of salt. The recommendation from our salt provider is 600 pounds a mile, it would take us six hours to salt 10 miles,” he said. “We are not equipped for it. It shouldn’t be expected, and it’s never been promised. If we want to change that, we need different equipment… we can pull a guy out of a maintainer to do salt, but that’s 65 miles of road that aren’t getting snow removed… Do you want to look at increasing our workforce or pulling people out of snowplows to salt instead? I know that blowing-in drifts is typically a bigger complaint than ice.”

Commissioner Eli Jacob voiced concern for areas on the Royal and Orchard roads.

“We’ve always salted our roads after we push the snow, we didn’t take anybody out of snowplows, it might not get salted the first day, but the second day somebody was able to do it. But eventually it gets done,” he said. “I think we are going to get a lot of phone calls if we don’t salt some of those roads, so maybe we are going to have to increase our workforce.”

Dittrich inquired about obtaining a salt spreader for a dump truck, “preferable with a plow on the front,” which commission chair Dean Smith said he had suggested previously.

Other discussion included when and how the determination will be made for sending the plows out, especially on weekends; differences in conditions from one side of the county to another; and differences between state highways and county road operations. Dittrich said he would like to continue asking for commissioners’ input, via text message. Smith asked that commissioners be advised when plans are put in place to employ the emergency routes, even when no input is requested.

The final item discussed, pertaining to the policy, was notification to the public. Krebs brought it up, citing an issue she experienced the previous weekend when one snowdrift prevented her college-student children from traveling to the highway. She said she didn’t have cell service so hadn’t received Dittrich’s text message early in the day indicating the plows would not go out.

Dittrich said he notified the sheriff’s office, as he typically does in cases where no plows would be running. Sheriff Bob Moore told the commissioners his staff had notified radio stations, in addition to posting on social media and would do that in the future as well.

Smith agreed the public needs to know where to find the information. “That would have helped, that’s what (Krebs) needed…When will this be open? How long do I hold off? And, do I finally decide they are going to have to go a different route or we are going to have to scoop it out ourselves?”

Henery said the public needs to be responsible for their own safety. “I agree we need to stay on top of it, but they need to implement their own safety, if they feel like the roads are blowing shut, they have to use their own discretion on what they are doing too. And if they feel like they need to call, I am more than happy to have them call me and get a hold of (Dittrich).”

The policy was approved unanimously by the commissioners, along with a plan for Dittrich to notify the county sheriff’s office staff of weather-related travel “restrictions,” Sheriff’s office personnel will log the call, post on its Facebook Page and notify area media.

All five county leaders also gave an unofficial nod to extend overtime compensation options until the end of the year and the item was placed on the agenda for the Dec. 10 meeting. A resolution authorizing overtime expired Nov. 30.

Dittrich said weather conditions were favorable last week for road work, but the employees deserved to know if they would be paid for hours worked.

“I’m fine (extending another month), but I would like to see the numbers…I understand where the budget’s at too,” commissioner Carolyn Pedersen said. “May isn’t the time to be considering what are you going to do when you are over, you don’t want to go over, I can guarantee you, it’s not good.”

County clerk Lisa Payne asked for a motion and was reminded the issue was not on the agenda.

The commissioners heard that dust issues on 846 Road have been resolved for the time being. A letter of appreciation for their intervention with Invenergy was received from Lee Meyer.

Meyer wrote, “I have no doubt that without your help, this issue would not have been resolved.”

Dittrich told the leaders he had spoken to David Owenby with Invenergy, who indicated the company did not plan to proceed with amending an easement at the intersection with Highway 14.

“It sounded pretty clear that they would like to keep it the way it is and not pursue an easement with Kleins at this point. I think if we want to see that pursued, then we should give them that direction now.” Dittrich said.

Henery favored giving the Kleins more time to consider their options.

“I don’t think that the pressure and/or heat need to be on Kleins, it’s on Invenergy,” Smith said, reminding his peers, the issue wasn’t just near the highway, indicating issues further west on 846 Avenue. He added, “It seems to be calmed down right now, but I’d sure like to have somebody stay ahead of it, so it doesn’t escalate to where it was.”

Dittrich was directed to remove the item from the agenda going forward, unless issues arise.

The commissioners unanimously approved reappointment of Antelope County Planning Commission members whose terms expire Dec. 31, Phyllis Perdue, Dan Zwingman and Greg Wortman.

Zoning administrator Liz Doerr also informed the board of the upcoming expiration of a board of adjustment member, Randy Hughes, who does not wish reappointment.

Doerr said two hearings for conditional use permits are planned during a Dec. 17 planning commission meeting, one for a solar farm west of Elgin and one for the Summerland school. She said the school CUP application was submitted by Ewing Public Schools on behalf of the Summerland school, which won’t be a legal entity until June. It entails driveway permits, signage and landscape plans in relation to a dwelling in the area. She said it should be “pretty routine.”

Payne and assessor Kelly Mueller explained a resolution Payne had written for commissioner consideration, to offer promotional items obtained by various county officials, through drawings at recognition events. She said they were considering annual or semiannual appreciation suppers.

“We are not requesting any tax dollars, we are just kind of requesting the motion or the idea that we can go ahead and do that,” she said. “We do a few little small gatherings during the workday, maybe once every three or four months. We just usually bring in food and share it with everybody, for about an hour…this is something a little bigger, but we were thinking maybe we could all gather somewhere and just do a little recognition, appreciation-type thing, for the employees and their years of service.”

Mueller said the small promotional items cannot be disposed of by county officials without a policy in place, according to auditors, and were stockpiled on a shelf.

After a motion was offered by Henery and seconded by Pedersen, Krebs asked for more time to review the resolution presented. She said the items need to be deemed obsolete, of no use to the county, by a vote of the commissioners before they can be dispersed to employees. Henery rescinded his motion, Pedersen agreed. The policy was to be reconsidered at the Dec. 10 meeting.

Payne also asked the commissioners if they were agreeable to paying for main dishes for a courthouse employee Christmas luncheon. She said in the past the commissioners had paid for a turkey and a ham, which were prepared by custodians Ed and Marlene Schindler, with office personnel providing the remaining food. Commissioners agreed. The luncheon was planned for Dec. 10 from 11 a.m. to noon.

Brian McDonald, county engineer, reported on information he had gathered regarding removal of the Singing Bridge, that is listed on the Nebraska historical registry, and is believed to contribute to flooding issues. He said he had talked to Nebraska Department of Roads and the Nebraska Historical Society representatives and a contractor.

“As long as we don’t use federal funds, we can do quite a bit,” he said. “I don’t believe we need Corp. (of Engineers) permits.”

The contractor gave him two options, moving the bridge, intact, to a county yard, or dismantling it. McDonald asked for price quotes for both options.

He said it is the only bow-string arch bridge remaining in Nebraska and is on the historic register because of the design. Neligh’s Mill Bridge, on the other hand, is on the register because of its relationship to the mill. He also said an A-frame truss bridge in Riverside Park is “historic eligible,” and there had been talk 20 years ago of moving the Singing Bridge to the park, giving the opportunity for visitors to see three historic structures within walking distance.

In other business, the commissioners:

• Approved a $1,500Visitors’ Committee Improvement grant for the Clearwater Chamber of Commerce, toward a $10,000 project to replace/upgrade the concession stand at the rodeo grounds;

• Approved a two-year law enforcement contract with the Village of Orchard, at $1,092.25/month;

• Selected Jacob as voting delegate for the Nebraska Association of County Officials business meeting, with Pedersen as alternate;

• Approved final pay applications for Thiessen Construction for the Poor Farm Bridge project and for Knife River for hot-mix asphalt work completed since August and a retainer held, as presented by McDonald;

• Adopted resolution confirming McDonald as highway superintendent, as required by the Nebraska Board of Classifications and Standards, for allocation of highway funds;

• Approved underground permits submitted by Catherine Ray, for electric service to irrigation system on 533 Avenue southwest of Tilden; by Jarod Bearinger for an electric service line on 515 Avenue near Clearwater; and Josh Stelling to bore under a hard-surface road for a supply line to a new residence on 513 Avenue;

• Adopted a resolution for fees charged by the county treasurer;

• Approved a contract for commercial assessment for the county assessor; and

• Approved official county newspapers for 2020.