City council meeting brings discussion over annexation

Annexation with Potter of the old Sioux Army Depot was the topic of conversation at Tuesday evening's City Council meeting—in between bouts of thunder and tornado warnings.

Eventually the council approved an interlocal agreement between the communities.

City Manager Gary Person explained that Potter was the only city in Cheyenne County that had completed a comprehensive plan, one of the items that must be in place in order to start the redevelopment project.

He went on to say that as a result, there will be an area at the site that is defined as Potter Annex. Sidney will provide a portion of that area with water services from its municipal system. Sidney will also provide fire protection assistance, installing lines for accessing water. The city will also handle individual contracts with businesses’ sanitation services.

Because two governments are involved, an interlocal agreement between Sidney and Potter is advisable. Potter’s attorney drew up the original draft of this document. Person explained that he “modified it, somewhat, making sure the city attorney had an opportunity to review it.”

A few details remain to be fixed. When the mayor authorizes, the document will be sent to Potter for approval.

“People just need to understand we as a community, we’re not able to annex that area because of our first class city status,” Roger Gallaway said.

Person said that “this is the way that they originally wrote the law and for two reasons; one, they wanted to do it in the name of rural development. The other reason is, when you get into first class city status, you get into all those urban issues and this part you’d never get legislation like this passed.”

He went on to say that first class cities can well make the argument that they are best suited to provide services. Person added that in the new law you do have to provide some services and it has to be an agreed upon situation.”

It would make those areas all through the old depot eligible for redevelopment projects in the future with the new law, provided that all they requested and this governing body approves it, Person said.

He added, “The annexation part would only come in with the new law when that municipality actually grew out to incorporate or encompass that boundary. Which realistically is never going to happen in several generations or lifetimes to come. But by making the effort, saying you would do that, it makes them, under the new law, eligible to do it tax increment financing.”

Person said, “It puts us in a creative situation for the future to help a lot of that other area rehabilitate, provided there is a willing developer to do that.”

Joe Arterburn asked Person if there would be future benefits from this project for the local area.

“For this specific interlocal no,” Person responded, “but Potter will see a great deal of benefit from this over time.”

Arterburn then asked if the customers for water utilities benefit.

Person said that “in fact, in their (Potter’s) redevelopment plan, they made it very specifically known that they had no intentions of providing any services because they simply could not afford to do that.”

Person explained that it was a mechanism that was available and that there were two very well- known TIF attorneys involved, one representing Adams Industries and one who represented the Village of Potter; in the end they worked everything out.

“Since we are retaining ownership on everything through this agreement, we are also responsible then for any repairs, correct?” Gallaway asked.

Person answered in the affirmative.

“We did modify the agreement that they provided,” he pointed out. “Obviously we know the system out there better than they (the attorneys) and there are parts of that system owned by Adam’s Industries, there are parts owned by Cabela’s, there are parts owned by the Cheyenne County SID number one. So the Cabela’s portion is outside their boundaries; the other two are in, so we modified the agreement to make sure that it would only reference that portion that we own and are responsible for. It is our municipal system and we need to be responsible for it and we want to be.”

A motion was made by Mark Nienhueser and seconded by Gallaway to approve the interlocal agreement with the Village of Potter regarding Sidney’s municipal services on the Potter annexation of the Sioux Army Depot. The motion was passed with all in favor.