Ewing, Hubbard advance for Gering mayor

Half-cent sales increase passes.

A future of leading the City of Gering is one step closer as Kent Ewing and Eldon Hubbard advance to the general election for consideration of the community’s next mayor. The community’s leaders also saw an instrumental vote with the passage of an increased sales tax for infrastructure projects.

“I’m very humbled by the City of Gering,” Kent Ewing said. “I’m glad they’ve taken an interest, and the best is yet to come.”

Ewing, who scored the most votes with 725 out of 1,062, said that with the primary behind him, it is time to get serious about Gering’s future, which will start with the infrastructure projects that will now be moving forward with the passing of Proposition 1.

“That right there helps out the City of Gering with the infrastructure, so that is one thing we will continue to try and gain on,” he said. “That was one of the main priorities was the infrastructure in the City of Gering; we’ve got to get caught up on this stuff and those projects that they’ve designated, so now we have that timeline in which to get that done. So, we’re going to be talking about that a little bit more.”

Current Mayor Tony Kaufman said he was pleased with the passing of the half-cent sales tax, as it showed that the citizens of Gering want to invest in the community.

“We were very excited. The voters can see the benefit of what this tool will allow the community to do,” he said. “…We’ve always had a great community that is very visionary and really sees what these investments will do for our community in positioning it for success for the future.”

Kaufman attributed the success of Proposition 1 on the primary ballot to the committee that advocated for it.

“I have to give total credit to our staff, and our community-minded committee that really took a grassroots effort to educate our community on what the projects were going to be and what the benefits for investment into our community are going to be for years to come.”

Now that the sales tax increase has been passed by voters, Kaufman said the next step will be to work with staff and engineers to begin designing the infrastructure projects and getting them out to bid.

With a plan in place to fund the needed infrastructure projects for the city, Ewing said the other issues on his mind include creating new business opportunities within the community.

“There’s a lot of little projects,” he said, “but there’s also the main projects with the infrastructure and also working with the racetrack officials and the legislature and trying to get some of this stuff approached and try to negotiate out some terms.”

Hubbard, who will advance to the general election after beating Ben Backus, a current city councilman, 497 to 304, was not available for comment as of publication.

*This article was originally published in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald on May 11, 2022. Main photo by Jeff Van-Patten for the Star-Herald.