A Minute With The Mayor, Andy Fuston

By Lyons Mayor, Andy Fuston

Football and volleyball season is finally here! Nebraska is off to a great start. What a win Saturday against Oregon! The Wolverines hard work isn’t necessarily reflected in the win/loss column but it takes time to get use to integrating two teams under one scheme and then playing in a new division. They had a nice win on Friday. Congratulations to them. The Nebraska volleyball team keeps on rolling like last year and the lady Wolverines are making strides as well. Change is never easy and combining high school sports comes with its own set of challenges.   We are very fortunate to have great coaches and teachers to help ease that transition, not to mention a student body second to none!

Speaking of transitions, the council will have a new council member come January. With the election coming up in November, Lana won’t be on the ballot for the first time in twelve years. She will definitely be missed but with change comes opportunity. Lyons has been fortunate to have had a city council that wants nothing but success for the community. When you all want what is best for your community it makes it pretty easy to do the right things and make the right decisions. So make sure you come out and vote in November. It is the first step in making your community government a success.

As for the September council meeting, we approved the budget for the 2016/2017 fiscal year. On the positive side, our valuation dropped by over $500,000.00. This lowered some property tax. On the negative side, valuation dropped by $500,000.00. This means we have less money to work with in our general fund for the upcoming year because we will have less tax revenue. It is a double edge sword.   We will have to tighten the city belt a little more and prioritize a little harder to keep our fiscal ship sailing. As you saw in last week’s paper the city approved some work to be completed on the exterior of the community center and library. Hopefully that will help with some water issues we’ve had on the south side of the community building. I would much rather have the maintenance done now than wait until it becomes really expensive to fix. We have asked the library foundation to assist with the cost of library repairs. The city was asked about running electrical and water to the property just south of the city dump. We won’t have to re-zone that property so we will be running those utilities out there. The council approved the contract to have the water tank issues taken care of. We gave and little and so did the water tower company on who was responsible for paying for what. Now we just need to get on the list so they can get us scheduled to do the work. Probably will be next spring sometime. Northeast Economic Development will be at our next meeting to discuss different options for the street lighting project. I’m still hopeful we can find some financial assistance to help us with project. Part of the meeting was spent discussing the old bowling alley. We have gotten a bid for demolishing it. Unfortunately it looks like the city is not going to have any recourse but to condemn the building. We are in the process of doing that. What it means is that we will end up being on the hook for raising it. It is so very frustrating but the alternative is to let it rot and fall in by itself, probably damaging the adjoining building. I wish there was something else we could do but I’m afraid our back is up against the wall again.

I can’t think of much less happening at the moment. The Ladies Night Out part was really enjoyable. I know this only because I helped to bar tend! Everybody really seemed to enjoy the evening. We’ve got the Community Club golf outing this coming Sunday so if you haven’t signed up you better get to calling! Take care, enjoy the fall weather and we’ll talk to you soon.