BELLEVUE, Neb. (KMTV) — An attempt to make Bellevue bigger and pump in some more money, but not everyone is on board.
Bellevue mayor Rusty Hike has pushed forward an aggressive annexation plan since he took over as mayor last December. He says the city will add more than $150,000 in property tax revenue.
Tuesday night, a chance for the public to weigh in on a proposed annexation in Bellevue.
"What is it going to do for us,” says one Sarpy County resident targeted in the annexation plan.
Mayor Rusty Hike says he's trying to catch up after the city didn't annex any properties for six years.
"So the city basically, if you look at it on the map, it's just full of a bunch of holes, so you've got people that are living inside the city, in the middle of the city but they're not being taxed like everybody else in the city,” says Mayor of Bellevue, Rusty Hike.
In the city's line of sights this go around, VFW Post 10727, which is mostly hidden from the public and offers a more scenic view than most VFW’s in the metro.
Leaders here are reluctant to be annexed. If the city goes through with the plan the VFW estimates property taxes will go up $1,000 and sales tax an additional $1,500.
Vice commander Eric Rombach says the mostly volunteer run post is already operating on thin margins.
"We're going to have to have to dig down deep to figure out how we're going to generate those funds to stay open,” says Rombach.
One thing the VFW wants is to pave the road leading up to the building. So they want to make a deal with the city, until they're able to pave the road, hold off on charging sales tax.
"The chances of us even coming to that deal are slim to none. Like we said dealing in the world of politics is a lot and not everyone has the full read-in on what's going on,” says Rombach.
It's unclear if the city will make a deal, but Mayor Hike says the road will get paved, at some point.
"You can't expect to get everything done the next day after we annex an area, but what it allows the city to do, is it allows us to put it in the capital improvement plan so 10, 15, 20 years down the road, it's in that plan and eventually it all gets done,” says Hike.
The city is trying to wrap up these annexations quickly. They plan to vote on approving them in a special council meeting on Thursday.
