2025 NPZA Awards
The 2025 Annual Awards Ceremony for the Nebraska Planning and Zoning Association took place at the annual conference on March 6th in Kearney. The awards banquet is an opportunity to recognize the great work by our peers and learn from their achievements in order to better our own projects and communities. The following is a short summary of the work by each individual along with their award category. Congratulations to the 2025 NPZA Awardees!
Appointed Official Award: Stan Dart
This award recognizes outstanding and dedicated service and contributions to a community by an appointed official. This award was given to Stan Dart, Chairperson of the Kearney Planning Commission. Stan is the longest-standing Planning Commissioner in his community, having served for 33 years.
In his time as a Planning Commissioner, Stan has been part of two comprehensive planning efforts, housing studies, code changes, and various projects that have led to tremendous development throughout the community. His experience has provided him with the ability to see topics from many facets to make decisions based on facts to meet the needs of the community. He was key in assisting the Planning Commission through one of its more controversial code changes it had seen to date: updating the sign code.
Stan is always willing to help assist and provide his words of wisdom when asked, and he takes the time to help train new Commissioners. He puts in the extra time to review and work with Staff to understand all perspectives of projects coming through the Planning Commission to ensure meetings run smoothly.
Congratulations, Stan!
Professional Officials Award: Bill Krejci
This award recognizes outstanding service in leadership and support of community planning efforts as a professional official in Nebraska. This year’s award was given to Bill Krejci, Zoning Administrator/Building Inspector for the City of Ashland.
In his five years with the city, the community has seen exponential growth in commercial and residential development. Included in this development has been two new schools, a steakhouse, a microbrewery, a Mexican restaurant, a Runza, two new apartment buildings, with another two on the way and many new homes in multiple developments. He is a department of one at this time and he has handled all of this growth with an air of professionalism.
Developers can be difficult to reign in at times when they get their minds set on a plan or their way of doing things on projects. Bill has focused on the regulations while also trying his hardest to work within those regulations to make all of these projects viable for the both the community and the developer. He has worked late, came in early, and is always willing to sit down with a developer or builder to offer feedback and help them work through their options.
Congratulations, Bill!
Congratulations to the Award Winners!
The Nebraska Planner