BEATRICE – Gage County will receive bids December 21st on a bridge repair project that has caused headaches for a nearby landowner for months.
The bids will be received for a Big Blue River structure county officials commonly refer to as the “Buss Bridge”….located on Dogwood Road just west of Southwest 100th Road.


Jason Pohlmann resides in rural DeWitt along Hackberry Road. "I just happen to be on this one side of this river bridge and all of our farm stuff is on the other. It's split between both sides...we've got livestock on both sides. This is been beyond frustrating. We've been over a year now that this has taken...and I really don't know that there's anything done, yet."


County officials seemed at somewhat of a loss to describe why the project has languished. Pohlmann and at least one county supervisor describe the project as an emergency.  "This is costing the taxpayers of Gage County, every day. They have to drive around. If you take the DeWitt route around, you're eight miles...you take the Hoag route, it's twelve miles around. Or, you could have just gone straight across the river bridge and been on your way. School buses take this route, mail carriers take this route. Let's declare it an emergency, and get things rolling".


Gage County Board Chairman Erich Tiemann apologized for the project not moving forward. He said there is no good reason why there was little movement on it.  "There's no good reason this has taken so long. We've had discussions with the engineer on that, as well. I don't have a good reason for it. The emergency part here at the end, we're struggling with a little bit trying to maintain transparency and follow the statutes that we're legally bound to follow."


Supervisor Terry Jurgens says columns needed to be repaired on the bridge and a consulting engineer designed a solution about six to eight months ago. He said, for some reason, “the ball was dropped”. He said the project nearly got underway about three months ago. "There was a bridge contractor involved...and I'll just tell you flat out, he would be able to mobilize in a week or so...and was going to work. My thought was, the river is low now....now is the time to fix it....now is the time to get it done."


On Wednesday’s agenda, the board amended the schedule to move up receiving bids from a regular meeting on December 28th, to a special meeting, on December 21st. Said Tiemann..."I wish I had a good reason where I could say and justify why its been closed this long. I don't. There's no good justification for it. I'm not going to pretend there is."


Tiemann said there is a silver lining…a stronger tonnage rating and a better bridge moving forward. He also said “that’s not much consolation if you’re driving eight miles around, every day.”