By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
At its Jan. 10 meeting Chadron City Council approved an agreement with the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) for maintenance of Highway 20.
"We succeed in divesting ourselves [City of Chadron] of the responsibility for maintaining and snow plowing US-385 [Highway 20] within the city limits," Chadron City Manager John Sutherland said. "Which was a big accomplishment for us because I'll tell you, we don't have the equipment, the man power, the technology to adequately deal with the repair to that highway. It gets used a lot more and heavier than we have the capacity to deal with."
Sutherland said it's a good move due to safety reasons for city staff and the public.
"Just for safety reasons alone for our workforce, we don't have the staff size that allows us to have adequate flagging," Sutherland said. "It just bothers the heck out of me and the rest of the management staff to see our employees out there on that highway, especially in the early morning hours when it's still dark out facing actual highway traffic. It's a little beyond our skillset. It's a relief to get that responsibility off our plate. We successfully concluded an agreement that gets that out from under us back to the able hands of Nebraska DOT."