Omaha Forums

Does anyone know if Mayor Sothert has planned out her Annexation package for this year or the next? I'm assuming it will be the remaining pockets that exist in Omaha after that though where else would she be able to Annex before the 2020 Census?

In the OWH article about Stothert's priorities after getting re-elected it listed preparing the next annexation package as one of the top ones.

I think it is usually announced sometime in the summer and is between 10 and 15 thousand each time. Just depends which neighborhoods have their debt paid off.

Does anyone know which SID's have there debt currently within range that would make the city comfortable annexing them? Now this is a more out there idea but worth thinking about. Is it possible that one of the package's would be the annexing of Waterloo Nebraska near Elkhorn since Omaha is right near it? I'd imagine that cities Debt is pretty low then again it's in the flood plain range and I don't know if Omaha is willing to take that on just yet.

I don't see Omaha going any farther west for years. The ONLY reason they annexed Elkhorn, was to preempt Elkhorn's own attempts at seeking self preservation through it's own annexation, which would block the Omaha's future growth.

I would see Omaha annexing Bennington before Waterloo.

I don't think Omaha is going to annex Waterloo anytime soon either. However, Waterloo is closer to an Omaha Boundary than is Bennington. And Waterloo with the massive seed plant might prove to be an attractive add to the tax base. I could be easily wrong, but I don't think Bennington has any comparable industrial asset.

Bottom line though is Omaha isn't going after either entity in the near or mid term.

I'd be far more excited to see Omaha grow without annexation..

But I have a full understanding why it's a necessity and am glad for the liberal annexation law Omaha enjoys..compared to land locked cities like St Louis. Where the core city is choked off by it's much larger suburbs...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

Sorry for not responding sooner! I agree with most of what people are saying on here about Omaha's future annexation plans. It's truly amazing how the city of Omaha has grown since 1989 when I was born. I've lived in West Omaha and I've personally seen the growth out west. It truly is a sight to behold and be part of the expansion. I hope Omaha is able to Annex more this year and spread the tax base further also I hope for more big project's along Dodge St out in West Omaha. There is plenty of Prime land still ready for some development! Also in response to the last comment Omaha has benefited greatly from the Liberal annexation law's currently in Nebraska. We are able to spread our tax base further and spread out the cost so not one part of the community is hit the hardest each part is contributing to the repair and expansion of the city. Plus with the new police precinct going up Omaha police will be able to over West Omaha more protection and provide a greater ability to patrol the newly Annexed area's.

Despite the area around Waterloo being flood plane, I do think one day Omaha will grow into that area and annex Waterloo but like you guys said, I don't think that will be anytime soon.

With Bennington growing hopefully that will bring some growth out north. I read an article that one day State Street will be a new commercial area, although I don't know if we can expect that anytime soon.

It is really sad to see some of the areas that were annexed last year. In the past their parks and trails were always mowed are really well kept. They now had knee high weeds/grass and trash cans that were jammed full. As I kept going the three SID's across the street had clean and nicely mowed so you can't blame the weather.

I think Omaha needs to get their police, trash and parks in order before they add more responsibilities to those departments.

Serious question, have you submitted a new ticket to their ticketing system? They've always completed my requests (filling potholes and lane painting).

When my neighborhood was annexed a few years ago, services improved.

I do have to admit those issue's you can report to the city usually get handle in 2 to 5 day's depending what the task is. I reported a Pothole to the city got it fixed within 2 day's. Then they came out during the spring and replaced the entire intersection with fresh concrete. Report a house that wasn't being kept up to code with major lawn issues (House is abandon) next week the lawn was mowed.

Just heard that it is narrowed down to three SIDs for this year, announcement should come soon.

jelizh wrote:Just heard that it is narrowed down to three SIDs for this year, announcement should come soon.

Just three SID's? I wonder what the population is like with the 3 SID's. Usually Jean Stothert is pretty grand with her annexation package's and tries to get around 10,000 people in them per annexation package. If it's just 3 it seem's a bit low. Probably because of the new Council members and seeing how they vote first before ramming through any more major Annexation package's.

2017 Annexation Package:
Lake Cunningham Hills (SID 326)
Pacific Springs Village (SID 402) and adjacent area
West Dodge Place (SID 462) and adjacent areas.

2010 Census Population: 863
Acres: 299.2
Valuation: $119,546,850
Debt Ratio: 3.63%

OmahaFan wrote:

jelizh wrote:Just heard that it is narrowed down to three SIDs for this year, announcement should come soon.

Just three SID's? I wonder what the population is like with the 3 SID's. Usually Jean Stothert is pretty grand with her annexation package's and tries to get around 10,000 people in them per annexation package. If it's just 3 it seem's a bit low. Probably because of the new Council members and seeing how they vote first before ramming through any more major Annexation package's.

Also as you pointed out, she has done some large ones, still probably digesting that. I keep hoping we get annexed but not this time unfortunately.

Greg

These three SIDs are before the Council this Wednesday.

Anyone know of any research that shows the long term economic effects of annexation? I always feel like it's a thing thats great in the short term but then costly in the long term.

The recent annexations have been small and seemed fine. I worry about the bigger ones.

dwoodchip wrote:Anyone know of any research that shows the long term economic effects of annexation? I always feel like it's a thing thats great in the short term but then costly in the long term.

The recent annexations have been small and seemed fine. I worry about the bigger ones.

Long term, we don't turn into St Louis. The center City of that metro area is decaying and green flight sucks people out to the burbs that now have their own infrastructure to support and see no reason to kick in for St Louis. Imagine if Millard was able to stay it's own city. How would Omaha's finances be? There would be no downtown redevelopment as the Omaha wouldn't have the tax base to do TIF.

Imagine if Omaha never annexed. So Omaha, Benson, Florence, Millard, Elkhorn would all be independent cities competing against each other.

I agree that some annexations are necessary to help the city prosper. But how much annexation is too much. If Omaha sprawls too far west then the long term costs will out weigh the short term gains. It'll also be harder to get a cohesive public transit system.

It's a great way to bring in revenue for the city. At Omaha's current size, I'd rather see that increased revenue come from new businesses and other means of drawing people to the city.

dwoodchip wrote:I agree that some annexations are necessary to help the city prosper. But how much annexation is too much. If Omaha sprawls too far west then the long term costs will out weigh the short term gains. It'll also be harder to get a cohesive public transit system.

It's a great way to bring in revenue for the city. At Omaha's current size, I'd rather see that increased revenue come from new businesses and other means of drawing people to the city.

The transit issue is only a limit because the hipsters can't wrap their heads around people choosing to live in the burbs and not want to hangout in the cool kids' neighborhood. Transit that is locally organic and linked to a city wide system would affordably connect the city.

bigredmed1 wrote:

dwoodchip wrote:I agree that some annexations are necessary to help the city prosper. But how much annexation is too much. If Omaha sprawls too far west then the long term costs will out weigh the short term gains. It'll also be harder to get a cohesive public transit system.

It's a great way to bring in revenue for the city. At Omaha's current size, I'd rather see that increased revenue come from new businesses and other means of drawing people to the city.

The transit issue is only a limit because the hipsters can't wrap their heads around people choosing to live in the burbs and not want to hangout in the cool kids' neighborhood. Transit that is locally organic and linked to a city wide system would affordably connect the city.

Or transit is only an issue because entitled suburbanites expect "hipsters" (apparently anyone who doesn't live in the burbs?) to subsidize their car travel but throw a fit if asked to pay for transit in the urban environments that support it.

Dundeemaha wrote:

bigredmed1 wrote:

dwoodchip wrote:I agree that some annexations are necessary to help the city prosper. But how much annexation is too much. If Omaha sprawls too far west then the long term costs will out weigh the short term gains. It'll also be harder to get a cohesive public transit system.

It's a great way to bring in revenue for the city. At Omaha's current size, I'd rather see that increased revenue come from new businesses and other means of drawing people to the city.

The transit issue is only a limit because the hipsters can't wrap their heads around people choosing to live in the burbs and not want to hangout in the cool kids' neighborhood. Transit that is locally organic and linked to a city wide system would affordably connect the city.

Or transit is only an issue because entitled suburbanites expect "hipsters" (apparently anyone who doesn't live in the burbs?) to subsidize their car travel but throw a fit if asked to pay for transit in the urban environments that support it.

The idea I have promoted for several years is that of mass transit though interlocking loops. There are a lot of people who need to go shopping or to the bank. They don't need to do that 50 blocks away. They could easily be persuaded to use a shuttle type bus to go to a shopping area, then bus back home. If the bus got within 4 blocks of their house, I think it would be acceptable. If the bus then interlinked with dedicated buses that would simply go from link to link at designated points (along Dodge street for example, and the links could go north or south from some designated single link point, you could get decent transit times and by having relatively few of these, you could have several busses on the route at crush times.

This leads to organic transit. A service that is actually useful at the organic level. A person could go to the bank and dry cleaners, then go home without waiting forever or having to only go on certain days of the week when buses actually run in your area. The current system dies West of 90th and the hurl and burl of the "downtown, midtown, blackstone, south Omaha, Eppley, CWS" gets boring and leads to plans that work great for a few people living in a small strip of Omaha, but no one else. You get upset that we don't want to fund it. We get upset that we keep getting called names for being "too stupid" or "too behind the times" or what ever new word grenade you want to throw. Together, we never solve this problem.

As for the resistance to pay for stuff, why should ANY part of the city, and I mean ANY part be expected to pay for any other? If it is not a service that is generally helpful to all of us, pay for it yourselves. Roads, schools, parks all can be seen as local, but are really just part of a system that benefits all of us. Buses used to be part of that, but due to management decisions over the past 30 years, western and central Omaha first got terrible service, then when people wouldn't use the craptastic service, got it taken away. Transit times got ridiculous. When my brother was in college in the late 80s, he needed to take a bus from eastern Millard to Benson where he worked as his car broke down. Not missing any bus, it took him 2.5 hours to go from 120th and Q to 60th and Military. At that pace, he could have walked there. Can we all see why the ridership fell? In the mid 90s I moved in to the area near the Trifaith campus. We had a bus that went right past our neighborhood. Sadly, it only ran two times a day and not on the weekend. To use that to go to my bank, would have required me to ride it to 114th, get off, then walk a mile, then walk a mile back to Pacific and ride the bus the remaining mile, then walk several blocks to my house. Considering the times available, I would have had to take a day off work to do this rather than just go there in my car on Saturday.

Not trying to start a flame war, just wanting to get people to see the city as a whole, rather than as hipsterville and a bunch of other things.

Omaha mayor says future annexation of Waterloo is 'under consideration'

Emily Nohr - World-Herald staff writer wrote:Omaha city limits come within a mile of Waterloo, which covers the area roughly from the Elkhorn River to 240th Street, and West Maple Road to Blondo Street.

Annexing Waterloo would put Omaha nearly at the doorstep of the larger community Valley, which has about 2,000 residents and is home to a Valmont Industries plant.

Let's just rip the band-aid off and do a city-county merger.

In a few years that may be the answer.

New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

All that is lacking is changing State laws...

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

Today we could easily get by with that number or less. In the times they were created it was a necessary to allow people to be able to travel in a reasonable amount of time to get to the county seat for required activities.

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

Sarpy County was split off from Douglas County in 1857 the same year Omaha annexed "East Omaha" well before South Omaha existed and Omaha was more of an equal/rival to Bellevue than a city/suburb dynamic.

There's no federal law about the number of counties a state must have as evidenced from the large discrepancy between county sizes and population across the country.

I think but am not sure that the first Governor of Nebraska started the counties and then citizens had to petition for the establishment of the others with the guiding principal that you should be able to get to the county building in a day on horseback from anywhere in the county.

Dundeemaha wrote:

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

Sarpy County was split off from Douglas County in 1857 the same year Omaha annexed "East Omaha" well before South Omaha existed and Omaha was more of an equal/rival to Bellevue than a city/suburb dynamic.

There's no federal law about the number of counties a state must have as evidenced from the large discrepancy between county sizes and population across the country.

I think but am not sure that the first Governor of Nebraska started the counties and then citizens had to petition for the establishment of the others with the guiding principal that you should be able to get to the county building in a day on horseback from anywhere in the county.

These were the "Congressional Counties" that were subsequently dumped for western states, but never reversed for Nebraska. Called Congressional Counties as the counties on the Kansas and Colo. borders in SW Nebraska are rectangles measuring twenty miles north to south so that a farmer could get to the rail hub mid county and back in a day. Great idea, but not practical given the size of farms and the population density.

nebugeater wrote:

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

Today we could easily get by with that number or less. In the times they were created it was a necessary to allow people to be able to travel in a reasonable amount of time to get to the county seat for required activities.

But NM and Colorado are reasonably close to Nebraska in age and have far fewer counties and California (which predates Nebraska) has FAR fewer counties. Many of these counties in these states are very large (like Nebraska's Cherry County). Wonder why the SW corner and the eastern parts of the state were forced into these now hard to manage counties and the northern sandhills and the panhandle got larger ones?

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebugeater wrote:

bigredmed1 wrote:

nebraska wrote:New York City is made of 5 counties. Why not Omaha? The only thing lacking is will power!

Annex all the things!

Nebraska banned Omaha from annexing across county lines to protect Bellevue. Sarpy county exists to protect Bellevue. It was cleaved from Douglas County once Omaha annexed South Omaha and Bellevue sought protection.

Nebraska has 93 counties thanks to our lovely federal government. We could easily make due with 20-25 counties. To do that we would have to reverse federal law enforcement the "Congressional Counties".

Today we could easily get by with that number or less. In the times they were created it was a necessary to allow people to be able to travel in a reasonable amount of time to get to the county seat for required activities.

But NM and Colorado are reasonably close to Nebraska in age and have far fewer counties and California (which predates Nebraska) has FAR fewer counties. Many of these counties in these states are very large (like Nebraska's Cherry County). Wonder why the SW corner and the eastern parts of the state were forced into these now hard to manage counties and the northern sandhills and the panhandle got larger ones?

I agree, today we could get by with 15-20 counties easy. Back in the mid to late 1800s 93 made more sense (even without a mandate from the Federal Gov't) due to the lack of easy mobility. What's surprising is we still have 93. Everybody wants their own little fiefdom, thus the resistance to mergers and annexations that is still alive and well. Places like Dundee, Benson, South Omaha, Millard, Elkhorn, etc. have still managed to maintain their sense of identity, despite their annexations.

With Nebraska being a fairly large state from a land mass perspective..and being sparsely populated at about 2 million, 20 counties should easily be the max..

I've always thought 93 counties for such a large, sparsely populated state is ludicrous.. ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

Coyote wrote:Omaha mayor says future annexation of Waterloo is 'under consideration'

Emily Nohr - World-Herald staff writer wrote:Omaha city limits come within a mile of Waterloo, which covers the area roughly from the Elkhorn River to 240th Street, and West Maple Road to Blondo Street.

Annexing Waterloo would put Omaha nearly at the doorstep of the larger community Valley, which has about 2,000 residents and is home to a Valmont Industries plant.

About damn time we discuss Waterloo and Valley. Personally I’d want to Annex Bennington first and then move down to Waterloo and then the last annexation would be Valley before we head to the State legislature requesting annexation across county lines into Saunders county or Sarpy. I think Saunders would be much easier. Wouldn’t need to vote on annexation because of the population limit. Either way Annexation should be a high priority.

OmahaFan wrote:Either way Annexation should be a high priority.

Why? The amount of land a city controls doesn't correlate to its success or financial prosperity.

TitosBuritoBarn wrote:

OmahaFan wrote:Either way Annexation should be a high priority.

Why? The amount of land a city controls doesn't correlate to its success or financial prosperity.

In fact, quite the opposite in these cases if you aren't careful. Omaha is in a precarious position with great urban things happening but a lingering desire to continue low density growth far west. Its a delicate balancing act, one that may not show impacts for another few decades.

TitosBuritoBarn wrote:

OmahaFan wrote:Either way Annexation should be a high priority.

Why? The amount of land a city controls doesn't correlate to its success or financial prosperity.

Yes it does. If Omaha were to let Bennington annex all of west Douglas County outside of Omaha, or let Valley and Waterloo merge and take the trans-Elkhorn area with them, we would find ourselves in the city equivalent of OPS (pretty much like St Louis.) OPS pooped their bed back in the 60s when Millard was far away and 66 was really high taxes. Bellevue was owned by the air force, and Papio-LaVista were small towns in the country. By letting the school district go to seed in the mid 60s, lots of people took off in a wave of "green flight" where everyone who had the green to fly did so. This wave of multiracial out-migration was then followed by white flight in the early 70s. Leaving OPS weakened further and the people with money living in 66, and the people with enough to get out of OPS living in Millard and Ralston. Now OPS struggles and the surrounding districts get stronger.

This same thing happens in places like STL or Dallas where people with money would rather their tax money go to a park or school they will benefit from rather than yet more central city "investment".