Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor
First I want to say thank you to all the amazing people who have reached out and thanked me for the first installment of “The Boring Truth.” I have received an overwhelmingly positive response. In fact the only two negative responses I have seen were last week’s letters to the Editor. I will respond to those now. Mr. Peirce has some questions about the numbers, as a former Councilman I thought he of all people would have a better understanding of how the City Budget works, and he brought up the cost of the pool.
Here are the Boring Numbers: 2021 Operating Budget $13,043,051.88, Property Valuation: $70,067,630, Property Tax Rate 0.458333
2025 Operating Budget: $8,779,059.36, Property Valuation: $95,152,788, Property Tax Rate 0.361696
A difference of $ 4,263,992.52 from 2021 till now. The pool was started in June 2020 and opened in June 2021. The June 2, 2021 Grant Tribune states the pool cost was “$2.582 million”. The pool did not cost $4.26 million to build as Mr. Pierce implied in his October 23rd Letter to the Editor. Even if you were to place all $2.582 million on the 2021 Operating budget, which I’m not sure is appropriate, it would decrease the amount of the Operating Budget to $10,461,051.88. Which is still $1,681,992.52 higher in 2021 than our current 2025 budget.
The Property Value has gone up and the tax rate has decreased every year since 2020. If we had left the Property taxes the same as 2021 rate of 0.458333 your property taxes would actually be 35% higher today in 2025. In fact the 0.361696 is the lowest tax rate in over 11 years, in 2014 the tax rate was 0.434914. It got as high as 0.466745 in 2020 during the pandemic and the Property Value at that time was $62,679,715. In five years our Property Value has increased by $32,473,073 and our tax levy has decreased by 0.105049. So the changes in property taxes is a reflection of both the increased value of the property and the decreased levy.
I will address the Legal fees Mr. Peirce mentioned in more detail in my response to Mr. Wendell below.
Mr. Peirce stated “…if you go to a City of Grant Council Meeting and speak at public comment, the council just sits and stares at you and offers you no information. I have been there, done that.”
The Nebraska Opens Meetings Act limits what we can respond to during public comment especially if it isn’t an agenda item. As a former Councilman Mr. Peirce should again understand what we can and can’t say in public comment. I think the best person to explain this to Mr. Peirce is ironically Mr. Peirce.
As a Councilman Mr. Peirce addressed this very issue in the Grant Tribune on July 19, 2017 titled “Council defines public comment”
“This is a public meeting of the governing body of Grant, which means that it’s the city’s meeting allowing the public to attend. It’s not an informal town hall meeting for a question and answer period.
“The purpose of public comment is to provide an opportunity for the public to make comments to the governing body as a whole on issues of the city. It is not the purpose of public comment to present arguments, requests and expect responses from the governing body which is us, the council or the mayor, the superintendent, the clerk/ treasurer, the attorney, the engineer, the public works superintendent or any other agent for the city. It is not to attack personally or professionally any of the city’s employees or agents.
“If there is a violation of any of these public comment rules, the mayor or chairman will ask you to retake your seat. Your public comment for the evening will be finished. Any disruption will result in you being asked to exit the meeting if you don’t meet our requests.
“If you have questions for the city for which you desire an answer, we suggest that you contact the city superintendent or submit them directly in written form to the council or mayor, with a copy to the city clerk. It will be appropriately addressed in response as soon as possible.” -Darrel Peirce.
Mr. Peirce I agree with your July 19, 2017 definition of public comment.
As far as the sound system Mr. Peirce has requested to be placed on the Agenda for the October 28th meeting. By the time this letter comes out I will have already spoken to him personally about it at the meeting. This is how we on the Council can have a back and forth with you if it is an agenda item. I acknowledge we haven’t always been the best at this in the past. If we don’t know what to say then we may feel it is better to just say nothing. As I first heard this from my father “Silence is often misunderstood, but it is never misquoted.” I recognize this can be frustrating for the public, and I vow to do better. If you are placed on the Agenda I will engage with you.
Now Mr. Wendell, since you chose to identify yourself in your Letter to the Editor as the individual I was referring to in the Boring Truth I will respond to you directly.
First, the Professional Fees are a bundled charge of all annual professional fees. I doubt this has changed since Mr. Peirce was on Council, but I guess it is possible. The $109,495.75 are NOT just the City Attorney. Mr. Wendell you seem to understand this when you stated in your Letter “I submitted a public records request with the City Clerk for a breakdown of all vendors under that line item” For anyone to continue to imply that the Professional fees are all Attorneys fees is not just disingenuous, it is dishonest. You then stated the Clerks reply as “We are not obligated to do that.” This is correct. The Nebraska Public Records Statute (Neb. Rev. Stat. §84-712) under section (f) states “This section shall not be construed to require a public body or custodian of a public record to produce or generate any public record in a new or different form or format modified from that of the original public record.” Meaning if a document doesn’t exist, we don’t have to make one for you. This is consistent with State law.
Next Mr. Wendell, you mentioned that you had made a public records request for a Letter from the State Auditor, I have looked into this. Here is what I have been informed, the State Auditor only issues a letter if there has been wrongdoing, since this clerical error or billing discrepancy (as you wanted to call it) didn’t reach the level of wrongdoing a letter wasn’t sent. The Letter you are requesting doesn’t exist, and we don’t have to make one for you.
Mr. Wendell your 3 properties that you identified that your family owned were declared a nuisance at the June 22, 2021 meeting. We average a ~95% owner clearance rate in our nuisance program, in fact you were the only owner not to clear their properties that year. You stated that you wanted a punch list, but were given the ordinance instead. Interestingly the description of the ordinance was enough for everyone else to clear their properties. While I believe this has been explained to you, I will explain it here again and to the citizens of Grant. As an example here are some nuisances listed in the Grant Municipal Code “SECTION 3-403: SPECIFICALLY DEFINED” mattresses, bedding, broken glass, Dead animals. So if we give someone a punch list that says remove the mattresses and the bedding, and under those items there is broken glass or a dead animal, they aren’t on the punch list but they are still nuisance items. The discovered broken glass and dead animals would also need to cleared. If you don’t understand the ordinance the City Clerk or Superintendent are available to help you.
Mr. Wendell in your letter you said you were going to share the whole truth. I think it is interesting that you left out the thousands of dollars of professional fees you are responsible for in the budget, higher than the budget overage. I’m curious how much you have cost the citizens in Grant over a $465.00 abatement charge in 2023 that took over 2 years to clean up. Mr. Wendell, you also forgot to mention the more than 90 record requests that you have made since January, requests that have increased the City’s Professional Fees significantly. It is important to note our professional fees increase in the 2025 budget are a direct result of Mr. Wendell’s continued actions over the last 4 years. Mr. Wendell, your personal feud has put the City of Grant at risk of losing community resources by pushing us over budget. At the same time you are depriving the community of resources by not paying your Sales Tax. Mr. Wendell you owe $39,358.28 in Delinquent Nebraska Sales Tax, and a significant portion of that would return to the City of Grant. It doesn’t take a Public Records request to see this, just a Google search “NE Perkins County Delinquent Taxpayers”
Nebraska Delinquent Taxpayer List website states the following “Taxpayers who are on the Delinquent Taxpayer List have been sent multiple notices from DOR regarding their delinquent tax liability, and have had a lien filed against the taxpayer’s property in accordance with state law. However, these taxpayers have failed to pay their delinquent tax liability or enter into a payment agreement with DOR. In addition, taxpayers who are on the Delinquent Taxpayer List have exhausted or waived all rights to appeal the listed tax liability before their names are placed on the list. Individuals and businesses that are protected by a stay under federal bankruptcy law, or that have entered into an acceptable formal payment agreement with DOR and are making payments under that agreement, will not be placed on the list.” https://revenue.nebraska.gov/about/nebraska-delinquent-taxpayer-list
This shows that both the State of Nebraska and City of Grant are willing to work with individuals and give them the opportunity to do the right thing.
In my article I said there was a lot more to say and there still is, the above is just one example. I hope Mr. Wendell is ready to move on and work on building Grant up. I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m against anything that hurts the town, Mr. Wendell I think it is time to stop attacking Grant, and be done beating this dead horse.
Finally, I want to once again thank all the Citizens of Grant that make this a truly wonderful place to live. Your support means the world to me, and you inspire me to continue to fight for this town.
Sam Sims
Grant City Council