Roads dominate Chase County Commissioners’ discussion

    Because of district court and COVID-19 restrictions, last week’s meeting of Chase County Commissioners Jacci Brown, Dennis Kunnemann and Chuck Vette was moved to Wednesday, April 29, in the district courtroom.
    Much of the meeting revolved around county roads.
    After tabling requests for roads into two properties at the April 14 commissioners’ meeting, the board didn’t have any answers for Ryan Baker and Rob Schilke.
    Baker asked the county to make a road into his property, but after reviewing statutes the county isn’t required to build the road. An owner of neighboring property was willing to sell land to Baker for the road. Deputy County Attorney Rory Roundtree wasn’t sure that would meet zoning regulations. Baker, who attended the meeting by Zoom, will look into other options.
    Kunnemann requested Schilke have a survey completed for where he’d like a road.
    The commissioners also covered purchasing a water tanker for the roads department, gating of minimum maintenance roads, plugging culverts, surplus roads department equipment and discussed private use of county-contracted gavel pits.
    Bids for fixing washouts were tabled until the next commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday, May 12.
    In other business, Brown proposed the county follow Nebraska Game and Parks’ lead and reopen camping at Champion Lake when NGP reopens statewide camping at its parks.