City Approves Rezoning, Appointments

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The Ulysses City Council approved Ordinance 1348, a rezoning for a partial of land at 2200 West Oklahoma Avenue – Odor’s Garage – from Agriculture to CS Highway Service during their regular meeting April 23.

Sort of.

A clerical error in the legal description meant the council could only approve part of the rezoning.

“What’s going on here is trying to get Odor’s Garage rezoned to the highway service, that is the proper zoning for the business that’s going to be operated out of there,” said City Administrator Luke Grimes. “However, we discovered an error in the legal description, we’re missing half the lot.”

The council could legally pass what was on the legal, but will have to come back an approve the other half at a later date. The part that’s correct is the part with the building on it.

When asked if the council could approve just half the partial and approve the other half at a later date after going through the zoning process, City Attorney Lynn Koehn said it was up to the petitioner.

“The way they published it for the rezone was just the east 200 feet and the north 420 feet of this,” Koehn said. “There’s basically four different parcels on this lot.”

Koehn said to approve it so the petitioner could begin using the portion with the building it, and city staff could begin the process to rezone the other portion.

The council tabled Ordinance 1349, which is a zoning ordinance update.

“Ultimately what this is going to be is adding in some of our old zoning ordinances that didn’t makeit over when we switched to the updated book,” Grimes said. “We didn’t get everything done we needed to and code compliance staff all went to a conference this week. This one isn’t time sensitive.”

The council approved all 2025 staff appointments, including:

•City Administrator Luke Grimes

•City Clerk Sarah Britton

•City Treasurer Sheila Maxfield

•Police Chief Ron Vagher

•City Attorney Lynn Koehn

•Municipal Judge Margaret Alford

•City Engineer Peter Earles of Earles Engineering

•Official Newspapers The Ulysses News and The Garden City Telegram

•Official Radio Station KULY

•Official banks Grant County Bank, Bank of Ulysses and Dream First Bank

•The council approved the quarterly report, as well as a Cereal Malt Beverage permit for a Beer Garden at the first Farmer’s Market planned for May 6 at Main and Grant. There won’t be a beer garden at every Farmer’s Market, but Grimes is partnering with Levi Williams of Liberal for the first one in order for Williams to gauge the community’s response to his product – Tortuga Brewery in Liberal. Grimes hopes to draw a satellite location to Ulysses.