City briefs:
Lincoln to drop Nixle, not require permits for Uber and Lift, new city seal design, elevator repaired

 

[January 17, 2020] 

At the Tuesday night meeting of the Lincoln City Council Committee of the whole, three topics were discussed briefly before aldermen decided what action to take.

At the top of the list was a continuation of a discussion started in December regarding permitting ride share businesses such as Uber and Lift to operate inside the city. The question then was, should the businesses have to file for a permit to operate in the city like local taxi companies do?

At this week’s meeting, Kevin Bateman said that there was really no question as to whether the ride shares should be allowed in the city, because they are already here. He said that as an experiment on New Year’s Eve he sought a ride from his home to downtown Lincoln and quickly got a response from a Lift driver who picked himself and his wife Peggy up within five minutes of the request.

He said that while the businesses are not widely known to be in the area they are here. He also concluded that he wasn’t sure the city needed to take any action. He said that both Uber and Lift do background checks on drivers, require vehicle inspections by the company and also have set rules on how old a vehicle may be and how well maintained it is.

City Clerk Peggy Bateman was asked what the fee for taxis is in Lincoln. It is $25 per vehicle per year.

At the end of the discussion, aldermen agreed there was no action to be taken regarding ride share businesses in Lincoln

City will drop Nixle subscription – service is still available through the county

Lincoln Police Chief Paul Adams told the council that he would like to drop the city’s Nixle subscription and save about $3,500 per year.

Nixle is an emergency alert service for residents that transmits important messages concerning hazards or threats to the community via email or text message to a resident’s computer or phone.

Adams said that the county is offering the same thing, and because it is cataloged by zip code, those who are connected to Nixle in Lincoln receive all county alerts according to their zip code. He said that the city also provides information to the county for their alerts, so the two services doing the exact same thing is not necessary.

New city seal

Chief Adams and Alderman Ron Keller showed the city a photo of a new city seal they would like for the council to consider. The seal features a bare-faced Abraham Lincoln as he would have looked when frequenting this area when the city of Lincoln was founded in 1853.

Keller and Adams want to adopt the new seal and over time phase out the old seal.

Adams would also like to update the Lincoln Police Department patches and would like to look into the ability for a cloth patch to be made using the same image of Lincoln. Adams said that he would have to send an example to the manufacturer to see if the photo could be replicated on the patch. Because it is a likeness of Lincoln, it may be hard to duplicate as the patches are generally made with finely woven thread.

The council will vote to approve the new seal next week and Adams will continue looking into changing the police department patches.

Elevator may be up and working by next week

The Lincoln City Council will meet on Tuesday, January 21st for their next voting session due to the Martin Luther King Day being on Monday, a holiday. It is hoped that the elevator at city hall will be repaired in time for that meeting.

The elevator company is expected to start work on the elevator this week, and work should take only a couple of days. City Clerk Peggy Bateman said she was hopeful that she would know for sure if the repairs are completed before she sends out the meeting agenda’s this Friday.

Before the meeting, Fire Chief Bob Dunovsky shared that the city will be responsible for just under $4,000 of the repair work. However, he added that the city has a maintenance agreement with the elevator company and the maintenance agreement is going to be covering about $30,000 of the cost, so the city is getting off easy on this repair.

Post Script: On Thursday afternoon City Clerk Peggy Bateman notified the council that the elevator is indeed repaired. Next week’s meeting will be held in the Council Chambers at Lincoln City Hall.

[Nila Smith]