A reader sent this question : "What do you think the present problems on the council are? How would you work to resolve these problems?"
I think the largest problem the city council has is that despite working long and hard to balance the budget without increasing the tax levy, the current rules allow the state to fund economic development with our local sales tax.
We count on that sales tax to pay for what we have budgeted locally, so even though the budget was accepted, if revenues fall short, we've got problems.
Some background.
In 1987, the state legislature enacted the Employment and Investment Growth Act, LB 775. The goal of the bill was to reward companies for creating jobs in Nebraska. This was to be done by refunding the sales tax that companies paid when they purchased goods or property that resulted in job growth. An example would be if a company purchased lumber from a city business to construct an office complex and the end result was new jobs at that complex, the company could apply to have the sales tax it paid on the lumber refunded.
Sounds good on paper, but when a very, very large company spends several hundreds of thousands of dollars in a small town, it can have an extremely negative effect. The city often is collecting sales tax for point-of-delivery items, without any sales being made from local companies.
Long story short, if the rules are not changed, Sidney won't regain control of how local sales tax dollars are allocated.
How would I work to resolve this issue? As the present council and city manager have shown, working with our state senator and attempting to change the rules through legislation is the only recourse we have.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so I would continue to turn up the volume on this issue, and could devote more time and energy to this mission than any other candidate.
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Tamara Nelsen
Welcome to Nelsen For Council. This site is intended to be where the voters of Sidney can learn more about me as a candidate and my views on the issues. As a former editor of The Sun-Telegraph, and most recently a reporter for sidneystagecoach.com, I am the ideal candidate for council because of my knowledge of the community. For the past several years, I have reported on school board and county commissioner meetings, attending meetings of several political subdivisions such as the Sidney Historic Preservation board, the Sidney Historical Association, the fair board and city council. If I wasn’t covering an event, I was likely editing someone else’s report on it. That goes for community events in general. People will most likely recognize me as the lady with the camera, as I have had the privilege of being inside the ropes, front and center, for just about every major news event in Sidney recently. I have interviewed everyone from senators to a local woman who grew a batch of strange looking carrots.
Please feel free to contact me with your questions or comments by e-mailing tamaranelsen@gmail.com.
