Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good night.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Can I get a motion to approve today's agenda?

I will make a motion to approve today's agenda.

I'll second that motion.

Okay, call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Seaman, aye. Rose, aye. The minutes. I didn't see anything off in the minutes.

You look good to me.

Okay, can I get a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

I'll second the motion.

Okay, call for a vote.

Tippett, aye.

Seaman, aye. Bowles, aye. Claims?

There's a lot. The only thing I question, it looks like we had a double up on, maybe that's just the way it fell in the billing cycle, on our gravel roads and our trucking. Looks like we paid two rounds.

just secondary roads.

And then I have a question that office equipment, was that that sign that we paid for out of?

Out of your budget, yep.

Perfect, that's what I figured.

It wasn't as expensive.

No, it wasn't, $700. And it looks good. Yeah. In a good spot. Yep.

I hope that glass is strong enough and it survived the party in the park sometimes.

Okay. So can I get a motion to approve today's claims?

I'll make a motion to approve the claims. I'll second.

Okay, call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Stephen, aye. Bowles, aye. Discuss and act on dumping at the courthouse recycling bins. Haley?

Yep. So Rick Wood has been the late instructor, you know, here after we keep finding things that shouldn't be dumped or they're just left outside there. Some of it's brushed up. Matt's pricing some of it, too. So we took footage, and we can read the license plate well enough to know who did it. So the city of Benton does have a litter ordinance, but I think it should be up to you guys' call. Do you want us to have the Benton PD go give them a verbal warning first, or do you want to cite that?

How often does it happen?

Do you think a verb will scare them enough?

I guess there should be smart enough. It's recycling bin. Right. And if it's brush dropped off there.

I mean, it's not just brush. There's been objects.

Well, we've got proof now and all that.

I mean, we've obviously seen mattresses and other things. But, yeah. I mean, because at some point, we can't send it with them to the recycling either. So then it's up to us to get disposed of it.

See, that's where I have a problem with it.

Do we have any way to send them a bill?

Well, we have their vehicle license plate. I mean, so we can track them that way.

Can we research that barrier? It'd probably be better to cite them. Cite them? Because the, I'm going to be honest, because there's a whole different kind of thing, because you want to, yeah, you probably want to cite them. But that would be through the city. Correct. Yes. Because it's their ordinance, not the... because obviously ours can't apply.

And I've already handed over the video to the event PD and they can tell who it was to.

I guess that's my direction then. I think I would too. Turn it over to the city.

We'll let them go ahead and say that then.

Take the advice of our attorney.

I'm done with it.

Okay. Do you want to make a formal motion next?

I would make the motion to... turn the dumping matter over to the city police.

I'll second.

Okay, call for a vote.

Tippett, aye.

Haman, aye.

Bulls, aye. Okay.

Discuss, let's see, we got one here at 905. Sheriff.

We'd like to promote a sergeant in the Corrections Division, Caleb Stewart. We had a vacancy. Interviews were done, applications accepted, and Sheriff believes he's the best candidate. He's been with us since 2022.

Correct number on there, Haley? 2664. I would make a motion to approve resolution 2664, approve, not approving, promoting Caleb Stewart to sergeant in the jail.

I'll second. Okay, call for a vote.

Tippett, aye.

Seaman, aye. Bowles, aye. Does this come with more money?

There is the $1 shift differential as outlined in the union contract to promoted positions.

Can I put that resolution?

Okay, we've got a few minutes here. Discuss and approve a purchase of a new chair for the witness stand of 3rd floor courtroom. So, I see we have a request. I haven't read it yet. Have you guys read it? I did. I did read it.

I received a phone call from her about it.

All I know is read. I did go in and try to adjust the height of the chair too, but Ron, you can speak on it.

The problem with the chair is, and I've had the problem before, if you sit down with your duty belt on, you get trapped to get on and off the witness stand. We need to update it to a chair with no arms. It's pretty simple.

It's very awkward for... law enforcement to sit in that chair because it's just not made for that.

So I did ask her to get maybe some examples or quotes because I assume you don't want arms on it, right? Yeah. But it's up to the county to fund that because we have to provide the court space and all the materials.

Is there enough room to have two chairs in there or no?

It's literally bolted to the floor. Yeah. Them and the jury seats are all bolted to the floor.

They can't divide their seats that way.

Yeah, right. If nothing else, they'll fall backwards first because they really lean back.

So the new one would have to be bolted down to the floor too? It probably would.

We probably don't need to if... We would probably just have to repair the floor, though.

Is there carpet or what's... I think it's carpet. I guess I've never many times have been in that room. I don't know what's up there. It's been a few years. I'll go look. But it's just a big old metal pipe. I would say it's probably two inches, three inches. Kind of like a soda bottle. Yeah. chair with maybe like a centimeter thick thumb pad up for the bottom um but i would assume that you can just pull the bolts out of it normal chair there you don't have to like bolt it back down i have not started to price it so but i just wanted you guys to be aware because before i started getting started researching how about we have

Rick with maintenance, work with Julie together, give them a week and then come back with a price.

Well, I know Julie's drive-by this week, so probably a couple of weeks.

Better give them two weeks.

Yeah.

Two weeks then. Okay. That way everybody can understand if they can get one with wheels or if it's got to be stationary. Yeah, if it's got to be both down and on. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. If it's molded down now, was that a requirement at one point? Did it have to be?

I just don't know. It could have just been the style back when they constructed it.

It pretty well matches everything else.

I concur with that, yeah.

Because the next thing, technically and legally, since the courthouse is a historic building, we can't get rid of that chair when they take it out, correct?

Because it's bolded. But you have to make sure whatever we replace it with would be up to standards to keep it historical looking.

So we've got to work with the historical.

I just want to try to find something that resembles it.

But they've got to be involved, right? No.

This is sounding better than turning over to somebody else all the time.

Same with all those other chairs up there. Everything's bolted down. Like even like the public can come sit in those bolt down chairs. It's all bolted.

Well, I'll make the motion we... table this for a couple of weeks and let the courthouse maintenance work with the clerk of court's office to get the proper fixture picked out.

Okay. I believe that's the best way to go.

Do you want to second that one?

I'll second.

Okay, call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Seaman, aye. All right, Andrea.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Okay, so Farmtastic 3 LLC is seeking approval for a new non-agricultural use specifically for a storage facility. The property is located approximately 1.5 miles northwest of Mount Auburn at 5141 22nd Avenue within the east one half of the northeast one quarter of section 12 township 86 north, range 11 west within Cedar Township. The proposal concerns a 16.15 parcel which the applicants own. 52% of this area has a CSR of 70 or greater, with the area of the request having a weighted average corn suitability rating of 68. Based on the weighted CSR, this area is considered low quality farmland. There are scattered single family dwellings and agricultural row crops to the north and south, and agricultural row crops to the east and west. Access to the property will be via an existing driveway, which was reviewed and approved by Dan McKenna from Secondary Roads. The property is accessed from 22nd Avenue, a gravel county road with an average annual daily traffic count of 330 vehicles. The septic system for the former office was abandoned in 2017. If any plumbing fixtures would be installed or utilized in the future, a private sewage disposal system would need to be installed. There are two private water wells located on this property. Seven notification letters were sent to adjacent property owners and legal notices were published in Benton County's official newspapers as required by ordinance. The Benton County Land Use Office received several calls asking for clarification on the type of storage intended and received one public comment concerning this request, which I will read at the end of the report. This request is located on a parcel with low-quality farmland that was formerly a chicken layer farm and has not been used for agricultural row crop production since at least the 1980s. In addition, the request is buffered from agricultural operations to the west and north by a creek and to the east by roadway. Therefore, this request is not likely to interfere seriously with farm operations in the area. The surrounding area is primarily agricultural with scattered single family dwellings. Additionally, the requested use will take place within existing buildings. Therefore, this request should not materially alter the stability of the overall land use pattern in the area. According to the Benton County Land Preservation and Use Plan, it is policy to provide low impact development opportunities within the general rural use area upon a fair and equitable evaluation. For the reasons reported, this request has been found to be consistent with this policy and all other applicable policies of the plan. And now I'm gonna read the public comment. So, we received a call from a resident concerned about whether this request was a way to allow wind blade storage into the facility. We discussed that the request is for storage only and not warehousing. Warehousing services are designated for storing large quantities of goods used by manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, exporters, and transporters to support smooth operations. In comparison, storage is defined as the act of keeping items in a secure space. The service is typically smaller in scale and used for short-term or passive holding of goods, materials, or equipment. In storage, items don't require active management or immediate processing. I also reached out to Mr. Hennings, one of the applicants, and at the time we discussed that the intent of this request is not for the storage of wind turbine plates. Do you guys have any questions for me?

I also got a phone call from an area resident and that was their concern. I believe that you just took care of their talks about it. I also spoke with another resident in the area and he had concerns on how it was being taxed, which goes to a whole other level. Yeah, that's separate from this hearing. Separate from this.

Yeah, that's a very problem.

Yep, yep. Is it the big building in the center? what I call the warehouse.

So it's all of the buildings, not all of them are ready to be used for storage, but they're adding that additional storage use so in the future they could use all the buildings whenever, if ever they get cleaned up. And they can, you can correct me if that is not good.

I received a couple of calls as well. Same concerns that Ron had mentioned, that it's not going to be used to store or house industrial waste, blades and such. This is going to be individuals? Yes. Storing boats, cars, campers?

And I want to clarify that with our land use ordinance, each use has to be approved. So just because this use might be approved doesn't mean that they can store whatever they want. They can store industrial things in there. That would be a different use that would need to be applied and go through the same process as well.

We literally had someone who did that, I don't even think two or three months ago, He did land use like maybe three, five years ago, and he was asking, well, can I use it for this? And essentially said, nope, you have to go through the whole process again, and he got approved.

and also with the land use just because this use is being added doesn't mean that it's being changed if this could still be used for agricultural just now if this gets approved we could also they could also use it for storage so it could they could be used for both things

and obviously like with everyone else anything that goes outside that use you know that would be a violation go through the other process just like anybody else how do we find out that it is being issues

So that would be the neighbors, the ones that let us know if there is any. Yeah, like we don't think they're, and then that's when we can investigate and go through that process. And we've had to do that in our office here. And sometimes they are right, the neighbors are right, sometimes it's just a matter of perception and yeah.

Do these changes, I see Michael and his wife are here, do they do anything with the, These changes or anything, the driveways are approved and you guys have a shared driveway? Does that do anything with that? So both driveways were approved. Okay, so everything there just stays the way it is?

Yes, no changes to the driveway.

It appears to me it's just going to be using space that's sitting there empty right now. Maybe they can make some money on it. That's right.

I have no problem. I make a motion to approve the... I've got it. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Can we make one request for those of you that want to address the board? Come forward and sit there and state your name, and then we're going to time it so it's limited. Exactly.

Can I go ahead and pass this out to everybody? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just call time. Okay. Good morning. My name is Don Peterson and I live at 5082 22nd Avenue, Mount Auburn, Iowa. And I'm contesting the land use change from agricultural to commercial on the property at 5141 22nd Avenue at Mount Auburn, Iowa. My concerns are changing the commercial, changing to commercial or reduce surrounding property value. Currently the property is zoned ag and has been advertised and operating as a commercial storage facility for the past two years. The agricultural buildings are engineered as agricultural and not for commercial use. Past presidents has shown owners not complying with county zoning laws and we have a continued concern that they will not follow the commercial zoning laws. Questions. Why is there a need to change from agricultural to commercial zoning when the county has known of the operation of the business for the past two years? Next question. How do we ensure the property owners will bring the property up to commercial compliance? Number three, does current owners have a business plan that they have shared with the board? And has the zoning commission filed a final report for the proposed land use change? The last question, how do we ensure the owners are not considering selling the property once the zoning has been changed to a commercial zone, to a data center, solar or wind generation facility, or any other large industrial manufacturing facility? And in closing, we have three things that we'd like to have the supervisors consider. If supervisors choose to change the zoning to commercial, is a bond needed to protect the citizens of the county? And shall it be in writing what the owners can store, hours of business, waste disposal, and the property not being used as a waste site, salvage site. And currently there are approximately 10 acres of the farm in production. And that's all I have for right now, gentlemen. I'd like to thank you for your time for letting me explain this. Thank you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thank you.

Can I answer some of your questions? Yes. So your question is about zoning. So Benton County does not use zoning. We don't have that. That's why we have land use. We're not really changing anything in the property. We're just adding that additional use. It can still be used for agricultural purposes. but we can also add this use of storage. We don't have traditional zoning like other counties do. So we're not gonna be changing this to commercial. And just because this use might be approved doesn't mean that they can go ahead and then sell it to a data center and it's gonna be approved because now it's considered storage. Maybe their assessment might be changed to a combined agricultural commercial. I'm not sure. That's up to the assessor. But that doesn't mean that they can just go and sell this and now a data center can put a data center there with no issue. That is not how our ordinance works. If a data center ever were to come to this county, they would have to go through this process as well. Just because... and use was approved doesn't mean that somebody else can come here and put something commercial in there. That's not how the ordinance works. Does that clarify that part of your?

No, it doesn't. I'm sorry, it doesn't. I guess you'll have to help me understand. So if that's the case, then why are they applying for a change to commercial?

So again, it's not a change to commercial. That's just, it's adding the use. And the reason why they're applying is because I sent them an autism violation. And I told them, I was told that you are operating this business without going through the land exchange. And that was a misunderstanding that they had because their primary use is agricultural. So they thought that land use was only required if the primary use was based on what they were using it for. And I told them that's not the case. Just because it's not the primary use of storage, you still have to go through the land exchange. Even if they don't store a lot of stuff in there, they still have to go through this process. So that's the reason why this is happening right now, because I sent them the notice of violation and they understood the process and they complied with our land use ordinance.

Okay, I understand that, but one of the owners is on the zoning commission, so their claim, as far as not knowing that they couldn't be doing that, is really invalid.

And that's where our county's a little different because we don't report to the zoning commission, we report to the Board of Supervisors, because we don't have zoning. So there is nothing for them to zone for us.

Correct, yeah, because we're, like other counties adopt a zoning system where obviously you can do the broader scope of commercial, industrial, is then handled by the assessor for tax purposes. They can't supersede the use that they've been approved of by this board or they'd be in violation of the ordinance and then a civil infraction that would come from that until they go back to their land use or they go through this process again, what they actually want to use it for.

So let's say, to explain it better, let's say somebody wanted to put they apply for it they got approved and then somebody else comes in and say well they already have a car shop in here that's commercial I want to start a bakery right next door so because that was approved as a car shop I can just do it and that's not right they have to go through this process again so that's what that's what I mean when it comes to just because it's getting approved for storage doesn't mean that somebody else can come and do whatever they want that's different from storage. And for your question about making the building as commercial, we don't have any building permits in the county. The only thing that they have to comply to is make sure that they get any electrical permits that might be required and those are pulled through the state.

So there's no requirements in the county to bring a building up to commercial standards? So an ag building can be used as a commercial building? Correct. Crazy.

As long as your insurance is good with it.

You don't have to bring it up to safety standards like ADA standards or anything like that?

That I can't tell you. That would be with your insurance again.

Okay. Okay. No fire suppression or anything that would have to be done? So you just cowboy it out there, so to speak.

OK. And that's then their risk that they take.

Correct. Correct. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. Well, I guess I didn't understand the zoning. I thought it was more stringent than that.

OK. And typically, like, it would be Most other places, you know, there's a whole other set of rules for zoning purposes where we're just limiting ourselves just to the one specific land use. Correct. I would just think, I think most places, I'm assuming Benton has a zoning commission, the city of Benton. I mean, a lot of places has. Our county just hasn't.

In the unincorporated areas, we don't have building code.

Okay, all right.

They just have to comply with whatever state building codes exist.

Sure, sure.

And then with your question about when they sell it, so, I mean, I know in the process of selling it, as long as they start the use before they sell it, then whoever they sell it to, they can continue to use it for storage, but it has to be the type of storage that they apply for.

So do they have, does the new owner have to apply for

If it's something different than storage.

Otherwise it could be the same.

Yes, that's correct. So if somebody wanted to put storage lockers, individual storage lockers, instead of having an open space, they could do that.

Sure, sure. Well, yeah, one of my concerns was the property value, major concerns, the property value has been One of the other property owners are here, gentlemen, and as soon as that goes to commercial use, dedicated commercial use, it will drop our property values. Statistically, it will drop them. And we're talking probably, I don't know, 10, $12 million worth of real estate around there. On your decision, we'll probably have to give up a quarter of a million dollars, $500,000 in property values between the Waysons, the Petersons, Chad Abernathy, or Dr. Chad, or Abernathy's family. The home's around there. And our home is just up the road, you know. We're like, I don't know, roughly 1,000 feet from the property, so. Yeah. So that, you know. But anyway, okay. I guess that's all I have for now. Thank you.

You guys want to say anything?

Do we need to put anything in writing for camper, boat, car storage? Do we need to specify? or has that already been done?

That has not been done and we didn't specify it because does that mean that if somebody goes and stores personal items to them that they are not allowed to do so? That's why we didn't, we just left it as generalized storage. That doesn't mean that the main concern of people that they can just store industrial stuff in there. That's not what the approved use is and I understand your concern about being a dumping site. That's also, we have an ordinance against that so then that would be another notice of violation.

But you can request that they put down what is being placed out there, correct?

We could, but then that limits them in what they could use it for storage. If we didn't say that you could use it for, I don't know, we have to say bicycles, or we have to say motorcycles, we have to say cars, we have to say boats, RVs, farm equipment. That would be, it would have to be a very comprehensive list for them to be able to store anything otherwise. one single thing that's not added is gonna be then made non-compliant. And that's just really not practical.

Yeah. But I do know that the county has put in Things like that before, because north of Vinton on 150, the county was pretty stringent with a gentleman that wanted to put a shop out at his house. And it was right down to what their time of day could be, how many cars could be out there at one time. It was a pretty big deal here two or three years ago.

personal property, you know, correct? There's nothing like... Yes. Okay.

Does it state that anywhere, tangible personal property?

Or does it have to? The way that it's currently said, it doesn't seem to, but the way I'm understanding, that's what's all going to be pretty much in there is tangible personal property of other people's stuff. Correct.

Would you prefer that in there? I don't know if that would settle some...

Honestly, I would feel better about it because past precedents have said that we haven't followed the laws set by the county. So, I mean, they could walk out the door and do anything and then we're just going to play games for the next year or two trying to bring it up to you guys again.

You guys are tangible personal properties? Absolutely.

as far as restrictions.

With us not doing zoning, if you're counting that as zoning, that is part of things in there, but with this, we're approving the use as listed on the application, and then also it references, too, with our compliance certificates, what's presented is part of what you're approving. But as far as us pointing restrictions on, I don't believe we have any provisions to use

You're going to store everything inside, right? Nothing outside.

If someone might drop something off, is that, I think you had mentioned, but nothing staying there, right? If someone had to drop something off and someone couldn't be there, was that something? Correct, there's times where they might need to come pick something up and we might have to do that before.

I mean, I'm not sure where we're at on three minutes, but like a camper sitting out, I'm sorry. We probably don't have a lawn mower exactly how you'd like either.

The only time we've ever had campers show up was whenever they had flooding down by the river and we've got the camper out for the person and all of a sudden it rains 6, 12 inches. That person who stored there before could come up and park their RV there until they could get back.

I think you guys hear everything you need to hear? Then I go forth with whatever motion you guys, your decision.

You're just changing it from adding commercial to the agriculture, correct? Basically, that's what you're doing.

They're adding.

We're adding. Adding to storage use. Yes.

It's not actually converted. It doesn't actually take enough. Correct.

It's changing the usage to storage. We do not handle any sort of that. Just purely land use. And it's adding, correct? Not changing. It's adding.

It's just 10 acres of its farm. Yes. No.

Because I think you're referring to the area in Corona, right? You're talking about the part so that's...

There's 10 acres of, roughly 10 acres of remaining hay on this.

Yeah, so that's not included in this application.

Okay, and the flood point is included in the application.

Why do you think it's a flood point?

It's just the buildings on the property, right? There is some.

So there is some within the floodplain, but none of the buildings is in the floodplain and they're not going to be storing anything in here. We discussed this because we did a walkthrough with them. We discussed this is floodplain, they should not be storing that in there. That would have to be a floodplain permit. But they didn't do anything in there.

Okay.

Got any problems with it? I believe that this request is within the scope of our ordinance. I believe it to be true. Is there any reason to not proceed? I would move that we approve the addition of the, to use the property for storage. I'll say. I'll for a vote.

Tippett, aye. Neiman, aye. Bowles, aye.

How you been, Mike? Good, Mike. How about you? I've been doing good. Good. Good to see you. I've been hanging in there, okay? Perfect. Yeah. That's all we can do. Yeah. That's all we can do. Right. Donnie, so glad to see you. I'll see you tomorrow. Hi, yeah. A couple days now.

Reports.

Last Friday, I did... make a tour for a couple hours with the weed department and see how that truck operates. More goes into that than I knew about. The part that really surprised me was they just can't load it up with 240 and spray. They're apparently not allowed to just kill everything. That was... So they're mixtures that it does on the fly, so to speak. Very targeted in the weeds. The areas that I went, the number one weed that it looks like was out of control was the Canadian Thistle. Most of it seems to have gone to seed. That's a problem. Another one they called Bull Fussel. We saw some of that and a lot of the viney stuff. Morning Glory. Morning Glory, exactly. Other than those three it looked, the area that we did looked pretty good. We went 63rd Street from over by Shellsburg over to Keystone Blindtown.

Okay.

The only thing I had was last Tuesday's tours and such at the courthouse. I thought that went well. very well received I think I think the historical preservation work did a great job and I know that they this is encouraged them to look for things in the future things to do and that's all positive kids did like the tours yes yeah yeah the tower but when we were leaving the sheriff's office I pointed up to see those steps and that's where you'd be and then oh well okay maybe maybe we're good not going up there so I thought it went very well I sat in on the WMA zoom meeting

The best thing I can say is I sat in on it. They more or less push for farmers to participate in covering the crop ground in the fall of the year. You know what I mean? They're pushing for that more or less. No projects really going on.

Do they have any money for projects?

No, they haven't got any grant money yet. Okay.

The cover crop, they want that for erosion?

Yes.

Yes.

That was about it, I guess. Meetings this week.

Zoom on Thursday.

I have a couple other references to read through.

Regarding this meeting? Well, and just that whole tax reform. The exemptions and all that. Because we've already... I have a question. Those exemptions were not on this tax statement.

They do not. It's a disciplinary motion. Okay. All right. That about it?

That's it. I got it. Motion. I'll move with adjourn. I'll say it. Call for a vote. Tiffin, aye. Kamen, aye. Olsen, aye. Hey, Donnie. Yeah. I know you're out about up