The voters have spoken

HARTINGTON — Hartington city employees should be working out of a new seven-bay city shop next year, voters decided during the May 14 primary election.

Local residents favored building a new city shop to replace the antiquated site by a 345-239 vote, according to the unofficial results from the Cedar County Clerk's Office.

A proposal to move and renovate the Skylon Ballroom did not meet with voter approval, though. That issue failed with 357 people voting against it and only 231 favoring the proposal.

Hartington Mayor Mark Becker said the city's residents have spoken, and now the city needs to 'sit down and figure out what comes next.'

Becker said the city desperately needs a community center. Local residents decided they did not want to pay for a $1.6 million bond to move, expand and update the facility, however. Building a new community center would most likely cost twice that amount, he added.

If the issue would have been approved, construction crews would have been able to begin work late this summer and the building would most likely have been moved in the fall, Becker said. It's feasible that the refurbished facility would have been open some time in the summer of 2025, he said.

Now the fate of a community center here is in limbo. The city held two town hall meetings this spring to inform people about its proposal, which would have moved the Skylon west to a lot in the new economic development business park.

Current Skylon owner Roger Wortmann said if the city does not move the building, it will have to be torn down.