At the public hearing held on March 18th, Neil Kemmet, general manager at Ace Ethanol, LLC., addressed the Plan Commission of the City of Stanley to request that property parcel #22905-2634-06500000 owned by Ace Ethanol would be rezoned from R-1 residential to I-1 industrial to match the rest of the property that is currently owned.
Plan Commission member Dave Jankoski asked Kemmet if there were any future plans for the property that borders the Ethanol plant.
“We don’t have any plans for it right now,” Kemmet stated and added that they were trying to be proactive instead of reactive in getting it rezoned. “We are putting up a new shop. The new shop is reasonably close to the property line, not over the property line but we figured it would be good for us just to go ahead and if possible, get that rezoned to industrial. Then obviously we’d come to you guys with any future building plans or anything like that we had for that property.”
“My other question was going to be, were you going to be extending the railroad over there?” Jankoski inquired.
“No, no current plans to do that,” Kemmett answered. “And the way they keep raising rates makes it harder to ship on rail these days too. No plans to do that right now.”
“I appreciate your consideration, everyone,” Kemmet said to the Plan Commission before the public hearing was closed.
Commission member James Ericksen then motioned to rezone the property along with unanimous agreement from the rest of the Committee. At the City Council meeting at 7 p.m. later that evening the council unanimously voted in agreement with the Plan Commission.
The Parks Committee and the Plan Commission held a joint meeting later that evening to amend the City of Stanley’s 2020-2025 Outdoor Recreation Plan that describes the maintenance of existing park features and installation of new playground equipment to $1 million from the current amount of $50,000.
Police chief Lance Weiland, Treasurer of the Stanley Community Association spoke regarding the new splashpad and playground equipment that the SCA is working to bring to Chapman Park through grants and other donations.
“It’s been a very long process, but we’ve got some momentum now and getting to a good spot where we can actually start hopefully making things happen,” Weiland stated.
Mayor Al Haas informed the Committee and Commission members that the reason for the amendment is due to the grants that the SCA is applying for. “The granting is so large that it is recommended that we get this changed so it looks good on grant form.”
“And this is the first step to do that,” city administrator Nicole Pilgrim said. The Park Committee members and Plan Commission voted to amend the amount on the 2020-2025
Outdoor Recreation Plan from $50,000 to $1 million. The City Council voted in unanimous agreement at the council meeting later that evening.
