NEBRASKA CITY –  Dave Schmitz accepts the state statutes that have placed thousands of land records in his safekeeping over the past 30 years  and fondly admits to vexatious surveying jobs around one of Nebraska’s oldest settlements at Kearney Hill  and among its every changing flood plains where government markers are deeply buried, but despite all the troubles surveying can pose it’s the job of zoning administrator that has taken the greatest toll on the 72-year-old man.

Schmitz: “So there’s a lot of record keeping in this job. The actual county surveyor job, if you’re a licensed surveyor, once you understand what the statute requires, it’s actually relatively simple.”

… We always have a lot of problems at Kearney Hill when we survey up there. The intersection control that’s … the surveyors before me they put in center intersection control. Most cities and villages don’t do that, but here that is how they did it, so I’ve had to replace them and keep them over the years.”

Schmitz suspects that global positioning devices will take a more prominent role in establishing Otoe County’s property lines once his three-decades as county surveyor conclude this spring, but he is convinced in the superior accuracy of the trusty total station instruments that have served him for his 53-year career.

 

Schmitz said Otoe County commissioners are comfortable with the elected county surveyor also having the role of county zoning administrator. Because of the dual role, he has not taken large subdivision jobs because it would also be his job to review the work and make recommendations to the county board.

Overall, he says he has had a good experience in the role of zoning administrator,  but then came proposals for wind farms.

 

 

 

 

Schmitz had worked with the county to revive its comprehensive development plan in the 1990s and again in the early 2000s. Wind regulations contemplated turbines that would be 300 feet tall, but plans in 2020 were calling for windmills that were 650 feet tall from the top of the blade.

Schmitz: “It was pretty good until the wind turbines came in. The wind turbines was very tough on me personally.”

Schmitz: “Actually right now a commercial wind turbine system can not go in Otoe County by the regulations that the commissioners approved.”

Schmitz said it is the zoning administrator’s job to implement the regulations adopted by the county, so he has been pro active in the county’s energy element plan. However, he said, he hasn’t been able to get anything through that the landowners and the taxpayers are  happy with.

Schmitz thinks solar farms are more acceptable than a 650’ tall wind turbine, but county commissioners tightened the noose on commercial solar, as well.

 He said there have also been problems over dog kennels, especially if they are established without the proper permits. Schmitz said he was also criticized for sticking to the regulations over a proposal for a 500,000 chicken facility.

Like windmills, the county regulations say you have to be a mile for any residence.

 

Schmitz: “I got raked over the coals by a couple of commissioners on the chicken farm thing. I said I never told them that they couldn’t come in, but they would have to meet our setbacks, sizes and how many neighbors they had. They didn’t do the work. They went down to Humboldt.”

Schmitz: “I was blamed for that project, but I never stopped them. They just didn’t like what they heard.”