Council approves City Hall renovation plans

The Beatrice City Council has approved plans for the proposed city hall remodeling.

City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer said the proposed design would increase safety for city hall employees.

"Under the proposed remodel, the north door would become closed and accessible by employees only," he explained. "All the public would then come in the south door... The public would not be allowed to roam throughout the building as they currently are. If they needed to get access to the rest of the building, they'd have to be brought in or buzzed in by an employee."

The new design would also increase accessibility to disabled persons in compliance with standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

"The current stairway that we have in the building don't meet ADA requirements, and they don't meet fire code," Tempelmeyer said. "In order to meet those, we had to put in some new stairways. The stairway on the north side led to the conference room being moved south a little bit and enlarged slightly. This facilitated the need to move the restrooms that are currently in the building."

The biggest changes to the basement of the building are in order to meet fire code. These changes include moving a stairway and adding a corridor to the area.

The council voted 6-0 in favor of approving the proposed plans and advertisement of bids for the project, but not without some concern from council members. Ward 2 Council Member Ted Fairbanks said he would have liked the chance to review the plans prior to Monday's meeting.

"I wish that we would have had and opportunity to discuss this at committee," Fairbanks said. "I look at these plans, and they're dated the 23rd of April, last year. I understand this was on the list of things we'd like to see completed for the city, but the first time I really knew about it was when I read in the paper the BPW board had talked about it."

Fairbanks also expressed the issue of public perception. He said with the council recently voting to add a one-half percent sales tax to the May ballot, some residents may have problems with the city spending an estimated $175,000 on building renovations.

"People in the community just don't really understand that this isn't just one huge pot of money," Fairbanks said. "We're in the process of trying to convince the voters of the community to pass this (sales tax) issue because we don't have enough money to do our street department. Most of them just look at this and say 'If you have $175,000 to redo this building, you ought to be putting it into your infrastructure.'"

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Council approves City Hall renovation plans