The North Platte City Council Tuesday will consider changing law firms and take a final vote on rezoning the site of a 51-lot “shovel-ready” housing project it approved a month ago.
Ratification of a new two-year contract with the city’s firefighters union will also be considered at the meeting. It starts at 5:30 pm in the City Hall council chamber, 211 W. Third St.
City officials put out “requests for proposals” for providing legal services in November, Interim City Administrator Layne Groseth said in a council memorandum. North Platte’s Waite & McWha firm has been the city’s legal counsel since January 2020, when longtime full-time City Attorney Doug Stack retired.
A “tabulation sheet” of four applications attached to Groseth’s memo ranked the Brouillette, Dugan & Troshynski firm first. Waite & McWha came in second, followed by former private-practice lawyer Patrick Heng — since appointed a district judge — and the firm of Kelley, Scritsmeier & Byrne.
People are also reading…
Council members will be asked to authorize Mayor Brandon Kelliher to negotiate “for a City Attorney agreement with the agreed-upon firm,” according to Groseth’s memo.
The council advanced a zoning ordinance both June 7 and June 21 for the North Platte Area Chamber & Development Corp.’s planned housing subdivision.
The city would sell the chamber the northern 13.5 acres of some 23 acres it owns at North 17th Street and Adams Avenue, between the North Platte Cemetery and Educational Service Unit 16.
The chamber plans to install streets and utilities, then sell individual lots to developers to install modular homes or build other types of permanent housing. Council members voted 6-2 June 7 to approve $1.87 million in tax increment financing to help offset those infrastructure costs.
If they favor the zoning ordinance once more Tuesday, the housing site’s zoning