BEATRICE – Beatrice officials sought public input Thursday on the project to demolish and cleanup the former Dempster Manufacturing site….condemned and sitting idle for years.


A city council committee made up of Ted Fairbanks, Gary Barnard and Terry Doyle has been leading the effort, as the city attempts to get an EPA Brownfields Program grant to remove contaminants from the area, off South 6th Street.  Mayor Bob Morgan appointed the committee to address one of the three top priorities for the city. It’s chaired by Ted Fairbanks.


"It's so in your face. It's right there on Sixth Street...and I've heard from people I went to high school with whose parents still live in Wymore that have contacted me and say, why aren't they doing something about that? The biggest thing people don't understand is that we don't own it, yet. It's a big site, lots of acres and it's broken into eight different parcels."


The city owns more than half of the property and is working toward acquiring the remaining parcels, through the City Administrator and City Attorney. The city is also working with Merchant McIntyre, a Washington D.C.-based grant writing consultant….on the Brownfields support.


"We're going to own one more probably by years-end. And, then we'll own the next piece of it by this time next year. The two pieces that we don't own are the two pieces that everyone sees....the stuff right there along Sixth Street."


The past year, the city demolished two of the buildings on the site…but many people may not know it…since the property at the rear of the main plant is largely obscured by trees and overgrown brush. "Two years ago, this thing used to be valued at $680,000. You had all these different entities, these LLCs...that bought up the back taxes, thinking they got something for nothing. They would buy up the back taxes in these different parcels for ten-thousand, twenty-thousand, thirty-thousand dollars...and then they contacted the city and said, we know you want this...it's worth $680,000 and we want to sell it to you. Well, we're not interested for $680,000. Basically, what we have done...our city attorney had written them back and said, we're not interested in it....you own it...and by the way, it's been condemned and you need to tear it down. So, then they let it go back to their back taxes. We've been buying it up on tax sales, and we'll get the last piece of it, next year."


Taryn Horn of the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy has met twice with city officials and toured the Dempster property with city officials. She said she’s confident the city can obtain the Brownfields Grant to move the process along. Fairbanks says she’s been instrumental in the process.


When the buildings are demolished and the site is cleaned up….Fairbanks notes it’s future use will be somewhat limited.  "It's going to have to be green space. You can't dig into the ground after it's been capped. It's not like we can put a building up on it. We could have ball fields, soccer fields, some baseball fields, that sort of thing. But, you really can't build a structure on it. The two buildings that we tore down last year...they've told us that anytime you take a tree down, you have to leave it on site. The trees are part of the thing that's cleaning up the ground...mother nature has a wonderful way of taking care of herself."


The property where the iconic Dempster windmill was once made…is not far from the central business district. Fairbanks says there’s potential to use the property as a public gathering place.


"One of the things I hear all of the time...I heard it a couple of times tonight...is, they'd like to see some kind of a little park in the edge of it with a little bit of history, behind it. A Dempster's whistle..a Dempster's windmill...some photographs of the site when it was in full swing. You've got a lot of people in the community that are still alive, who worked there. Or, parents and grandparents who spent their whole working lives there. And so, you want to have that connection with the past."


Officials hope to learn during the first half of next year, whether the grant funds will be awarded. Fairbanks said one of the reasons he ran for a new term on the council is he wants to see the demolition and cleanup process far enough along, that there’s no turning back.


A public open house was held Thursday at the city’s library…providing information on the Dempster project.