Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

I'll take a motion to approve today's agenda.

I'll move to approve.

I'll second that. Call for a vote.

Tippett, aye. Heyman, aye. Holds, aye. Minutes. I read the minutes, and I'd approve the minutes as presented. I'd second. Okay, call for a vote. Tippett, aye.

Heyman, aye. Holds, aye. EMS claims.

Is that the one claim for North Benton? 60,000, that is the second half of that ambulance, I take it?

No, that's wages.

Okay.

Oh, okay. The wages. We have another one coming through, I think, for their medical director of the EMS gets paid.

So they're all wanting to pay them directly out of that. So you'll be seeing those too.

And it's huge.

Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the EMS claims?

I would make a motion to approve the EMS claims.

We have to read them off?

Yes, you do. You want to second it? I'll second it, yeah.

They probably made that sheet then.

EMS claims are as follows. North Benton Ambulance, $60,000. Belle Plaine Area Ambulance, $2,387.37. Next three are Urbana-Polk, $3,830.48, $300, and $188.09. Belle Plaine Ambulance is, did I mess that up? Yeah, it was 137.98. Yep, 137.98. Belle Plaine Ambulance is the 188.09. And then 486.53 for Garrison First Responders. Urbana-Polk, $74.50. Van Horn, I'm still one off somewhere. Van Horn, first responders, $2,296.96. No, $86.15. Yep, $86.15 is $8,615.00. Image Trend LLC, which is for North Benton Ambulance. There's where I got messed up. $2,296.96. For a total of $78,316.91. Okay. Call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Steeman, aye. Wilson, aye.

Our man from Cedar Valley Ranch is not here.

Do we want to just move around him?

We'll come back to it. Okay, courthouse chair.

I sent you those quotes.

Yep.

So since you guys tabled it, come back or whatever with the quotes.

This is for the witness chair, right? Yes.

I did notice that yesterday when we were all up there and he didn't have the holsters. Did you notice?

The danger is that issue just in general. When you go to one of the offices, they can't sit in a chair. Yeah.

It's probably the same chair that's been there for 50 plus years. Maybe.

Did Rick in maintenance, I sent you an email, what did he think? He can mount it with no problem then?

I think so. He didn't say he had any concerns to me.

Okay. Because the one that's there has got about a 12-inch base on it, it looks like, according to the pictures.

Do they have to be mounted, Ray?

Yeah, I think so. And I think all of them are. Yeah, at least the jury runs. That way nobody can slide off the back of it. Well, throw it. Yeah. Okay.

As far as I know, he's fine with it. Okay. I just wanted you guys to approve before we ordered it. Okay. Because it'll come out of high maintenance or department 31.

They don't have no budget up there?

No, we have to supply that. I know we do. So it comes out of general supplement.

Yeah, I changed the law last year. the county's responsibility. Let's let you actually pass that bill. Let's just...

Does that include the video and everything and recording and everything?

No, that's their stuff.

That is their stuff.

But we had a chair go bad in the juvenile courtroom and I just ordered the cylinder fixed to myself out of my budget. There's a new route. We're gonna have to fix it.

Okay. Well, guys, what do you think? You want to see? I didn't print it off. Sorry about that.

I looked at it last night. Looking at the chair yesterday, and I've sat on it before, we need an update there so people can get in and out of it easily.

So you're going to make a motion?

I would make a motion to approve the...

chair with the maintenance department to install it to the platform up there okay i have a second i looked around and really to find something that's comparable little work i did that last night they're all in the same ballpark price wise so this one is designed to be bolted to the floor versus a makeshift so i'll have a second okay copper bow

CHAPMAN, AYE. AYE. WE HAVE A CHAIR. 9-10, DISCUSS SAFETY GLASS POLICY. WE DON'T HAVE ANYBODY HERE FROM THE... I'M HERE. OKAY.

I'M ON THE COMMITTEE. ALL RIGHT. THIS POLICY, WE HAVE BATTLED IT AROUND FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, MADE SEVERAL REVISIONS. The last meeting was unanimously passed. We recommend that you adopt this policy. Our insurance company wants it. And it makes sense.

So ready on the way read this on the safety

non-prescription safety eyewear employees may receive a replacement pair every quarter so they could get actually four glasses a year those are actually just the basic clear sunglasses not prescription right because they figure that the rate they people lose them forget i'm leaving the truck they're probably going to do more than that okay so

But otherwise they can get four of the non-prescription of the year.

I'm just complaining because I'm thinking about it. We're going to lose them a lot or break them and follow the track step on.

So it's all in line with OSHA and everything like that? Do we have to provide a copy to our insurance people or they just wanted us to have it?

We need to provide them a copy. They've been pushing this for close to a year. It kind of got stalled in the community for some reason, but we did several revisions and there was a lot of debate about it, you know, the cost and those things.

I think it was first discussed when we did the footwear, wasn't it? Yeah, I did.

I wrote both policies at the same time, but for some reason this one got spelled out.

I'll make a motion to approve the safety eyewear policy. Mr. President.

Second that motion.

Call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Siemen, aye. Bowles, aye. okay you what's that i sent cedar valley right to the email okay um you did not make a copy of the letter from larry that i did maybe i'll put it in mine Why don't you pass that around? Maybe just to Ron. You would have got one the night of the meeting. No, I did not. I saw that the night of the meeting. Just pass it to Ron.

I did not bring mine with me. Oh, you did? I thought you guys got one that night.

We did, and I gave you my copy.

Okay, that was your copy then?

Yes.

Okay, no, I did not bring it. Okay. But he's done...

So can I get a motion to acknowledge the resignation of Larry Andreessen?

I would make the motion to acknowledge the resignation of Larry Andreessen, Benton County Assessor. I'd also like to thank him for all of his years of service.

I'll second. Call for a vote.

Tippett, aye.

Sieman, aye. Wolfe, aye.

now can you tell me the next one number eight discuss and approve three by four display of courthouse for mary engel society this is me um when the uh furnishings of the grills were auctioned off one of the things that the mary engel society thought was the display case in the in the main hall the angle society is a group that is organized to perpetuate the memories in the 1880s and 90s. So what they're asking is that they'd be allowed to set this display case up on the main floor. Like I said, it's about three foot. Tracy, you help me move it. It's not that big. They want to set that up on the main floor. I don't know what our policy is in terms of that kind of thing, but at this point, I would think you're going to want it down by election time, but We're hoping that they put up clean island lights and then maybe bring it back after the first of the year when there's no tree or anything. We want to rotate items through it.

What's in front of the glass underneath the staircase?

We kind of just switch things out in there. It's usually just some pictures, antique desk. Nothing is, like, officially set to be displayed.

Can we put it in front of there? Push it right up to the door in front of the glass. You can still look over it, look inside that, underneath the steps. I'm looking someplace to put it, because if I remember right, this thing's, like, 30 inches wide, 5 or 6 foot long, and heavy.

So what would it be leaned up on so nobody knocks it over?

It's a stand. It's a bookcase, glass bookcase.

It's very sturdy.

That's fine. I don't care what that says. I mean, other than when it's election day, I will move it. Right.

You want it out of there, and then you're willing to be flexible.

Yeah.

Or could they, they don't want to hold off until after the election? Probably not.

We don't have to move it twice.

What do you decide? Obviously we just would like this opportunity.

Are we going to store this when it's not on display in the courthouse or where is it going to go then?

I would suspend it and go back to the grounds and say no. Okay. That was my intention.

I mean, I'm okay if you want to display it now through the election or wait until after the election so we don't have to move it twice.

Well, I think when you get a group of the choice, that might be the best way to proceed. Okay.

I don't think it would take up that much room. It's not going to.

Right, but I mean, I don't want to. That's where we plug in everything lined up for the polling place, specifically in that area.

Okay.

For ADA compliance.

I don't have a problem displaying it in the courthouse.

And this would be for how long? Is there a finite amount of time you want this up, or just whatever?

Whatever you'll give us, the longer the better, because we want something to rotate through.

I don't have a problem with it. I mean, if something else comes up, it can always be substituted for that.

That's the one that's got that big plastic dome on it? Yes. So it ain't like people can actually get in and touch any of this. No, they can't touch this. It's got a big plexiglass that's about a foot tall, two foot wide, and five foot long. And it's held on with screws that sits over top of this cabinet.

OK. So you set stuff inside and then you set the lid down over it and screw it down so nobody can get into it. Can you do that?

Yeah.

No, I don't have a problem.

It's right where the museum display case is.

given me a message regarding this. Hold on. He said there's no room for it there. So I don't know. What about if we go back by that other doorway towards the corner? That's getting pretty full there, too.

Yeah, see, that's what I'm thinking. That's pretty full there. I would say to either put it either way. Either put it where we talked about by the stairwells underneath that cabinet there or put it towards the collection room because I remember they had a table set up there for cakes and everything when we did that for the kids, yeah. for the Historical Society when they painted pictures. They had a big table set up there and that, you know, there was a lot of people in that hallway at that time. And it wasn't too congested.

You're involved with this group, right? Yeah. I would say it sounds feasible to have the county attorney get with the maintenance and the auditor as to its location. Either or.

I don't really need to vote on this, do we? I need more jobs. Yeah. Haley, we don't need to vote on this. We're all just giving it.

I think if you're giving your blessing, just maybe make that notation in the minutes that you're okay with.

You got my blessing, so. Okay, you got it, Ray.

Thank you. Tracy, will you be able to help me with this?

Yeah. uh we have guys from cedar valley ranch here reports i guess all right

two meetings last week, ACAP was the first one, or no, the first one was ACAP. They're in the exploratory phase of some changes to the Head Start program. Some things come down from the federal government to align things, and one of the big ones would be the number of students versus the teacher. That number would go up, more students per teacher. So that will affect them. end of the year is coming they have carryover funds so the budget pretty good shape for the year my second one was Central Iowa juvenile detention you should have all got an email from me yesterday evening it's got a copy of their 28 agreement with all the forms and everything we would need to decide How we would want to join Yeah, there are some options if you want to give it a week or two weeks I read over it and the bylaws

I'm not crazy about it. Because the bylaws are essentially like how the organization runs, let's say, the committee and stuff. It doesn't tell you exactly the rules, like, of course, what we're worried about, which is the upcharge.

That's what I was concerned about.

Yeah, so the bylaws are going to be covering that because it's just like a corporation in a way, and corporation bylaws essentially how it operates as a group.

And as of about 3 o'clock yesterday, we're down to one kid.

So, Derek, that being said, how do we know we're not getting the up charges?

I mean, originally it was like Luke was giving the calls and saying, like, hey, you're getting an up charge like this, but I don't think those have happened.

No, I don't think so either.

Because, like, that's the part where I struggle with this whole thing is, like, helped us out in knowing what's being charged and the only thing we've gotten is that makeshift thing from the previous CEO, which I think he literally just threw together in a little bit or whatever when he made that open records request.

Well, we know our concerns with those invoices that have been paid last fiscal year.

Right, and I'm sure you still send on them, right?

I possibly may have to do another amendment because of that.

Right, because of that.

That's what I mean, if we don't have that set fee, even if we know, like, say there's two juveniles, we kind of rough estimate.

I feel they just give us a set fee per day per kid and not do these up charges.

Yeah. And that's the tough thing with, like, this 2080 agreement, is, like, given how many people are involved or how many counties are involved, they're not going to... So they're going to... Yeah, they're going to make it so broad and stuff, which...

It has its pros and cons.

The con is for us is that it doesn't say anything about Sam Price or our individual relationship with corporations.

Kind of like a service agreement.

In a way, yeah. That's essentially, that's a great, yeah, that's a great way to put it. It's like a service agreement.

I did reach out to their billing department. So regardless if it goes to Ray or Luke, the invoice, I want copied on them. That way I can keep track to know if it's just sitting on somebody's desk that didn't get coded and brought back down for payment.

I want to see them because I know which kids are there and why they're there. Yeah. I know the kids. I know what expectations are realistic.

But those medical ones, do they call and let us know when they're here? No, no, no. I don't like that.

And they did say that they would join our meeting when we're going to talk about this by Zoom or in person. That would be great.

We want it in person.

So do we need to coordinate that before we put it on the agenda? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to let him go ahead.

then we'll come back to you, all right? All right, can we go up there? Yeah, no matter.

I messaged Haley last week about proposing putting a sidewalk behind our facility. We do a walk-in program, and right now the residents walk through the grass, things like that. So this is something that would potentially happen in the spring about getting a sidewalk that just basically goes from one back corner of our facility to the other back corner because that's the only place where we don't have sidewalk for them to walk. So I'm just curious if I was able to start collecting bids to maybe do that to the property.

Okay, appreciate that. Okay, I saw that on the map.

Any idea how many feet that would be, Hank?

Oh, boy. I'd say roughly somewhere between 250, 300 feet. Roughly a football field. A little under.

And, of course, you would be paying for it. Correct.

Yep, I just know with it being county property, got to get approval first before we do anything like that.

There's really nothing on the backside of the buildings to my knowledge that you'd need a pickup or anything or a big truck to get back there to load anything up?

Nope.

Well, I'll start it off. I'll make a motion to go ahead and let them have the... Put a new sidewalk in.

Okay.

Appreciate it. Anyone want to second it?

Yeah, it looks like it'll make a nice loop.

Yeah. If you've been out there, there's a cow path.

Yeah, there is. I remember seeing that. Maybe Cedar Valley Ranch is liable to pay for that, right?

Yeah. That's why I asked.

I'll second that motion. Okay. Call for a vote. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now Myron. Thank you, sir.

Thanks, Myron.

Tracy, you had asked me to put together a map of where the sealcoat road segments are in Benton County. I actually printed a list of them on the attached sheet that you have, but we have different areas north to south, east to west, west primarily just being Luzerne, but Areas north and south of Blarstown that are seal-coated, the community of Watkins is all seal-coated, north of Walford, 32nd Avenue that's going to be extended with a project that they are funding 50% of, east of Atkins, west of Newhall, around Pleasant Creek Estates, east of Shelsburg, south of town on 61st Street Drive, north of Vinton on 22nd Avenue Road, Commercial Street through Mount Auburn, and over by the RV park east of Urbana. Totaling that all up, including the new stuff, would be 14.7 miles. We currently have just over 13, but there's about a mile and a half that's being added down there. We used to have a half mile of 30th Avenue west of Urbana, but they're turning that into an asphalt road, so. And I think all of those segments got a seal code application put on them either last year or two years ago. I think we did the entire system, when Dan and I went over things here a couple months ago, that everything was done either in 24 or 25. But when we started, Tracy put this item on, I guess, oiler distributor truck that we have is sitting on an old Chevy chassis that parts are for the most part non-existent. If you find one at a junkyard or wherever is your primary hope that we're If we're going to keep the distributor, you're either going to need to put that distributor tank on a new cabin chassis or buy a whole new truck setup. The concern that's going right now in the heavy truck industry is that the emissions change in 27 and nobody knows how the new emissions are going to work and many of the emission experts are telling people to hold off buying new trucks for two or three years to find out what this new emissions is all going to entail because none of the dealers know anything about the new emission system so that the manufacturer's the only one that really know about how this emission system is gonna work. Doug did a quick call to a salesman this morning. He thinks there's still a slot or two possibly available to do a 26 truck, but the window is tightening fast if that's an option we are going to consider. We have provided the dust control program because we've had the distributor. Linn County, for instance, has a distributor also, but I don't know if it's been three years now or not. Somewhere in that timeframe, they have discontinued their dust control program with MC-70 for residents. They have their truck just for their seal coat applications, period. That new cab chassis truck would probably be in the neighborhood of $100,000 going to a 27 truck because of the changes and charges that just happen annually. That's probably a $120,000 to $125,000 truck is a rough guess at the moment. and then whatever expense to swap things over if we use the existing distributor. If you were to go with a whole new truck, I don't have a purchase price. I'm sure there are 26 trucks available. Doug's been looking for used trucks for a few months, but with the need for the front PTO with our distributor, that's not a common thing. on a used truck, so the used truck option is really not an option for us. And to try to convert it, it won't work with our distributor that way, so it has to be a front PTO driven.

Is there companies like Alleyne down there, do they do oil in Kippen?

Your typical seal coating operation, there are multiple ones around the state. Eastern Iowa, I know that all of the towns in Benton County that have seal coat streets hired those contractors to do that work. whether on an annual basis or as needed basis, but there are multiple contractors that are capable of doing that.

So 14.7 miles, that's just county roads that you guys maintain and do? This doesn't have anything to do with test control for private individuals? Correct.

See, that's what I was looking at, Bruce. If they scrap this project, junk the truck, what are we going to do about this 14.7 miles? Are you going to hire it outside? You know.

How does that compare having our people do it versus having it hired?

Well, I know in the city, when I was mayor, we contracted with Prairie Road Builders. Mm-hmm. And what we would do is they would come in. We'd say, this is how much we can spend. You drive around and see what roads need it and mark them and do it. And we'll write the check for you. And they brought in everything. We didn't ask for anything at all. That's how that was handled. And we've always been, we were always happy with it. We didn't have any problems. That worked fine. But something like this, I don't know. You wouldn't have to use any equipment at all then, right? They would come in and they would use whatever they agreed and pack it and Correct. I don't know if we need to find out what the costs are on that.

Well, the only thing is, like I said, you're going to hurt the people. We got, what, 160 people, roughly? Yeah.

Probably more than that because that's I mean it's about what we've averaged the last two years, but there are a percentage small percentage at that that West traffic just conditions when it was put down that maybe their Area in front of their house was able to make a second season and so and didn't go back and try to count that out, but you know, it's probably 20, five to 40 maybe rural residents roughly on top of that 160 so you know 180 to 200 rural residents that have bought benton county's dust control program with the mc 70 product which looks similar to sealco but it's a different liquid product that's used in what the shield coat is From a seal code standpoint, the county's doing it at our expense, the contractor's doing it for profit, so you know, you've got that difference.

See the conservation puts down 30,000. Yeah, I didn't, I guess I did not. That's not included in that.

I did not include that. I did not include the parking lot at Secondary Roads is pretty much all seal coat material and the fairgrounds has been hiring Secondary Roads to do some work out there also the last couple years. Fairmore has.

Now how long does it take not counting the prep work that the maintainers have to do in the spring of the year, how long does it take to actually oil and chip it? Two weeks to 160 people?

Depends on the number, you know, but at the 160, it takes us six, Between six and seven days, working days, to put down each application. Second one's about the same. We put it down a little bit lighter, but you're spending a lot of time driving around, so it takes just about as long. So two and a half weeks of applying the product. to keep the area in front of the homes as smooth and dust-free as they would like to have that material applied, you a lot of times are blighting it four, five, six, eight times between when we're trying to get started and when we get done. We can put a plan together, but it never fails. Your plan doesn't work from the start of the day to the end of the day. You might run out just a little bit quicker than you thought, and now you've got two spots sitting off in the corner of the county that you've got to go back and do at some point, and then it doesn't get put down It doesn't end up having the same weather conditions the day you do that one than the neighbors one. This year has been one of those. Why does my neighbors look this way and mine looks this way? I can't control all that.

So we'll say six weeks roughly for both applications.

Mm-hmm.

And then how many gentlemen does it take to do, put an application down? You got somebody driving the oiler, probably three trucks that are on the road for the chips?

We've varied between three and four. We've been doing four trucks lately, plus one that's going out ahead and putting up fresh oil signs. So you got six people.

Six people.

The applicator, Albert, what's the lead expectancy of that thing? Are we putting a 1960s piece of equipment on a new truck?

Nineteen... What is that? Ninety... early 1990s, I could say that the distributor tank and the cabin chassis were bought at the same time. There are many things that are worn on the distributor. It still functions as a distributor. Obviously new, you would have all new motors, bearing seals in that. Probably with the new distributor you've got adjustable width versus ours is a fixed bar. It just folds two feet in on each end so we can do eight foot, 10 foot or 12 foot or increments of that is our easiest way. Although you can turn those nozzles off. They're 30 years old so they're not as good as they were new. um for the long haul you'd probably be better off to upgrade both if it was a um mid-time midway fix um Your cabin chassis is only a $100,000 expense. You're probably getting closer to probably, I don't know, $400,000 if you do a whole new distributor set up with all the specialized stuff. I don't know. I don't have a price, but I can hope that I'm high. But at the same time, you're talking a specialized piece of equipment and all that stuff's going up a lot in the last five years.

Well, they want some directions. There's some guys out there in secondary roads who think that we should talk it in the head. Forget it.

The other unfortunate aspect we've got with, because some of our heavy duty trucks are set up differently with snow routes and how they spread material out of the box. We need trucks that are rim-rounded sanders for doing our dust control. We wouldn't be forced to put two of our brand new trucks into this dust control operation next year. Due to the fact those trucks came in later than expected this year, we were able to use the old trucks this season, but we're looking to sell those trucks, and so you'd have two brand new trucks that end up getting a fair amount of oil on them just because we are in it. You try to spread that, on top of that, while it's still warm and soft to get those chips in it, but there's no way you can drive highway speed from one point to the next without picking that stuff up and spreading it around on those trucks. So I know that's one frustrating aspect that some of Secondary Road staff has is that we're now gonna take two brand new trucks and stick them in that next year if we continue our program.

And then we've got to have a mechanics call under them until they're spoiled for the repairs.

Yeah, because it never fails that it's, those things don't happen when it's ideal conditions.

I would kind of like to see the cost analysis, our guys doing it currently. versus what we would be charged to have somebody do all this work you know is it going to end up saving us some money it's definitely going to save us some equipment replacement i guess my feeling is it's a good service to have

You got 160 people who are willing to spend the 15 hundred bucks. They know it's a better product than not be slamming the other companies that are out there because we don't have anybody out there that does the oil and chippings. Do we in front of residential areas? the county's the only one that actually does it. Everything else is either calcium chloride or tree sap, right?

I'd back up and not call it, well, oiling and chipping, but I mean it's not a seal-killed product. It's... contractor had inquired when we were considering this 10-15 years ago they were looking at a price at least double for dust control if they did it with the approach they were thinking about if county got out of it they expressed an interest but uh based on how they thought they would go at it it was going to be at least twice double what we were charging at that time and that was less than what we're charging now it turns out with the contractor we don't have any control

They say they're going to be here between these two weeks and they can't make it. Whereas if you did it yourself, you would kind of have some control as to when you do it. You can fit it in here and there.

You're still by their nature to fight with either way.

What's your personal feeling and recommendation on this?

It's a headache program. I mean, unfortunately, there are flat outside too many rural residents that don't appreciate the service they get for the class they get. The amount of complaints that are received in my office doesn't equate to, I mean, the product that they get for the price they get. don't think any of secondary roads employees are trying to give anybody an inferior product it's just that there's you end up having to commit more time to address our application area than you avoid the others once and you go shoot the chloride or the lignin and it's good to go this one if you got it ready today but we didn't get to it today you're going to probably need to blade it again tonight or tomorrow just because it won't go down to the property owner satisfaction without a phone call and so it it's unfortunate from that standpoint it just needs a little bit i mean it needs more prep work i include some prep work in it i don't charge for prep work on the other private applicators um I don't disagree with you, Tracy. It's a nice product. Those that get it, they get it for that reason. It's minimal dust as to reduced dust. But it's really intended to be a dust control product that's intended to be put down in late May, early June, and come fall, it's really intended to be the end of it. But we have left them in place, allowed that to carry over as long as it can serve the traveling public safely and comfortably until we blade it up and start over. I think there were employees in the past that enjoyed doing this more than the current ones do. Whether If a future county engineer has enough interest in continuing it, that might change too. I've been around it for 35 plus years. I know how it works, know what it takes to get it done. But yeah, it takes equipment and it takes time.

My feeling is I'm going to throw it out there right now. I'm all for it. The only question is, this was brought to my attention yesterday, that one, we could either keep the truck that we got, collect the money from everybody, say next year in April, and if the truck dies during the application and can't be fixed, then you give the money back. That's going to create a lot of hardship. the ones that paid and the ones that got it done. Or the second thing is you order a new frame. That's my opinion. Put the old equipment on the new truck. That's just me.

You guys. Is there any market out there for the county that was doing this and they were putting this fund and they said we don't want to mess with it anymore? And they come up for sale? Well, they keep it.

These are old. To be their own. Old roads. Yeah. That's what Lynn County does.

Well, Lynn County updated both their chipper and their boiler when they changed engineers. And so they have new equipment, two new pieces of equipment doing that. Their old distributor wasn't any different than ours age-wise. Used market right now on... A full distributor, I think Doug said yesterday, what he was finding was 15, 20 years old. So you run into the same truck, you frame issues. If you've got parts you need for the truck, they may not be readily available either. Yes.

It's usually the way that works anyway.

Not unless you got real lucky and found somebody that got into the business and bit off more than they could choose and had to get out with newer equipment, but that's not what I'm seeing out there.

You have to be the first one to know about it.

Yeah. Byron, if you updated the truck and the unit, would that make it more efficient and time-saving?

Not really. It doesn't take long to do 400 feet in front of a residence. The biggest aspect of the time is that we've got them scattered from Urbana to Belle Plaine, from Bruce Center down to Walford. And so you're catching all four corners of the county. You try to do the given areas. coordinated with the supplier to try to bring the loads in so we can do areas as quickly and efficiently as possible certainly the eastern half of the county is more concentrated with it than the western half and in fact new hall atkins area has actually exceeded the urbana area here in the last a year or two ago in a number of areas that get that, but.

You wouldn't have the figures of the people that do the calcium chloride or the tree sampling, just a small part figure.

Numbers.

Numbers. Yeah, that'd be a lot less. It is, say a number of them went to the county's program here last year or two. I know when O'Grady's was doing it, their numbers were 120 plus, I think, and then when Nutrien took over, that apparition, it's not as many, but... There's probably still 120 total between six or so private applicators that have come into the county. I know the dairy operation out in Blarstown brings in a private applicator right now and they're having it sprayed in front of all of the residents in intersections where they're chopping the corn to cut down on the dust and that those people will see while this is going on here right now.

Just looking at the people here. Dave, you're on gravel. Do you do any dust control? No.

We used to do dust control when we were on the gravel road.

We tried every product the county would request.

Kenny and Ed, you're on hard surface. Well, the folks in Erie can get it both here or all the time. And they really like it. I mean, they've got no problem with it.

And they use the county's product.

Yeah, they use the county's product, which is way better than the other two. Yeah, I agree.

The county lasts a lot longer than the other applications. Definitely. Well, I don't want to see the program stop. It's an expensive thing, but I think it's a good program. People like it. Things wear out, you gotta replace them.

Do you think we can get another year out of the truck?

Hard to say. The short answer would be yes. One bad thing that happens to the truck itself, that it is a part that's unavailable, it shuts things down completely. The distributor aspect, yeah, we can get parts. Maybe it's some time delay. We've had that. But the truck is the gamble part.

Running the new trucks on top of it, that's the only thing that I have a problem with, a drawback, I get it. I look at it also, I'm gonna be gone here in the next couple months. I really don't wanna drop a decision, a hundred and some thousand on the taxpayers. But I still believe you should keep doing it. That's my opinion.

I too don't like the idea of putting a new truck in it. I do know the current workforce doesn't like doing parts of it, or all of it.

But I guess what they're in here for is guidance. If they're going to get a new truck, it's going to have to be now, the 26th, correct?

Yep.

They do not want the new emissions on the new truck. That's what they're looking for.

Correct.

Let's look at cost analysis, like you said before, and have him bring back what it would cost to have the same product put down by someone else, if you can.

But the problem is our window for ordering the 26-year truck is getting closer to the end, and it'll be 27 with the new emission.

This is what, it's kind of a... Then we probably should have been talking about it in May.

Agreed.

I would say our move is to try to make the old truck last another season.

Bruce, your feelings? I'd like to see us try to get through. The more I know the 26 is what you want to get, but it's just... If we can squeeze one more year out of this one, that's where I would like to go. I don't want to get rid of the program, but...

We're just looking for guidance, no motion?

Nope. Nope, just guidance. Don't want to know what to do here. My feeling is I get a new truck. That's my feelings. You're going to keep the program going.

Well, what's the cost of a new truck now as opposed to a year or two years down the road with no emissions on it? I mean, you may pay a penalty for waiting.

Can that truck be fitted with something else? Probably not.

Can the truck? Yeah, the new truck. If you bought a new truck, could it be used for a different application if you got rid of the oiler on top of it a few years down the road? Correct. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, it'd be a single axle, whether you could put a single axle... Smaller box on it, flatbed.

You could use it for coal patch maybe?

There'd be an application for it, whether it would be ideal or not, but it could be used for something else.

My opinion is we'll try to get through another season.

Okay. You got two of them, so keep what you got. All right. Thanks, Myron. You got directions now. What do you got first? So let me make a motion to accept or acknowledge the retirement of Des Genesee. Okay, call for a vote.

Tempest, aye.

Seaman, aye.

Move, aye.

Okay, discuss and approve Kane's two part-time cook custodian position to one full-time. This is for a... We've got two part-time Cook custodians and this is going to be a correctional officer.

It's another one. Okay. Item on the agenda. That's separate.

No, it's not on there.

Two part-time Cook to custodian position.

And not the hire? to hire for the correctional officer? That's not on there?

Okay. So we probably can't do that? Yeah.

All right. Tell us about the cooks.

So we have two full-time cooks, and we had a couple part-time cook custodians. One of the part-times quit, and that left us short. It's just hard. You know, the inmates eat seven days a week, so you've got two full-time people with vacation. It's just hard to keep it running. And so we have this one part-timer. She, you know, to help with us not having part-time, she would be interested in a full-time position. So basically take her to full-time and not replace the other part-time position, I guess.

Okay.

I understand. Are you sitting on budget for that move?

I think we should be good.

Budget for full-time was that, or budget for part-time is that? If we move our part-timer to full-time, that would be the budget and the salary.

You have that insurance center there now, the full-timer? Yeah. Yeah.

The cooks right now essentially work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. And with two full-timers, that's a lot of hours to manage. And then trying to get them time off. And we have our part-timers fill in. Well, we had two part-timers. We lost one. We haven't been able to fill. It's hard to fill a part-time cook custodian. So we've been running with one part-timer. She's interested in moving to full-time. We'd like to just eliminate the two part-time positions, move to one full-time position.

So we'll end up with three full-time kitchen custodians?

Yes.

Yeah. And you've got it worked in the budget to make it work?

There's money in the budget to make it work, yes. And there was a precedent set in 2024 with Wanda, if you remember, with Wanda promoting her from part-time to full-time. That's what we'd like to do, promote our part-timer to full-time.

It is tough to keep those part-time positions.

Resolution for Wanda.

Schedule them. How does that work, the schedule? Seven days a week, three people.

Sometimes they'll come in work part of a day go home for a while come back for like the evening meal It's been working and you know, they'll stagger their ships as well It's challenging but they seem to

do okay with it? Well, right, and that's why we're, like I said, we're trying to.

And it worked well for a while when we did have two part-timers. We had Terry Ellinger helping us out. But since he's left, we haven't been able to fill that vacancy. And our one part-timer, Cassie, she has stepped up, picked up a lot of extra hours to help. So we feel she deserves to get promoted.

See, I look at it that 12 hours a day, seven days a week, that's 84 hours. And if you got one of your persons gets sick, your part-timer, don't he get paid time and a half after 40 hours? So to me, it's still going to, you know, yeah, you're looking more dollars, but it's still going to save you money in the long run that you got three full-time and you're not paying the time and a half.

And a lot of the people here, they get more vacation and they get more time off.

We've been lucky we haven't had to push our part-timer over 40 hours yet, but... Someone does get sick or something for an extended period of time, that's going to put us in a hardship.

Okay.

Turns out it doesn't work, we can work something out.

All right, so can I get a motion to approve the change from two part-time cooks to one full-time position?

I would move that motion. All in.

Okay, call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Seaman, aye. All in.

The other thing we're going to do at the end, right?

Yeah.

Okay, public comments.

You're ready for public comments. Okay, I got some questions and concerns on that brick project again. When you guys met the 4th of August to give the county engineer permission to go to eminent domain or county nation, and he spoke for the county on why he wanted to do it, why wasn't instead of seeing it a week later on the front page of the benton paper and i don't know if i'll get an answer to that or or not but i was just wondering why that i can i can i can tell you candy um or can excuse me um so like in the like i think i mentioned this last time when i was here we had a conversation

Say this certain project, the code gives us a map of what we can do, what we can't do, all that kind of stuff. And given the nature of the project, which is a bridge project, the code does say in certain instances you have to provide notice before adopting, say, an ordinance. one of the exceptions is like if it's like say a street or highway project or if it's dealing with an upgrade and the code specifically said like usually bridge not so much like say road so like say if it extended the you know these old dirt roads or paved highways that are narrow and if they moved them out and got them wider that wouldn't apply like you would you would that's that's why and they have certain timing requirements in those statutes so like if we did adopt the notice things and we would adopt the timeline which we have said given that we have a grant that we don't want to lose that money, we would have been up against the time clock on that. So that's essentially why. And that was why we chose to do what we did.

So I did not have to be notified according to that? According to that.

Well, the board's got to decide to take some action before they discuss and take action before they get to you. It's got to be approved even to start.

provides in certain situations where that has happened has to happen or does not have to happen that's that's where i'm getting at ken so when they set this hearing date i gotta have it set before the 15th of september i think it is well they just gotta choose a date right right and um i think we're just waiting on some stuff that by the codes deal then i have to like provide two other things to you.

But I will get notified when that is set? Yes, correct. And then I can go to that?

And then that's when you'll be, I probably won't be there. To be honest, it's going to be like, this is where the sheriff's in charge of all the procedures there with that hearing. and they have certain procedures and with the people that are on that committee and stuff and so like it would be all procedurally for the sheriff at that point in that process.

Well I'm glad you addressed it. I was afraid it was going to come. I get that, maybe not.

But I understand your concern in that given that but in our world when you have all these different things like we always have to go and double check to make sure what the rules are so then because we don't want to get in trouble either right then we have to pay attention to if like for us we represent the county and third and what what they're looking for and you just have to try to follow it so we can meet those goals and i just hope

I'm following that. So, okay. Then on the supervisor's end of things, you know, we're going to spend $350,000 on this bridge roughly. And I've contacted all three of you to look at it. The two of you did take the time to come out and look. Gracie more than once. I don't know why I can't get Bruce to come out and look at it. I mean, he's supposed to be representing us, the people that elected him, getting a $50,000 a year salary, full benefits. You guys had no problem contacting me, hey, can we meet this day, that day, whatever. And I am very flexible. I would meet whenever they wanted to. And I just have a hard time voting yes to proceed with this when he hasn't even looked at it and i i think that's why then people were elected and to at least look at the project and and see what's going on because i still come back the west side of that's not even correct i mean it's an open ditch and there's no water in it now either And when we replaced, when you guys replaced that one a year and a half ago, right? Or a year ago, a mile and a half north, which that is a creek. I mean, that creek goes clear up to almost flat to start. It takes thousands and thousands of acres. They stayed in the right of way. This one, we've got the start of spring creek with the open ditch on the other side. that's not even a name brick that was a waterway 30 years ago and we're doing this we're raising the road we're putting it in trapezoid designs and i would sure like i mean i know it's probably not going to happen now but to take another look at that because if they could stay in you know they're saying it's going to cost money to redesign it the legwork's all done on that thing and that they would stay in right away you know, maybe make that box bucket a little wider and not raise it. But if they would stay in the right of way, they wouldn't have to land that much since it's gonna cost them. Plus, they wouldn't have all the extra expense of doing that. And I would just wanted to give that as my opinion. And then we'll go back to J.C.G. Bland that come out to get the signatures on both sides of the road, which I've said this before to other people. He stood there right there on that bridge deck and lied to me. You know, that's here and there, but then he puts in his deal that they made a fair offer. Well, then he placed the $13,000 an acre I bought that ground four months before that and paid $15,200. So I don't understand how that is a fair offer when that's as good a comparable sale that you can get. And I guess I just wanted to, and I probably repeated myself on some of this stuff, but I just would like to reconsider Looking at that bridge design, just with the amount of water flow that's there, because when they dug that open ditch on the west side 30 years ago, whenever it was, They looked at that, and there is only 648 acres that comes into that bridge. Whereas that bridge they replaced north of there has got to be thousands and thousands of acres. And I just think it's a real overkill. And like I said before, I'm not against the bridge in one hit. I just don't like the design and all the rip rap. But I don't see why you couldn't stay in the county right away. That's, I guess, all I got to say, I guess. I would like Bruce to come out and look at it sometime, but I guess that's probably between him and me.

All right. Thanks, Kenny.

Yeah. I'm Jason and she's here and I wanted to talk about the condition of highway 131 or J40 I believe is what they call it. I've lived on that highway. I bought my acreage in 2001 and moved in in January of 2002 and I want to say it was either the year after I moved in or maybe the year after, but it's been over 20 years since that road's been redone. And I don't know if any of you have driven on it lately, but I can tell you that is a complete embarrassment to Benton County High. I cover 24 counties with my job in the state of Iowa, and I live on the worst highway in the state, I'll guarantee you that. When you drive down that road, And the back end of your pickup sways six inches when you hit a bump. That is unsafe. That is completely a lawsuit and a death situation waiting to happen. A few years ago, you guys went in there with two strips on each side of the asphalt, which would be the width of the tires on the vehicle. what are we doing here i mean we're throwing a bandage on a huge wound there and there has been nothing else done to that road since um and i called the county engineer and you know they said it's in the five-year plan i know you can't just you know go out and write a check and make magic wand and make that happen but um Our gravel roads are better than that highway in this county. I mean, it's been 20-some years. I'm just trying to figure out why haven't we fixed that road to a safer condition? I mean, it's hard. Bruce, you're a mechanic. You know, tie rods, wheel bearings, you know, front end alignment. There's a lot of people that travel that highway going to Cedar Rapids every day. And I mean, I took a load of straw off of that with my pickup the other day. I had to go 10 miles an hour not to lose any straw off of it. I mean, and I'm assuming, I don't know what the new, is it 60 miles an hour on that road or would it be 55 since the governor changed it?

it's 50 50 55 you're talking 13th Avenue yeah it's essentially you want is this 16 unless it's posted up so whatever the posting is i don't know what the posting is i got an email this morning listing a whole set of roads that are not going to be 60. So I guess it depends on what's close.

Yeah, but at any rate, it doesn't matter. I mean, you cannot drive down that road without fishtailing. I mean, my pickup, you know, a 2018 F-150, and every time I hit a bump at 50 miles an hour, my back end's jumping. And it's been an eyesore for you guys for a long time. I'm just trying to get some answers to why we're not fixing that.

I do know that it took a... a real beacon when it was the detour. The overpass.

Yeah. Now, I guess my question is the state was, things they used after the detour, is the state responsible for help fixing that road up? The rumor was, maybe that was just rumor, I mean the bypass on 41, It didn't only have cars and trucks. It had large equipment moving on that road damaging it even further. Well, it beat it to pieces. Yeah, I mean, it's sad. It's beyond stupid, the condition of that road. And I'll invite you guys to drive down that road with me. Drive with me. Because it's not fun. Is there any plans for that road?

I have it in the five-year program to do some resurfacing work on it. It would be ideal to redo that highway and get rid of the 66-foot runaway and wipe things out and flatten some floor slopes. It would be nice if the state would have done it when the state had it.

You know, being given to us. After the detour, is the state responsible for...

They offered a fraction of a penny for the use of it for the length of their time and I'm still arguing with them on what they caused for damage. I don't know if I'm going to succeed or not. I was hoping that I would get from them of at least resurfacing that project to improve the ride. But I haven't got that answer from them yet. Regardless, I would, I am planning on at least making the surface so that it's smoother to drive on. But, you know, that's an old road, it's an old 18 foot that got widened. Short of potentially seeing a grant that might come about in the near future that might change just addressing the surface, but Addressing the surface is definitely in our five-year plan To me we can't wait to say well, we got a five-year plan.

Well, then it gets kicked down even more I mean, how long do we have to wait to get a decent road to drive on? I mean there are majority of the Benton County ground roads are better than that highway and They are. It's no joke.

Is this the old Belle Plaine Road? Yes. Well, according to your five-year plan, it's next year.

And that's just going to be a, is it going to be a full resurface or is that going to be a banding? What are we talking?

What's your definition of a banding, I guess? I mean, it's not going to be the slurry strips that the county did 10 years ago. is up the surface right now uh remove and put down a full new asphalt on top of it like three or four layers um probably three or four inches you know right and how long do you project the pebble last It probably depends on the traffic. If it's a county road that's seeing primarily ag traffic and commuter traffic, it's got probably a 20 to 30 year If it sees detour traffic with some heavy trucks again, that's probably down to 15, you know, and a problem.

I can remember that road when I was a kid in the 80s driving on it, and it was an absolute mess. And then they came in, I want to say it was 2001 or 2002 or 2003, when they went in there and redid it. I just moved into that acreage. Yes, that is. And, I mean, here we are, we're 24 years later, and then we've not resurfaced that road. When did they give those to us?

About that time. That was one of a couple roads in Benton County that the DOT had put a project together. It actually happened, I think, after the bill got signed. But that road going into Newhall and I was thinking of one other. Oh, going into Adkins, I believe, were all three that were done.

Because we used to have a state highway spur going into every little town. Correct. And they give those all to us.

They gave us 26 and a half miles that year. And not the funding to address all of those problems.

What's the estimated cost on that? Are you going to widen it? Say next year you work on it, is it going to get widened or is it just going to get resurfaced? Just resurfaced. And then what's the cost on that estimate?

$350,000 a mile times four miles, so 1.3, $1.4 million.

That's a lot of money to get maybe 20 years out of it if you're lucky, but I get it. It would be nice if the state would possibly come in with maybe a half a million dollars or $100,000. I'm hoping a half. Half a million. That would be my...

acceptable number as opposed to the 60 000 i think have been offered at this point yeah yeah are are all the model t features gone now or does some of those still exist used to have the curve and all that going up and down i think they ground that all off when they widen that

I'm not 100% on that. I know a lot of those raised curb roadways that were 18 foot, they ground that off before they widened it. I think that's how they did that. I don't have all of that. I'm not sure if I have all that info because that was under the DOT's jurisdiction prior to 2003. Since 2003, it's been a bit in into our farm market account which we use for a lot of our paved roads so you know we've got 235 miles of roadway around the county so we've got to attack all of them or i mean look at all of them and yeah unfortunately after that detour that road took a pretty

do. It's just becoming, that's my concern, it's becoming unsafe to drive, you know, and it's hard on vehicles. Okay. Your question answered? Yep, yep.

Okay, thank you.

I just said wellness last week, and you guys saw basically what we talked about at yesterday's meeting, and then the courthouse when we met with the assessor's office. That's the only meeting I had last week. Although I did have a Zoom meeting with the e-shadow workforce development people, and they're trying to figure out the direction.

Okay, I'm going to put a quick plug in for Easy Cog. They got a grant for $3.5 million for lead mitigation, and that qualifies for houses in Benton County, anywhere from replacing pipes, plaster and glass, drywall, paint, Woodwork around windows and doors, doors themselves. And this, there's criteria you gotta qualify for, but it will pay 100% for lead mitigation. They wanna do 100 houses in a six county area. They've been advertising this for two months and so far they only got three signed up for the money. So if you got like a six year old child and under, you'd have to give them a call, verify your income. You don't even need to own the house. You could be a renter. And they'll come out and test the water. They will test, they got a gun that they can shoot the walls, test the paint and everything. And if it's a high lead, They will come in and if you qualify, redo it.

Did you send a supplier on that?

Yes, and I did forward that to all the city clerks.

Yes, so I'm hoping that we got some people in the towns or even the country, I really don't care, that apply for this. I mean, it's free money to...

It's going to be on my social media page.

Yeah, so they can upgrade. So that's the only thing I got.

Is there a way... Could we get that to the schools, Shelly?

Yeah, it could be pushed out through an app or whatever, if you have something. I mean, mainly to the parents.

I would email it to the school superintendent if they want to put it in a Friday folder or something, like we used to call it.

Well, yeah, if you wanted it to be paper, my guess would be that you would probably need to make copies of that.

And that would have to go through the superintendent to get light to all those cities.

Just try and think of a way to get it out to everyone.

And if it was going to be six-year-olds, I would put it down to Tiltred and Shelsford. Six and under. Or any of the other counties. Do they place ads in the newspapers or anything like that?

I really don't know. I've seen it on Facebook. Somebody put it on there.

Like DHS maybe should know about it. If they're helping people. Okay.

So what is the breakdown? It's got county and Benton, one person, $63,350. Is that the... Salary. That's the salary to qualify. Below that. Below, yeah. Below that. That's household income? We only have one person? No.

Got it. And then I think it goes on, like, how many children does it have, like? This is one. I thought there was a child.

One child, five years younger.

Did I understand the one PDF?

No, there's a second one on there.

Because one of them showed, like, the number of households.

It's got a breakdown on it.

Yeah. The pamphlet, maybe it's on the pamphlet.

Yeah.

Somewhere I saw it. That is something that maybe you talk to the newspaper spot here in town and have that put out. necessarily in the board side because not everybody reads that but maybe somewhere else.

Yeah the only problem is that like Edie Cog they don't want to pay to have you know what I mean pay the paper to put it in.

I wouldn't think it'd be an advertisement I would think it would be common knowledge that you would want everybody in the county to know. Well, a newspaper article, period.

Well, that would be nice.

Well, I can email them when I send the minutes, that little flyer.

Let them do what they want with that.

All I see is a child five years or younger who either lives there or visits on a frequent basis. That's the only thing I see where it talks about kids. But that's just a quick scan.

Alrighty then. No other business, right? We got the reports done? Comments are all done? Okay, 9.45.

Well, should have warned me on that dust control portion, Tracy.

Yeah. Discuss and amend courthouse security policy. Closed session. Pursuit of Iowa code. I'll quit right there. So if somebody wants to make a motion, then they can read the code off.

I'll make a motion. to discuss amending Cornell's security policy, closed session pursuant to Iowa Code 21.5, section 1K, to discuss information contained in records in the custody of a governmental body that are confidential records pursuant to section 22.7, subsection 50, to discuss and establish and or establish safety procedures and policies. I'll second that motion.

All for a vote. Tiffin, aye. Seaman, aye.

Now, I will make one comment. I did share that public comment in regards to that by email. So he did receive one yesterday when they saw the agenda.