BEATRICE – A revenue bond to help fund utility department purchases gained approval Tuesday night, of Beatrice elected officials.


The city council approved the ordinance authorizing the issuing of up to $5 million in bonds, earlier recommended by the Board of Public Works.


City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer explained what will be funded with the issue with utility departments of the city.  "The water department purchased a jet truck, for about a half-million dollars. The WPC has ordered a jet truck...and it should be delivered maybe even this week, but before the end of the month.....again, another half-million dollars. And then, the electric department has about $4 million worth of projects...substation rebuilds and some feeder lines that they want to rebuild inside the city here. So, you get a total of debt issuance of about $5 million."


The bonds will be paid off with revenue generated by each utility department. Bond payments are split between departments. Tempelmeyer says about 80-percent of the payments will come from the city electric department budget and ten-percent each from the water and water pollution control departments.
The ordinance authorizing the bond issue was approved by the council on a 7-0 vote, with one member absent from Tuesday night’s meeting.


Tempelmeyer announced that a Beatrice Municipal Airport taxiway and apron project is set to begin in March.


"One of the safety concerns is that you can drive from where the hangars are, onto the runway without making a turn. That's not considered a safe practice anymore. They want to make a turn in order to get onto a runway...and so we'll correct that part. It's been designed that way, forever...but now we got some federal grants and we'll take care of that one...and get that one fixed."


March 24th is the scheduled start date of the airport project…which is supported by a Federal Aviation Administration grant and covers the majority of the cost. The airport will also be modernizing its fuel storage system, removing two underground tanks beneath the apron and relocating the fueling faciity to a single above ground storage tank, off the southeast part of the apron.