TRANSMISSION TRANSCRIPT:
For months, East Omaha neighborhood reporter Molly Hudson talked to neighbors who asked similar questions.
“Something is going to happen here, it’s going to happen within a year,” said Melissa Youngblood, vice president of the Home Trailer Park in northeast Omaha.
They want to know whether the new Inland Port Authority and the people selected to serve on its board will ultimately decide to pave the way for building a business park here.
State Sen. Terrell McKinney sits on that board. He hopes the council will be a way for the community to monitor what decisions are being made about their neighborhood.
“Give the community a voice and have some transparency about what’s going on,” McKinney said.
The board was approved on June 4, in the days when Hudson worked to find out when the board will take its first step.
Thomas Warren, Mayor Jean Stothert’s chief of staff and one of the Inland Port Authority’s new board members, told Hudson the first meeting will be in 50 days, on August 1.
This is something Senator McKinney didn’t know, but wasn’t surprised.
“The board needs to meet, once the board meets we will discuss how we are going to operate going forward, what the application process for the community advisory board will look like,” McKinney said.
The community advisory board will consist of nine members.
- At least two residential property owners
- At least two entrepreneurs
- A municipal council member whose district falls within the Inland Harbor
- A member of the legislature whose district is in the Inland Harbor
- A youth representative
McKinney says he doesn’t want to see these homes demolished to make way for the business park. He thinks the new construction should be located to the south of the houses, on land that has not yet been developed.
“Prioritize people’s voices, prioritize people’s needs and wants, and figure out a way to work with everyone while still working to change the community for the better, so and I’m again a shift, so just do phase one,” McKinney said. .
But the most recently available plans for the area call for the new buildings to be placed where the homes are, and McKinney says he was not part of that process.
“I wasn’t in a lot of the conversations when the grantees got together, I wasn’t in those conversations, I was in Lincoln trying to pass the bill to hold the grantees accountable,” McKinney said.
McKinney says he continues to respond to neighbors’ questions, which continue to mount.
Thomas Warren says when it comes to joining this board, it will likely be an online application like other Omaha city boards and commissions.
