Jeff Hajny

    The Seward City Council decided to approve the refurbishing of the Zimmer Building during its May 6 meeting.
     The council heard from Craig Eberly of the Southeast Nebraska Development District along with County Economic Development Director Lana Zumbrunn and Mark Kolterman of the CDBG Economic Development Loan Fund Application Review Board regarding$100,000 in financial assistance for KACH Investments, LLC, from previous block grants to be spent on renovations in downtown Seward.
     The main focus was on the redevelopment of the Zimmer Building at 139 North Sixth Street, which will cost $590,000 with three tenants going into the building, and the renovations creating five new job opportunities.
     "A lot of cash has been dumped into the renovation of this building," Kolterman said. "They can keep working on it with a little help from the city."
     The council decided to pass a resolution allowing $100,000 to be loaned to the project with the knowledge that the loan term will be 10 years with a rate of 2.5 percent with payments due monthly. The Southeast Nebraska Development District will keep track of all of the terms of the agreement.
     "If you go into any of the re-done buildings in the downtown area of Seward, you couldn't even tell they are older buildings," Councilmember Mark Eilers said. "I think we need to keep that up."
     In An unrelated matter, the council heard from Paul Grieger of D.A. Davidson regarding the refinancing of current various purpose bonds for the city.
     The current bonds, in the amount of $1,850,000, were issued to pay costs of constructing improvements in street, water and sewer districts within the city of Seward.
     The current rate is at 4.85 percent. The new rate of 4.15 percent will lead to savings of approximately $82,000.
     "The market's been violatile lately," Greiger said. "As they have jumped around, we've seen them go down but recently they have started to creep back up. This is not a perfect science."
     The council agreed to pass an ordinance which authorized the city administrator, treasurer, mayor and council president or chairman of the Finance Committee to sell refunding bonds any time that it is agreed that a reasonable amount of money can be saved.
     "We want to save all the money we can whenever we can," Mayor Roger Glawatz said. "$80,000 is a nice amount to save."
     In other business, the council:
     • passed a resolution to accept Seward as an official entrant in the Nebraska Community Improvement Program for 2008;
     • accepted the resignation of Arlo Bower from the Civil Service Commission and confirmed the appointment of Ben Hughes as his replacement; and
     • tabled discussion on the abandoned and wrecked vehicle ordinances at another meeting.