Santa Arrives in Gering!

Friday, November 27th was special in Downtown Gering, NE. Santa arrived at Santa Village!! At the end of the Holiday Parade, there was Santa, Mrs. Claus and two very helpful elves to greet the children at Santa Village in front of the Civic Center.

It was quite an event with hundreds of children and their parents waiting for his arrival. There were carolers, thanks to Gering Zion Church, hot chocolate, and cookies thanks to the Gering Bakery. Several members of the merchants were helping pass out the goodies.

Santa Village consists of Santa Workshop, Valley Bank, a Merchants building, a School, a Church (replica of Gering Zion), an igloo (one of the favorites, a police station, and a dog house! They are in the northeast corner of the Civic Center Parking lot.

Santa will be there the next three Saturday's before Christmas from 10am until 1pm. A great opportunity for parents to take their children's picture of Santa. If you are able, the merchants do accept donations to help keep the village going year after year.

On December 5th, many activities will be happening in Gering! The North Platte Valley Museum opens their Christmas trees for judging, the Farm & Ranch Museum will have their High Plains Christmas celebrations including collecting letters to be delivered to Santa at Santa's Village by Pony Express!!

Here are more pictures from Friday night. Please stop by downtown Gering on Saturday and take everything in!!

A Generous Community

With all the bad news one hears, we tend to forget what a great community we live in.

Since it is Thankgiving week we need to take a moment out of our busy lives, and remember that the many things we have to be thankful for. This past weekend, KNEB and Panhandle Coop teamed up to help the CAPWN Food Pantry. We did live remotes from Plaza Foods on Friday night, where KNEB had their Monsanto Silverado Pick up parked out front. We then had a Husker Tail Gate Party on Saturday. We collected food for a total of 9 hours.

In those nine hours, we filled the box of their pick up and collected over $600 in cash. The cash will be used to apply for a $500 matching grant from Land O' Lakes Foundation.

Today, Mayors Meininger and Greenwalt and I signed a proclamation commemorating the 25th Anniversary of "Thanksgiving in the Valley" which will be held again at the Guadalupe Center on Thanksgiving Day from 11am-1pm. Last year over 800 meals were served, with half of those being delivered to the home bound. I worked at KNEB when a man by the name of Rich Berry started this project and Kevin Mooney has kept it going all of these years!!! Hundreds of volunteers help put this on and many businesses and organizations donate money to buy the food. It truly is a blessing for our enitre community.

Times are tough right now, but it does your heart good to know the community you live care for its own. If you would like to volunteer for "Thanksgiving in the Valley" contact Jill Allen at the Scotts Bluff County Volunteer Center, 308-632-3736. By the way, Jill can also tell you how to volunteer on an ongoing basis, with one of their many programs.

Have a very blessed and thankful Thanksgiving!

Making the USDA Blog

A few weeks ago I wrote about the partnership with Magnolia homes, the City of Gering, TCD, USDA, and local banks. Well we were also on the USDA Blog. Here is the link: http://www.usda.gov/blog/usda/entry/recovery_act_funds_provide_jobs

Let your voice be heard!

I hear a lot about taxes being too high in Nebraska. We have a great opportunity coming up on Wednesday.

Revenue Committee Hearings will be held at the Harms Center at 10 am.

Topics for the hearing include:

LR212- valuation of agricultural land for tax purposes.
LR214-local govt. levy limits and property tax proposals that have been implemented since 1995

LR 215- current processes and procedures in statute applicable to county boards of equalization
LR 251- valuation processes of real property

Senators Louden and Harms really wanted one of these hearings in Scottsbluff. Please let your voice be heard on Wednesday, October 28th, 10am at the Harm's Center.

Clarification

Yesterday, during my "State of Gering" address, it was interpreted that I don't support the Gering Newspaper, the "Gering Citizen." I was asked for a written clarification by Publisher Jim Headley and Lisa Betz who also works there. I understand that Jerry Purvis, who did attend was also very upset.

It was not my intent to upset anyone with any of the comments I made.

I had a slide in the presentation that featured four new Gering Businesses. Classis Lanes, Pony Express Station, the Steel Grill and the Gering Citizen. These are the same businesses I mentioned in the October issue of the "Talk of the Town." I apparently made some additional comments that were interpreted that I did not support the Citizen and upset the staff at the Citizen.

For that, I do apologize. I do want all Gering businesses to succeed. I do read the Citizen at City Hall and am a "Fan" of the Citizen on Facebook.

Once again, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

So it has been about a month, since my last post. It seems when things get crazy this gets forgotten.
Today I will be speaking to the Leadership Scotts Bluff Class on Social Media and how to promote your professional and business image. Blogging will be one of those topics.

Three weeks ago, we were very honored to host two cabinet secretaries in Gering. Ag Secretary Vilsack and Interior Secretary Salazar were both part of the "Rural Tour" which made a stop at Scotts Bluff National Monument.
Ken Mabery, Superintendent at the Monument, looked back into the archives and the nearest they can tell, it was the first the Secretary of the Interior visited the park since it opened nearly 90 years ago. It was a very exciting day!
We must thank Geringite, John Berge, who really went to bat for our community to bring them here. John is the White House Liason to the USDA!

Last week on October 6th, I was proud to represent the City of Gering at Magnolia homes for the reception with USDA on the project of the 5 homes built in southeast Gering. Back in April, the City loaned them $575,000 to build 5 homes. That loan was paid back in September, with all the homes selling. The many partners were recognized. Twin Cities Development, Magnolia Homes, USDA and the lending partners of Valley Bank, Platte Valley Companies, and First State Bank. If you have not driven down K Street and Pappas, it is really taking on a new look!

Coming up next Wednesday, October 21st at noon, I will be presenting the "State of Gering" at Gering Business club. It is a similar presentation that was done at the "State of the Valley" in September. If you would like to know what is going on in Gering, please feel free to attend, it will be at the Civic Center.

We are in the process of updating the City of Gering's Website. We have added videos and we are working with Hale Multimedia to redesign it. Our goal is to have information that you might need on the sight. We will let you know when it is up and running.

Until next time....

State of the Valley

Yesterday was the Chamber's Government Affairs Committee hosted Annual State of the Valley address at the Hampton Inn. It is a time for business people in the community to hear from Elected officials what is going on in our community. School Board Presidents, Drew Lyon of Gering and Bob Kinsey of Scottsbluff, County Board Chair Mark Masterton, and Mayors, Kent Greenwalt of Terrytown, Randy Meininger of Scottsbluff and me all gave the highlights of the past year.

It was good to see a nice crowd again this year. Last year there were about 90 and the event was sold out, so it moved to the Hampton where there were around 110 people. I was appreciative to see people attend, since no one was at our public hearings for our budget. I know that people do care, but they just don't show up to meetings.

I know they care when they send mail, however, if it is not signed it is difficult to address and therefore not credible. Also it is frustrating for me when I hear complaints with no solutions. We hear a lot of negative, but at the State of the Valley you hear a lot of positive. You hear directly from those you serve you not the rumor mill.

Sure not everything is positive, however, there is a lot of positive happening. Between the cities, the county and the school districts millions of dollars are being spent to upgrade facilities. Those dollars go to LOCAL contractors and subcontractors that live in this valley. They have kept their employees working, when the construction industry as a whole as been flat.

We have to continue to move forward or we won't be progressive and grow. What attracts younger people to move back to our area? Seeing things HAPPEN! There is a lot happening in our community and for that we are blessed.

One more thing, please attend the Gering School Board's meeting on Monday night, Spetember 21st, at 7pm at the High School auditorium. "What to do with Lincoln Elementary School" is the topic. They are asking for YOUR INPUT! Please be proactive and be there. Offer your opinions in a venue where they will count and have an impact.

Until next time.....

Blending Services

On Tuesday, September 8th, the Gering City Council met jointly with the Scottsbluff City Council during their regular meeting. The main focus is where to look for additional blending of services between the two cities.

I realize the concept of one city is controversial, but we should be able to work together and help each other in departments we both have, especially those that are funded by the General Fund.

This is where the blending of the two police departments comes in. Gering Police Chief Mel Griggs, Scottsbluff Police Chief Alex Moreno, and Gering City Administrator Lane Danielzuk have been meeting the last couple of months and have made some impressive headway.

They are now charged with coming up with a model for the combined police force that then could be applied in other areas.

I know there is concern about losing jobs, however I believe this will happen through attrition and not reduction in force. Working together should provide for better communication. I also believe it is a matter of working smarter rather than harder.

A Scottsbluff citizen recommended we set up citizen committees to discuss the possibility of one city. As of right now, we may not be there, but that certainly is in the future. However, we will need people that are open to possibilities and not find fault with everything.

We have been lucky that the economic downturn has not hurt us that much, YET. But it will come to that. If you want the services at the same high level, then we need to make changes in the way we run the business of running the city.



Here are a couple of links from KNEB and the Star Herald about the meeting.



http://www.kneb.com/news/index/0c483e0f-862b-4d97-a091-b99310506651



http://www.starherald.com/articles/2009/09/10/news/local_news/doc4aa7293546734685030852.txt



Until next time......

Grape Harvest

On Saturday, August 29th I did something I have never done before. My sister, Cindy, her husband, John and I help our cousin Hank Rahmig pick grapes in his small vineyard southeast of Gering.
We saw them at Mulligan's on Friday night when we were celebrating family birthdays. They mentioned that they were picking grapes the next morning. So out we went picking grapes.


The picking of the grapes was okay, but seeing his small vineyard and seeing the grapes on the vine, was very picturesque. Here are the pictures. We only picked the white grapes that day. Hank will pick the others sometime next week.

Today was the budget workshop. I would have rather been out picking grapes, since the session lasted over four hours. However, issues were resolved and we will take it to public hearing in September.

Next Tuesday, September 8th, will be a joint council session with the City of Scottsbluff. As we both move forward, we have to continue to look at ways to work together, or services will be cut.

The State of the Valley luncheon will be held on Wednesday, September 16th at the Hampton Inn. Call the chamber for tickets if you are interested. Sometimes you feel you are getting anywhere until you look back and see what has been accomplished. If you have an interest in the communities, please plan on attending and hear first hand what is happening in the community as a whole.

Until next time.....

Building a Playground

I am a member of the Scottsbluff Kiwanis Club. You know the club that headed up building the Trails of Fun Playground in Riverside Park! Months ago when the club decided to do this, I thought that it was rather ambitious. However, with the leadership of Bob Commings, Charmaine Uhrig, Roger Russell, and LOTS of volunteers the mission was accomplished on Sunday.

I usually refer to myself as "craftily challenged." Meaning I usually don't have patience for crafts like woodworking. However, I seemed to take to power tools last week! This first day I worked was Thursday and I mostly painted boards. To say the least pretty boring.

By Saturday, Dave one of the engineers from Leathers Associates, Inc. asked,"Do you think you can do signs?" Well since I am a Marketing person by trade, I figured, "yes I can!"


So Ann Koehler, Mary Crawford and I set to making the signs for the new playground. We drew out the letters on the 2x8 and 2x6 boards and then what? Time for the ROUTER. Dave picked it up, showed me what to do, and said do it. From 5" letters to 1 1/2" letters, I carved them in the wood! To say the least, my hands were cramping up that night. After all, I am used to making signs on a computer, not a piece of wood! Thanks Dave for showing me a new skill! I probably need to also thank Rick Myers for capturing the moment.

The playground is for the most part done! I few minor things remain. However, you need to go just south of Riverside Zoo and see it. It is truly amazing! After all as one of the signs reads:
"Imagined by Kids, Designed by the Community, Built by Volunteers"

I am very proud to part of such a wonderful project that brought all the cities together. The Mayor of Terrytown, Kent Greenwalt worked on it and the Mayor of Scottsbluff, Randy Meininger was there with the first aid station from Valley Ambulance. Luckily no major injuries. Just a lot of sore muscles! We did give Mayor Meininger grief about staying so clean!

Congratulations to the Kiwanis Clubs putting it all together, and to our "progressive, growing community of one". On behalf of the City of Scottsbluff, the City of Terrytown, Scotts Bluff County and the City of Gering, I commend all the volunteers for a job WELL DONE!

By the way, if you would like to find out more about Kiwanis, we meet on Thursday at noon at the Skyport Restaurant. Find out what amazing things you can do, one child, one community at a time.

Check out Rick Myers photos on the project at:
http://www.starherald.com/articles/2009/08/18/lifestyles/community/doc4a8a260d06025433914134.txt

Until next time....

Busy Summer

Tonight after the Council meeting, Jerry Purvis from the Gering Citizen politely mentioned that I haven't updated this blog since June. So I thought since the council meeting only lasted 15 minutes that I would take the time to do it.

It has been a very busy summer for me. Not only as Mayor, but also as Marketing Director of Panhandle Coop, my job that pays the bills and I had family in town the first three weekends in July!

We made it through the 10 noisy days of "fireworks season." I don't believe we had any major damage, then it was on to Oregon Trail Days.

The newly paved 10th street looked mighty nice for the Street Dance on the 9th, the Food Fair on the 10th, and of course the parade on the 11th. I have to commend the city employees who work through out that weekend. Police, streets, electric, parks and sanitation all work hours of overtime to keep things looking nice for everyone during that weekend and making sure people behave. We had a few challenges, but overall it was a fun filled weekend! The concert had a little rain delay, but Terry Clark and James Otto both performed good shows!

I was also excited to see my niece, April Nigh, who was in town. She currently lives in Beijing, China. On Sunday morning, July 12th many members of my family and I walked up the Saddle Rock trail at

Scotts Bluff National Monument. Besides the

beautiful scenery we encountered two unexpected individuals. One being Congressman Adrian Smith and the other, Mr. Rattlesnake making his way across the trail. If you look closely you can see him next to the grass on the left.

The next weekend, one of Gering's longtime volunteers for the Tree, Park and Cemetery Board, Charlie Fenster celebrated his 90th birthday! On Saturday, July 18 a reception was held for him at Northfield Villa. I presented Charlie, who has been on the Park Board since 1972 and is one of the reasons our parks are so beautiful, a key to the City and proclaimed it Charlie Fenster Day!! Charlie was almost speechless and that is very unusual.

Also that day, my family had a small reunion. My niece April was still here and her brother, Eric Nigh, his wife Tania and their six-month daughter Tati were here from Baghdad, Iraq. It was the first time many of us had met Tania and their baby, Tati, who was just precious! On Sunday, we drove to the top of Scotts Bluff (no snakes this time) to show them around as well as my other nephew John Wiedeman and his wife Krista, who live in Lincoln, NE.

I have also been working on a new website for Panhandle Coop which is now up and running. Check it out at http://www.panhandlecoop.com/.

Gering City Clerk, Rosie Russell and I have been working on the City's website. We are currently working with someone to update it. We were also getting ready for filming of a community video, which was filmed last week. A young man named Seth Wells, was here from New York and Rosie took him everywhere. He had never been to Nebraska before and was totally amazed at our city. He told me sometimes he has to work to make a city look good on video, but Gering was easy. He took lots of video and we are anxious to view it.

Other projects going on, is the start of construction of the City's new well field. I will have updates for you in future blogs. I will try to update this more often, but as you can see, it has been a very busy summer!
Until next time,
Susan

Updates

I obviously haven't been keeping up on posting to this blog. Here is an update of recent happenings:
Last week at the Scottsbluff City Council meeting, SPD Chief Alex Moreno made a comment about "maybe now is the time to look at merging the departments." It was amazing how one short comment then turned into a major story about the possibility. I would like to clarify.

The comment was made when the Scottsbluff City Council had given the bid for their new public safety building. They were referring that there would be more room and could house a merged police force if it ever came about. As both cities go into the budget planning, this will probably come up. However, we need to do the research and make sure that it is a win win for all three cities including Terrytown, who contracts with Scottsbluff PD.

This past Monday, June 8, at the Gering City Council meeting, Council Member Shields asked a question about a cleaning bill at the Civic Center. This also suddenly became the main focus in the Star-Herald and the Gering Courier.

In the Courier, I was then quoted in the headline and that I did not want to "make a mountain out of a molehill" which is exactly what happened, since it was the lead item in the story. I don't think that is what reporter Chabella Guzman meant to do as she was just reporting what happened in the order of the meeting in the Star Herald. Courier Editor, Tom Lawrence is who added the comments and the headline in the Courier.
Unfortunately, the Winchell's that do the cleaning were very upset. They do a great job for the city as they also clean city hall. It was too bad that a simple question has caused such upset. We have referred it to the Admin committee.

I do want to thank Gering Citizen reporter Jerry Purvis for reporting what I thought was the most important item from the meeting, LB840 money going to Intralinks, who are moving to Gering and going into a suite at the old Alco building. This is exciting and I am happy the Paul Reed, the owner, is getting tennants into that building!

The last bit of controversy, was the 10th street paving project! The paving was done in just three weeks, all that is left to do is the striping. However, with all the rain that has caused some delay. It should look great in July for Oregon Trail Days!

Speaking of Oregon Trail Days, buy your tickets at city hall for the Terry Clark/James Otto concert on July 11th. The Oregon Trail Days committee did decide not to have a beer garden this year and make the concert more family friendly. I have also heard some concern about that decision. However, hopefully more families will attend as they are giving a discount for 4 tickets. I would love to see Five Rocks filled to capacity that evening!

We live in a great city!

Until next time.....

Wow, What a Cleanup!

The 2nd free landfill for the cities of Gering, Scottsbluff and Mitchell ended on April 25th. The numbers are in and considering the rainy conditions on both Saturdays, they are quite impressive.

In 12 days there were a total of 982 loads taken to the landfill (Averaging 82 loads/day)
Including:
269 appliances
478 tires
350 gallons of oil
267.27 tons of trash or 534,540lbs
101 loads of trees/branches went to the tree dump

For a total of $21,344.62 of free landfill service.

A big thank you to Henry Buhr and his crew, other City of Gering staff members that assisted, Clarence Rotherham and his City of Scottsbluff Environmental Services Staff, CERT volunteers who helped with traffic control, and Kathy Kropuenske from Keep Scottsbluff-Gering Beautiful for getting the word out.

Also, if you didn’t hear, for the Electronics Collection on April 18th, 84,653 lbs of electronics were collected. That is three full semi trailers and two full 24ft straight trucks. We were told by GRX, the vendor, Scottsbluff/Gering recycles more e-waste per capita than anywhere in the country. WOW!

Thank you for cleaning up your homes and making our cities more beautiful. When we all do a little, we DO make a BIG difference!

Celebrating 107 years!

On Saturday, March 7, 2009, I had the privilege to present a Key to the City of Gering to Celesta Allen who lives at Northfield Villa. She had celebrated her 107th birthday on March 2nd. I do believe Celesta is Gering's oldest resident. She is now wheelchair bound, but still pretty sharp. The flowers for the occasion was a bouquet of 107 roses. About 100 people turned out for her party on Saturday. She is the mother of Hersh Baird of Scottsbluff.

Celesta was also honored by Senator Harms and the Nebraska State Legistrature with a Legislative Resolution acknowledging her 107th birthday.

She has to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest person in Nebraska.

Last night the council approved a $575,000 loan to Magnolia homes to build 5 houses in East Gering on K Street and Pappas Blvd. This will give Magnolia the funds to put people back to work and hopefully bridge the gap until April and spring orders start arriving. The loan will be paid back as the houses are sold. These are 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes with unfinished basements and double car garage. They will range from 1219 sq. ft to 1440 sq ft. and sell for $114,000 to $122,500. Yards will be landscaped and sprinker systems installed.

This is a new project to help get people working.

Also last night the city's 1 and 6 year street plan was approved. This year's projects will be mill and overlay of 10th Street from J to U and the paving of D street from Rundell to Lockwood Road.

Until next time.

Susan

At last night's council meeting there was some concern about paying Rich Klein a management fee for the rest of his contract at Mulligans at the Gering Golf Course. I realize not everyone liked our decision to do this, and I will try to explain the reason behind our decision.

The decision came down to one question. Do we as the City Council want to have a "full-service" restaurant at the golf course? Some of the council members who went into the closed session told me they were going to vote no going in and came out voting yes. Because they are dedicated to having a full service restaurant.

We have tried several times over the past few years to have an operator at the golf course running the restaurant. Some of them, it was a secondary business. That didn't work either, because many times the primary operator was not in the building and did not watch what was going on.

Currently the operator, Rich Klein, is there most of the time Mulligans is open, which during the winter has been Tuesday thru Sunday 11am-9pm. He has been dedicated to making it a great restaurant, with good food, reasonable prices, and good service. His hours have been consistent which was lacking in the past two operators. He has learned some tough lessons, such as the business drops dramatically in September. However, the city has not done its best either to fix things that were the city's responsibility, which we are now working on.

I know some do not think it is fair, however, we are dedicated to make it successful. We will be working on some paticulars and some goals we would like to see and really be a partner with Rich so everyone is successful. We will be sitting down and coming up with a realistic marketing plan which will hopefully help.

If you have suggestions that you would like to see at the restaurant, please let us know. You can email me at mayor@gering.org.

I hope I have answered a few of your questions.

Gering to Gering Connection

I re
ceived an email from people who live in Gering Germany today. They have started a Gering2Gering blog: http://www.gering2gering.kilu.de/

They read about the trip on my blog and wanted to start one to write back and forth. I am going to try and post on it but I must get a few details. Sometimes this new technology is frustrating.

After the articles were in the local paper, I had emails of people trying to post comments and they wouldn't go through. I am still trying to figure out why, but will get it figured out.

My thanks to Chabella Guzman at the Star-Herald and Jim Headly of the Gering Courier for the articles that appeared last Thursday. Also thanks to Kevin Mooney at KNEB radio, who had me on the new extra! It was a great trip and is fun to share.

I have put together a Power Point and will be showing it Gering Business Club at the Civic Center on Wednesday the 28th at Noon.

Until the next time.
Susan

New Councilmember

Tonight the City council approved the appointment of Daniel Smith to the vacant council seat of Alan Doll, who was elected to the Gering School Board. I am excited to have Dan on the council as he brings fresh new viewpoint to the council.

Dan is the Scottsbluff Plant Manger of Kelley Bean. He currently is the co-chairperson of the Chamber's Agri-Business committee and is a member of the current Leadership Scotts Bluff class. He also is involved in Boy Scout's Troop 3 in Gering.

Dan and his wife Jackie live on Beverly Blvd, and have three children.

Please welcome Dan to the council.

More about Gering, Germany

Here are some additional pictures from the visit to the Village of Gering in Germany. It was a great experience as you can see. We exchanged gifts and met several of the people from the town.

Gering, Germany is 750 years old and has 425 residents. Gering, Nebraska may be bigger, but Gering, Germany is a lot older, about 530 years.

In the top picture I was given a copy of an article that appeared in a local newpaper about Gering, NE centennial. It is in German, but had pictures of our area.

I hope Walter Pries the mayor will come and visit us!

Gering, Germany

First of all Happy New Year!

I returned home from my Christmas trip to Germany on Monday. I was planning on trying to update this, however, internet was not greatly available on our boat.

On December 26th, when in Koblenz, Germany, Walter Pries, Mayor of the Village of Gering in Germany came to the boat and took me, my sister Cindy Nigh and my niece, April Nigh to visit his town.

I was greeted flowers, and flags with the coat of arms hanging from the houses, and about 40 people at a reception.

I was very honored. I have not downloaded all of my pictures yet, but Walter sent me some on Tuesday. Those are the ones at the top of this blog.

More on my trip, with more pictures will be coming.

Once again, Happy New Year!