FREMONT- The Fremont City Council will host a special city council meeting tonight, May 5th, at 6:30 pm on the Zoom app to discuss a couple of urgent issues in the community.
The first agenda item is regarding the Dodge County Human Society’s animal control contract. The contract is currently set to run through September 2023.
Councilmembers Ellis, Jacobus, Jensen, and Yerger are bringing the item to the table to discuss and receive citizen complaints. The complaints are against the DCHS and the services they are required to provide. The city’s animal control contract was negotiated in 2015 and re-vamped in 2017.
“There are some issues the community has been dealing with the last 7-10 days and they are extremely challenging. Especially in dealing with their pets. The difficulty here is, our contract with the Dodge County Humane Society has to do with animal control, not the daily operations, how they handle their staff, hiring, or how they handle their funding other than the funding we provide them for the services provided,” said Mayor Scott Getschmann.
“The dollar amount that is provided…is very fair and I don’t believe the city could provide those services for themselves for the same dollar amount. They are providing a service, they are a vendor of the city of Fremont, and they get paid to provide those services. It’s difficult for the city to get too involved in their daily operations,” also stated Mayor Getschmann.
A possible recommendation that could come out of the special city council meeting would be to form a citizen advisory board that would then go in, take and review the complaints, and then come back to the city council with a recommendation.
The other agenda item is to discuss and approve a partnership to be able to receive additional funding for the Southeast Beltway.
“We received a notice from the State of Nebraska about 10 days ago and they shared that they want to continue to move forward with the project, but that it is over-budget. They thought it would be between forty-five to forty-six million dollars and the estimates came in around 61 million for the lowest bid…The state is planning on paying close to 50% of the 20 million left to pay for the project, so we are still looking for funding to pay the remaining 10 million,” said Mayor Getschmann.
They will be working with community partners to try and bring together a public/private process to try and get the remaining dollars funded and get this project finished. The Mayor said that around 5 million would come from the city and the remaining 5 million would come from community partners and Dodge County.
You can watch the city council meeting on Youtube or through Zoom.
Zoom link here: https://zoom.us/j/92416988963?status=success
Fremont City Council Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/
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