Valentine City Council
The Valentine City Council met last night for a regular meeting at the Valentine Library meeting room. Mike Burge gave the report on the economic development program activities. He reported that recent sales tax figures for Valentine were up 8.6% from last year. The recent completion of the movie The Aviation Cocktail spent an estimated $50,000 in the community while they were here in November. The council had earlier approved spending $5,000 in economic development funds paid to local venders to help offset the cost of shooting the movie in the Valentine area.
The council held a public hearing to rezone two city lots in Valentine from residential to light industrial or commercial. The rezoning request by Bill Ward was approved. The request by Tamara Gass was denied.
There was also a public hearing to discuss the application for a class “A” liquor license for Pizza Hut. The request was approved to reflect a change in management.
There was discussion about authorization to advertise three parcels of city land north of the Fish Hatchery. There was talk about possible overgrazing of the property and limiting the time that livestock can be grazed on the land. Marla Shelbourn from the Natural Resource and Conservation Service recommended let it stand idle for a year or more. It was decided to take no action on the issue until spring.
The council discussed and approved the renewal of the street superintendent and surveyor contracts for the next three year period with Don Pettigrew.
Dr. Dick Jeffers addressed the council to present a proposal for economic development organization. At the November meeting the council expressed wishes to have suggestions on what direction economic development should take. A group of local citizens met and come up with a preliminary plan and requested the council for more time to put pieces of the plan together. Dr. Jeffers listed several other entities who have been identified a possible participating partners. Councilmember Don Nelson expressed his feeling that the community needs to all work together in efforts like this. The council approved letting the group come back at the March meeting to present the entire plan. About 17 people attended the meeting to support the effort.
The final agenda item was discussion on appointing Gary Sadi to fill the vacancy on the city council created by the resignation of Toby Miller until the next general election in November. Mr. Miller resigned from the council as he is moving to Sioux Falls. Council members decided to wait until next month to appoint a new council member, to allow other interested individuals to talk to a city council member.
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