Council Reviews Speed Limits

The Sidney City Council gave initial approval to an ordinance amending speed limits in the city limits.

“This ordinance puts into place what we already have. But doing it this way, we have one correct ordinance,” said city attorney J. Leaf.

The package presented to the city council included proposed speed limit changes and a map of how fast drivers can travel on what streets. The proposal calls for traffic on Old Post Road from Highway 385 west to increase to 45 mph. City Manager Ed Sadler said the road is designed for 45 mph with two lanes east and west and a center turn lane. All roads near Hillside Golf Course will be 25 mph. As City staff were researching roads, a neighborhood near the golf course was found with the speed limit posted at 20 mph.

Leaf said the existing speed limits will be enforced until the new speed limits are approved and updated signs posted. The ordinance requires three readings to be enacted.

In other business, the council approved a resolution designating a portion of the city as a “slum and blight area.”

In her memo to the city council, Norgard said the downtown corridor was officially designated as slum and blighted in 1994, and re-designated in 1999 and 2008. The designation is part of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding requirement for communities to be in compliance with the Slum and Blight national objectives. The memo recites Nebraska State Statute 18-2103 which defines a blighted area as an area “which, by reason of the presence of a substantial number of deteriorated or deteriorating structures, existence of defective or inadequate street layout, faulty lot layout in relation to size, adequacy, accessibility, or usefulness, insanitary or unsafe conditions, deterioration or site or other improvements, diversity of ownership, tax or special assessment delinquency exceeding the fair value of the land, defective or unusual conditions of title, improper subdivision or obsolete platting or the existence of conditions which endanger life or property by fire and other causes, or any combination of such factors, substantially impairs or arrest the sound growth of the community...”

The original area designated was Hickory Street to Jackson Street, 16th Avenue to 7th Avenue. This designation is for Hickory to Illinois Streets, and 9th Avenue to 13th Avenue.

In the council meeting, Mayor Galloway also signed a proclamation identifying October as “Manufacturing Month.” The designation was initiated by Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, noting that industries contribute more than $13 billion to the state's Gross State Product annually. One in 10 jobs in the state is in manufacturing, according to July 2019 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Nebraska's strong manufacturing sector has been a cornerstone of our economic progress,” Bryan Slone, president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, said in Norgard's presentation.