North Platte Planning Commission ushers Sustainable Beef one step closer

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - The original goal for Sustainable Beef L.L.C. was to break ground by fall. The goal to access $21.5 million in tax increment financing and the city’s retired sewer lagoon is one step closer after North Platte Planning Commission met Tuesday and voted unanimously 9-0 to proceed.

The meeting lasted just under three hours, with testimony heavily weighing in favor of the proposed beef processing plant which would employ nearly 900 people.

The next stop for Sustainable Beef lands with the Community Redevelopment Authority on Monday at 1 p.m., and if CRA approves forward motion, Sustainable Beef will be back in front of North Platte’s City Council on December 7 at 5:30 p.m. It will be a public hearing and a final decision for the project concerning TIF and the sale of the desired property.

Nebraska Department of Agriculture Director Steve Wellman, two Lincoln County Commissioners, and Senator Mike Groene all spoke Tuesday in favor of the proposed beef processing plant.

Family members of those living close to the proposed site shared reasons why they hoped the North Platte Planning Commission would vote against the building of a processing plant near homes and between the North and South Platte Rivers.

Following testimony by 20 citizens and leaders, the Commission asked questions of experts, including the city’s own engineer, Brent Burklund, to clarify some of the topics brought up during the testimonies, including lighting regulations and how a proposed plant would affect the surrounding area. Burklund explains that lighting regulations are already on the books.

Commission panel member David Fudge asked several other questions of CEO of Sustainable Beef David Briggs. Fudge questioned Briggs on traffic patterns, “Do we know what the shifts look like?” asked Fudge.

Briggs also confirmed that at this time there is only one entrance onto the proposed Sustainable Beef property on the original design, but they are “contemplating” a secondary drive.

The floor of the plant is proposed to be five-feet feet higher than Newberry. Most of the existing lagoon berm will stay in place. Then it will be built up even more from the existing grade for the parking lot and facility.

“Do you believe the majority of the workforce is within a 50-mile radius?” asked panel member Tristen Winder.

“I believe our workforce lives in Nebraska. I believe probably roughly 25 to a third of our workforce will come from Lincoln County and surrounding counties which will be like a 60-mile radius. Those people may not even work in the industry today but because of our good wage and our good benefits will choose to work at our plant. We believe that we will find some of our employees in the local. We believe the other two-thirds of our employees will migrate from the other four mega-plants from in-state because they have two shifts. They all employ roughly 2500-3500 employees. I don’t need all the employees, I only need a handful. And if I’m working a second shift at one of these mega plants and want to migrate to North Platte working in a brand new facility, post COVID, with more space in locker rooms and more space between our people, and work a day shift only, we believe that is very attractive.” - David Briggs, CEO of Sustainable Beef

North Platte Police Chief Steve Reeves and Lincoln County Sheriff Jerome Kramer were invited to speak on their plans for controlling any type of crime that might accompany growth to North Platte post-COVID.

“Could you gentlemen talk about some of the homework that’s already been done and being ahead of the ballgame on this?” asked Winder.

“I started preparing for this 15-years ago. With the expansion of the jail, and I’ve added to my patrol division. And, quite honestly, it doesn’t matter if it’s the Distribution Center or the Railroad, or this new plant, there’s a certain percent of people that are going to end up in the hands of law enforcement and end up in my jail, and I don’t see this industry being any different than any other industry. You could bring a chocolate plant to town and a certain amount of those people are going to end up dealing with law enforcement. I don’t see it as impacting law enforcement as far as Lincoln County, and if it did, I’m prepared for it.” - Jerome Kramer, Lincoln County Sheriff