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“That’s a new speed record for a city council meeting,” joked Mayor Marc Kaschke at the end of Nov. 17’s regular session. Whether or not it is actually a record is not known, but from the invocation to adjournment, the whole thing clocked in well under ten minutes. The City Council sped through a light agenda. Among items passed on the consent agenda were: • Accepting bids and awarding a contract for two new trucks with dump boxes, snowplows, salt spreaders, and controls. • Approving a special liquor license for the Touchdown Club for a special event Dec. 5 at the D & N Event Center. • Sending Love Travel Stop’s application for a Class B Liquor License (beer, off sale only) to the Liquor Control Commission with no recommendation. The consent agenda contains items that the council and administration consider routine and vote on en masse without discussion. Any council member, however, can ask for any item to be removed from the consent agenda and voted on separately. No such request was made Tuesday night, however, and all the items were passed 8-0. There were only two items on the regular agenda. The first was a public hearing on whether the city should submit a plan to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development from the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG). The plan calls for $150,000 in CDBG money annually for three years. All but $1,000 of the money each year would go toward street improvements, storm water drainage, and low-income housing efforts in the northwestern section of North Platte. The $1,000 annually would go toward administration costs. No one spoke at the public hearing and the council passed the action 8-0. The final item on the agenda was approving the name of the north side bark park, which after the council approved 8-0 shall hereto forward be known as “Happy Hound Retreat.” Second Ward representative Jim Parish asked how the name was arrived upon. His Second Ward colleague Judy Pederson responded that the bark park committee received more than 200 submissions and that “Happy Hound Retreat” was the name voted on by the committee. During the public comment section, Marshall Robinson of the Touchdown Club continued his tradition of thanking the council in person for approving the business’s special liquor licenses. Pederson commended Robinson and the TDC for attaching enough importance to the votes and attending the meetings.
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