School Safety, Affordable Housing, Meatpacking Protections Advance

March 11, 2021, 5:10 p.m. ·

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Nebraska Capitol dome (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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Proposals to boost affordable housing and school safety advanced in the Legislature today/Thursday. And a bill to protect meatpacking workers from COVID-19 advanced out of committee and is headed to the full Legislature for debate.


Sen. Matt Williams is the lead sponsor of a proposal to set up an emergency hotline where people can call in anonymously to report concerns that could affect school safety. Williams described the proposal.

“Under this legislation, the Department of Education will establish an anonymous reporting system that enables students, parents, school personnel and community members to report concerning behavior of possible harm utilizing a report line that is accessible through telephone, a mobile app, a website, or email,” Williams said.

The bill says “concerning behavior” includes suicide, bullying, stalking, electronic harassment, bomb threats, family violence, physical or sexual abuse, inappropriate weapons use, and concerns about mental health .

Williams said the program is modeled after a pilot program that began in Douglas County last year, which he credited with helping prevent suicides. Trained staff at Boys Town took the calls, then referred them to threat assessment teams at the individual schools for follow up.

Williams said other states have similar programs that began after the 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colorado. But he said Nebraska’s would be different because the calls wouldn’t go initially to police. In fact, he said, 81 percent of the calls in Douglas County last year avoided any police involvement.

However, Sen. Mike Groene expressed concern about creating an anonymous reporting system.

“What are we doing here? What kind of country are we creating here? Turning each other in anonymously? Labeling kids for life when the accusation might absolutely be false?” Groene asked.

Senators voted 33-5 to give the bill first-round approval.

Groene also raised concerns about a bill dealing with affordable housing. Sen. Matt Hansen’s proposal was a technical change to how cities have to report on their efforts to make more affordable housing available. But Groene, from North Platte, wanted to exempt cities with fewer than 50,000 people from having to submit such plans. He said they’re an unnecessary expense for communities where the population is stagnant.

“It’s one of those issues where what fits for Omaha and Lincoln and maybe Bellevue doesn’t work for us. It’s just an added cost, added headache, put it in a binder and stick it on the shelf. We’re trying to survive,” he said.

Hansen said the plans themselves aren’t due until 2024. But he said they’re important because cities have been creating obstacles to affordable housing.

“They basically overregulate the zoning, and prohibit different types of housing from coming into cities,” Hansen said.

Sen. John Lowe said plans are unnecessary.

“We don’t need government to tell us what we need to build; where we need to build them, because we want our developments to be nice. We don’t want them to be ragtag and offensive to somebody else driving through. We want our communities to be nice. But we don’t need government to tell us how to do things,” Lowe said.

Groene’s attempt to stop the bill so cities under 50,000 population could be exempted from the planning requirement needed 25 votes, but got only 21, with 21 other senators opposed. Senators then voted 40-5 final approval of the bill.

And in other action Thursday, the Business and Labor Committee voted 4-3 to advance a meatpacking safety bill to the full Legislature for debate. The proposal, by Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha, seeks to protect meatpacking workers from COVID-19 by imposing certain requirements on meatpacking companies. They include providing workers with free face masks and shields and replacements when they become soiled; giving paid time off for tests and for workers who’ve tested positive, reporting to the state on deaths and illnesses, and notifying coworkers if someone has tested positive. In its original form, the bill also required six feet of space between workers, but in the public hearing, the companies objected and said that might not be possible in all locations. Vargas’s office said he’s working on an amendment that could provide exceptions to that requirement in some parts of the plants.