Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

She's a mini you. Good morning, everybody. It's Tuesday, July 14, 2026. My name is Don Swanker. I'm going to call the Jackson County Board of Supervisors meeting to order. To my left, I have Mike Steines. To my right, I have Ninh Flegel. Bjorn from IT. Lisa from the Auditor's Office. In the press box in the back, we have Andrew Long, the Jail Administrator. And online, we have... Brittany and mini Brittany. Good morning, everybody. First up, we have visitors and citizens. Anybody here would like to address the board online or in person? Hearing none, we have Becky Chapin, human resource director, coming up to give us her. Good morning.

Good morning. All right, got a few things for you this morning. The first one of that being is that County Assessor Jess Tracy had a vacancy in her office with her assuming the position of County Assessor. She has filled that vacancy. So I'm here today to ask for a motion to approve the hiring of Susan McAleer as Chief Deputy Assessor at an annual salary of $88,373, effective July 13th, 2026, including authorizing the County Auditor to issue biweekly paychecks for the same.

So just for transparency and whatnot, do we have a little background?

I mean i'm just is actually going to bring her over and introduce her she comes from stat county she has been in this position i'm not sure the number of years, but it's not like she's been there for a while.

So she is ready to jump right in our field from the email I got from jess yeah we got from us very qualified and we're very fortunate.

I would second that. We got a motion by Mike, seconded by Ned, to approve the hiring of Susan McLear as Chief Deputy Assessor at an annual salary of $88,373, effective July 13, 2026, including authorizing the county auditor to issue biweekly paychecks for the same. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Next, I have a certificate of appointment for a position change within the auditor's office. So as a formality, I would ask for a motion to approve and authorize the chair to sign the certificate of appointment for Second Deputy Auditor Nicole Strathman, effective July 1, 2026 through January 1, 2029, which is the remainder of the auditor's term. I would make that motion.

I would second. Got a motion by Ninh, second by Mike, to approve and authorize the chair to sign a signature of appointment for second deputy auditor Nicole Strathman, effective 1 July 2026 through 1 January 2029. Any other discussion?

Not to reiterate again, but Nicole's been here for how long?

A couple years.

Yeah, and again, we're fortunate to have her, correct?

And last but not least, Senior Engineering Technician David Chaplin has been with the Secondary Roads Department for six months, will be with the Secondary Roads Department six months effective July 26. And with that, Jaden and I recommend his pay be increased from 90% of the pay grade to 100%. So I would ask for a motion to approve David Chaplin, Senior Engineering Technician, increasing to $3,156 per hour, effective July 6, 2026, including authorizing the county auditor to issue biweekly paychecks for the same.

Second. Got a motion by Ninh, second by Mike to approve David Chapman, senior engineering technician, increase in pay from to 30, 100% of the rate, which is $31.56 per hour effective July 26, 2026, including authorizing the auditor to issue biweekly paychecks for the same. Any other discussion?

carries so head for action items so without further ado let jess introduce her new chief deputy yeah um this is suzy macalier she's um she started yesterday and she's from came from scott county assessor's office so she's been working in an assessor's office for almost eight years now and um Looking forward to joining our team here in Jackson.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Welcome aboard. Yes, thank you. Nice to meet you.

You from around here?

I grew up in Charlotte.

Oh, okay.

Pretty familiar with Minn Kota. We came here a lot growing up. My parents did all their business up here, so I'm excited to get back to kind of a small town feel.

Exactly. Nice. We appreciate it.

I don't think to Bob it's weird to have two knacklers in the room.

my brother-in-law. I didn't realize he worked right down the hall.

Well, we're glad to have you. Welcome aboard.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Have a good day. That's all I got.

Thank you.

Next up, I see we have Andrew Long, the jail administrator, here with his departmental update.

So we now have some prisoners from Johnson County in addition to Scott County. Part of what that stems from is a recent change in the law here. And what that looks at is how judges, magistrates determine bond eligibility for the Rusty's. This change is hitting larger areas pretty hard. We haven't seen a huge hit from it. Essentially what it does in many cases takes away the discretion of the magistrate or of the district judge in a bond review to where it's much harder for them to allow a person to be released on their own recognizance. This took effect July 1. The simple rundown of it is essentially any aggravated misdemeanor or felony has to be held on bond. Any simple or serious misdemeanor that involves drugs or violence also has to be held on bond. um we haven't seen a huge increase of our own simply based on the fact that we see so many of the same individuals over and over that we haven't seen a huge influx of people staying in jail of our own but other counties are definitely experiencing it uh the johnson county sheriff had put out an email to a group basically saying So, for example, one we did see that got held that might not otherwise have gotten held, she had possession of drugs and a theft fifth, which is your lowest level theft. Due to previous convictions, they're enhanced. So your third theft, regardless of value, is a minimum of third degree theft, which is an aggravated misdemeanor. So if I have two previous theft convictions and I steal a candy bar, it's automatically a theft third. Drugs is similar. Your third possession of drugs, exception being marijuana, to a point. is automatically a Class D felony. So these people that might have otherwise been released on their own recognizance, due to the fact that it's simply low-level stuff that's enhanced due to previous convictions, are now going to get held in jail. So we will see more of our own possession control substances being held, simply because so many of them are that third offense. So I think we will see more of that being held in our own jail. But other counties that are much larger are definitely running into a lot of problems. Johnson County has historically shipped out for a very long time. They have been using muscatine quite a bit. They're now going other places to include us. So we took an eight from them. We are charging them $65 a day. The rate currently for Scott County is $55. Scott County is providing us volume, and that's also based on an MOU that we had with them several years ago now. But we're currently at that $55 for them. We are going with $65 for Jenison County to be a little bit more up with the times.

On average, with these new prisoners being held, how long are we talking? I mean, is it... more of an in-processing, out-processing thing than an actual residential time?

I'm going to guess a matter of probably one to three months, depending. And the reason for that is those serious misdemeanors and above are considered indictable, meaning that it goes up to district court. So that process typically takes longer than magistrate court does. So typically, I'm going to say in that one to three months range is what we're going to see. I haven't talked with the county attorney's office a whole lot about what that looks like right now for us, but as of right now, that'd be my best guess. It'd be kind of like a one to three month timeframe. So with that, we're currently at 40 inmates, 10 of our own, eight Johnson and 22 Scott. Average in June was at 35. And then the high count was 35. The average was 19.77. Last year, we saw a spike in July in terms of our out-of-county housing numbers, consistent with what we're seeing at the moment. So I would predict the next at least three months are probably going to be fairly high. $33,440 in revenue from Scott County for June, bringing our total for the fiscal year to $490,620. So just short of half a million, which is kind of disappointing, but the number itself is good. I hope we would hit that number. So 490,000 is where we're at, so just shy. Nobody was housed out in June, and it's actually probably been since last July that we've had anybody housed out. So we've been doing pretty well there. 29 people were booked in in June. Other than that, it's kind of standard numbers in terms of the checks and meals served. We are having a little bit of a dispute with the company that manages our generator. Jeff's been handling the majority of that, but it turned out our generator wasn't, first of all, turned over to Jackson County's name from Rock River Electric, but additionally wasn't even running. So we determined that. That started working around March. When they came to get that working, they sent us a bill that was several thousand dollars. So we're disputing that to the point of it wasn't even turned over to our name and it wasn't working at the time. So hopefully we'll know more on that. We're going to confirm that it is working properly today. It's supposed to go off around 1230, so we're going to go out and check, make sure it's actually working like it says.

I guess, is this something that we need to be in contact with John Hansen on? Because to me, this would be part of the checklist of the

Jeff has been in contact with John. He was included in an email with this discussion. So we're waiting to find out. Hopefully they're going to. give in on it and won't have to fight it too hard, but the fact that it was never working was not even turned over into our name.

We signed a maintenance contract, too, and I don't know if that included the generator part of it, but the other units on the roof, but come send a bill to whoever owns it. If it wasn't in our name, we'd pay the bill on it.

Or is that for the AC? I don't know.

It's the backup generator, so power would go down.

Yeah, I understand that.

The contract we had was for the For the units on the roof, right? For belts and whatnot, if I remember right? It might be. Jeff would know better than I do. Yeah, we have a maintenance contract up there.

I think that's your heating and air. Yeah. Is that the Giesler contract?

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Yes, and there were people checking over work Giesler did here yesterday. They went up to the roof and checked over, made sure everything was good there. But the generator itself is through Althoffer, Pat. is who that contract is with. So they're claiming it's not covered. We're trying to work on why it should be. So we'll soon find out. And then one other thing I just wanted to bring up too, it came up with Johnson County coming is we still don't have signage on the building. I don't know if you guys have any preference or guidance on how you would want us to go about that. If that's something we would discuss in terms of capital improvement funds or what would be the right approach to that.

That needs four to say what it is.

Yeah, let's say sheriff's office.

Oh, we did that on the best slide.

It has one sign.

But that's it. Yeah. together with you guys to figure out what do you what do you want it to say because if I remember right there was a little dispute uh on what it was going to say and what you're looking at how big how much and where okay I think we had some prototype photos at one time here I thought that was yeah Hanson provided it he's provided it on other buildings but he claims that it's not provided in our contract Yeah. He can take offense. I prefer not to have to deal with him anymore.

So, yeah, I can look into some potential options and bring it back and present it to you guys next time or however you prefer to go about that.

Yeah, I would come up with some options you might have and costs, of course, and see where we're at.

Sounds good. Other than that, I think that's about all I have for you guys here today.

Well, yeah, I mean, again, with the Johnson County thing, that's, you know, whether it's them or someone else, I guess it's $10 more. We certainly want to keep repeat offenders off the streets, but again, it comes with a cost for a lot of them counties to transport out.

But, you know, the fact that we're able to do that, great. Make sure we don't short ourselves to the point where we're housing so many outside people that during this possible influx over the next couple of months, our own people don't have to be shipped out. But, no, I think you guys continue to do a great job. And we hear less and less complaints about it all the time. So I think that is a huge win and kind of a tip to what you guys are doing over there. Thank you.

And, yeah, at least, you know, if we would see huge influxes, at least with that mezzanine, we're prepared to accommodate that, you know, obviously for years to come. So that's a good thing on our end, and I'm glad the board collectively decided to do that. It prepares us for the future.

So, again, with the Johnson County inmates, if you will, that we still have the ability to, I want to say, pick and choose. Yes. Yes.

our situation are you guys and you've got the ability to send them back yes so the law only the law only actually truly requires that we accept prisoners that are arrested by the department of public safety so state patrol dci that sort of a thing so law doesn't require we accept even local prisoners which obviously you know we do but the law only requires that we accept state patrol so we can ship people back or have them pick up people at any time so yeah Well, thank you very much. Well done. Thank you. Have a nice day.

Except we got Ruth Eldridge with the VA. Welcome, welcome. Good morning.

Good morning. I was like coming a little early. I learned stuff. All right. Another busy month. We had... Checked status on 38 of our open claims. We had 16 decisions made, four partial decisions or remands, 10 new disability claims, 12 appeals, two Headstone applications, one burial benefit, three healthcare applications. We did five claims for dependents. So that might be a DIC claim, a dependency claim, a CHANT VA claim, Chapter 35 DEA, something like that. We did six intent to files. There were 89 open claims. We filed 60 of them and our percentage of claims was 67%. And I will say that number seems low, but I was running out of time this month. So I didn't take out the ones that were automatically done by the VA. So if it was, you know, someone returning to active duty or a drill pay adjustment or, you know, The VA decided this person needed a medical exam. Those pop up as well if they're in our county, but I ran out of time to take those out. So our percentage of claims filed is actually a little bit higher if I had taken the time to take all those ones out. For our May interactions, we had 142 phone calls, 25 emails, 54 in-person visits, 8 faxes. three mailings, 26 unspecified, so a total of 258 interactions. And our secretary took 59 phone calls and helped with 21 walk-ins. For April, we have 440 veterans, sorry, excuse me, and or their eligible dependents receiving $911,077 in compensation. I don't know, do you want me to weigh down the... This one?

Okay.

Sure. The Veterans Affairs Commissioners did vote to recommend that Michelle Rowling be appointed to the Jackson County Veterans Affairs Commission. So we'll have that later today. And then we're back on the flag issue again. I didn't realize it would be such a debated issue. So the commissioners discussed the possibility of putting a flag at the Penrose Annex. So several possibilities were discussed, including placing a flagpole, a flag that is attached to the building near the front door. or a setup like the Optimist Club where the flag is taken out each night and put out each morning. And they requested that I ask Board of Supervisors for their opinion. So part of what prompted this is the fact that the commissioners didn't feel like the Optimist Club flags met flag etiquette because they're out overnight without a light on them. And we don't have a light where that flag would be. We don't have a light that would shine.

Technically, I thought that requirement was lifted.

I don't know. It was just a very big discussion that was had. So then they talked about putting a flag somewhere on the building. My preference would be to put one near the front door where there's a light and it can just stay all the time. because I don't want to really have to remember to put it out every morning and take it in every evening. My luck would be that I would forget, and I don't want to do that. So I don't know if you have any opinions.

So this was in Galilee a couple weeks ago. We had a scouting group come, and we talked about a couple different scenarios. And they said it's required you have to have a light, but it also has to come from the ground up. So if we don't have the capabilities for electricity, and I suggest that we don't maybe do that. I like the idea of having a flag out front, no doubt.

Would be a solar. You could do a solar.

If you Google it, it says that it needs to be illuminated.

Yeah. I think that's still statuous.

This doesn't say if it's top or bottom, but it does say it needs to be illuminated.

Well, that's what I said mine's mine's the way from the top or the solar light That's not really dedicated calls for so I don't know That's what them boys told me and that could be um My thought well, I mean if it could be from the top my thought is, you know, we could put Just put it on the building where the light is at the top already by the door to me That would be the easiest

solution. But again, if it needs to be from the bottom, we don't want to do that.

Again, I think in that office in particular, the veteran's office, it needs to be appropriate. Etiquette needs to be appropriate. So if you're going to take it down every night, you're going to fold it like it needs to be folded every night or whatever it may be. Again, that's another chore, if you will.

If you put it on a pole or something, then you've got to follow the You're half my ass, you know? Yes.

I'm reading it right now, and it just says properly illuminated. I thought at one point they were talking about getting rid of the, maybe for residential, but this just says properly illuminated. It does not say from the ground, from the weather. It just needs to be visibly seen.

And I think probably the first thing the commission actually needs to decide is whether, if this is a very important thing to them, that we have a flag. I don't think we've really discussed that.

Yeah, no, I don't remember.

So-

yeah you know we do have one in our office you know in that front vestibule area you know we do have a flag in there so it's not that we don't have a flag i know the sons of the legion they sell these really nice flag poles and such that you know they're i guess fairly reasonable i've got a couple of them but um maybe we should also talk to jeff maintenance and say you know what would it take to run either electricity out there or if we need solar or something

Do you want an actual poll? Do you want one you got to put up and take down every night? Do you want, you know?

I can tell you right now, I don't want one I can, I have to put up and take down. Because there's also times where, you know, we aren't, I'm thinking 4th of July, right? So 4th of July, very patriotic, fly a flag. we aren't in the office 4th of July. So who's going to come in and put the flag up, right? And if people drive by and we don't have a flag that we normally have up, that could really cause offense. And I don't want to do that, but I can't guarantee that someone's going to be here on 4th of July to, you know, take one.

So if you want, if you guys want one on the building, You're guaranteed to have one out on all the federal holidays. And I mean, you could do kind of a tandem thing or whatever. If you did one on the building, there's a significant cost savings versus one put in the ground and illuminated and all that stuff. And you could use some of that savings to pay for the optimist on a holiday. You don't have to worry about having a flag out and taking it down and stuff. Right. Okay. yeah i would say your commissioners are made up of veterans so they yes they should have a preference here what they might i guess they can discuss it yeah and in the in the code it does say illuminate it doesn't say how so i get their hesitation the optimists aren't illuminated but they're along the streets they're affected by a lot of the street lights they're visible it looks very impressive and and i think there's an assumption to

700 on them holidays and i think there's an exception to some of that well and someone did comment too you know we put flags in the grave markers and they're not illuminated either so you know i i don't know um you know where do you draw where you're at the cemetery over memorial day they line you know yeah there's different times yeah so there could be an exceptions maybe i don't know okay i'm not the expert on it right i don't know right Well, I guess maybe moving forward.

I do feel it's appropriate to have one there, and I don't think any of us have an objection to that. It would just be.

Sure. Well, moving forward, I think once they kind of narrow down what they want, we'll present it again and, you know.

I never thought it would be such a lengthy topic of discussion.

I didn't either. It's interesting. It's interesting the things that do become lengthy that you had not anticipated. So, you know, that's okay. Everybody's got it. Got passionate feelings.

I like goals versus off the side of the building. Yeah. My personal preference.

Yeah. No, I know. I just worry about the logistics of it. You know, if you have to take it up and down or if you have to have it, you know, illuminated all the time and then, you know, I don't know. We'll see.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's all that I have other than that. So with her finishing up here, I would need a motion to accept and place on file the June 10th, 2026 minutes from the Veterans Affairs Commission meeting. I would make that motion.

Second. Got a motion by Nguyen, second by Mike to approve, accept and place on file the minutes of the Veterans Affairs Commission meeting held on which day? June 15th. Opposed? Motion carries.

And are you wanting to move forward with the appointment of the next VA commissioner? I would say yes. Are you going to accept the recommendation from the VA? I would say yes. Who's coming along? Laura Eggers is coming off, yes. So with that being the intention, then I would need a motion to approve the recommendation from the Veterans Affairs Commission to appoint Michelle Rowling as our Veteran Affairs Commissioner, effective July 14th, 2026,

move i would second that we got a motion by mike second by then to approve the recommendation of the va commission to appoint michelle rolling to the jackson county veterans affairs commission effective july 14th july 14th 2026 any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed well she carries Good morning.

Good morning.

First thing on our agenda is a 2080 agreement and resolution for the federal fiscal year 26 CHBP grant application. So through the previous weeks, as a bridge on 407th Avenue for the next, this upcoming CHPP application.

So if you're going to make the motion to approve and authorize the church on a 2018 cooperative agreement for highway bridge program.

Hang on just a second. We've got a Woodpecker problem here. All right. I'm going to repeat that.

So is your motion, Min, to approve and authorize the chair's signature on a 28E cooperative agreement for FY26 competitive highway bridge program grant project? Yes, it is. Okay. That's what I said.

I thought so.

I would second that motion.

Motion is to approve and authorize the chair signature in a 2080 cooperative agreement for FY26 competitive highway bridge program grant project.

And that was made by Ninh, second by Mike. Right?

Yes.

Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Motion carries. And with that is the resolution.

Oh, I have that, but I'll put you on the motion. The resolution 12.04.07-14-2026.

In support of the joint CHBP grant agreement and letter of support for the competitive highway bridge program grant project, bridge FHWA numbers 1919-21 and 1946-71, which have been included in a bundle with other counties in the state of Iowa. 14.

That is not on any of my agenda.

I don't have that either. I have James. I would second that motion.

I have a motion by then second by Mike to approve resolution 1204-07-14-2026 in support of the joint CHPP grant agreement letter of support for the competitive highway bridge program. PROJECT FOR BRIDGES 19-1921 AND 1946-71 AS WRAPPED UP AND ALL THAT STUFF. ANY OTHER DISCUSSION? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. OPPOSED?

MOTION CARRIES. SO ONCE I GET THAT SIGNED, I'LL TAKE THAT AND GET THAT OVER TO THE COUNTY ENGINEER ASSOCIATION put in there that grant. It was for FHWA to make a determination on that grant around September. So really it's a short turnaround. So we should have known hopefully by fall whether or not we were selected with fingers crossed.

So with this grant, it's kind of like here's the package, they approve it, what's in the package gets done, or are they trimming or selecting certain bridges? No, so it's

So we are being part of the state of Iowa. Just one state of Iowa has one application. If they were to us, these bridges are, it's not like, oh, we're going to do this bridge and not this bridge. It's the whole kit and kaboom.

So that package that you sent us, that list of all those counties that were in on that, that

Is the one on the, maybe the north end, where does it come off of County Highway Z15? Before you start going up the super steep. Because I just don't want you to get up on top. If you keep going, there's another bridge. It is the one, if you're heading from Bellevue going south. Okay. It is the first one before you go up the. Yes. Okay.

And we did some decking on that. I would say it probably had been five years ago already now that. We did some decking on that bridge, but yeah. Yeah, that one.

Did we vote on that? I think we did. Okay, just making sure.

So yeah, so this is the same. All those are favorites. grant that if you recall from the determination was made not that long ago but we applied about two years ago for the bridge on 578th avenue over by miles that is actually on the march letting so um the plus side of the same i were to get awarded this federal fiscal year 26 one is that 24, we have to bundle with Dubuque County and City of Dyersville. So when a contractor is bidding on, he's bidding on all three of those projects, our bridge, Dubuque County, City of Dyersville. With this federal fiscal year 26 one, with our bridges being constituted just a bundle, they are bidding on just both of our bridges at the same time.

Nice.

What's our match in that? uh it's expected to be around 20. they won't know until they if they determine to award they'll say hey you know what is the percent local match but it's expected around 20. okay um so people know that's 22 counties in this i just put them up in three cities Yes, and the maximum amount asked, I guess, is $32.5 million. So obviously the state of Iowa is requesting that maximum of $32.5 million, which was what was received for federal fiscal year 24. I don't know what they received for fiscal year 25, but Iowa's fair very well over And then I'll just move on to the biggest, I like to believe is maybe the biggest news. Last week, we were officially notified that we have been awarded the fiscal year 26 build grant for iron bridge replacement. So that was a joint application with six other counties, so seven total, constitute one of them. And all of them were large bridge projects It was, this was our third time applying and well, we finally got it. So just a quick tally for Iron Bridge then. The grants have been received for that replacement because there was also a $2 million one from the DOT a couple of years ago. We're up to basically $5.7 million for grants for Iron Bridge. So that'll take a huge,

a burden off our shoulders, I guess, or the time lanes and everything for all the different grants play out to a worker.

Yeah. So with this, with the build grant, we're not tied to any of the other counties. We'll all have separate lightings because they're just, the scope of the projects is just way too much. So ours will be in our own letting at its dedicated time. And right now we're shooting. It's currently under design and we're shooting for a, I want to say March of 28 letting.

Are we still in the process of maybe the placement of that bridge?

So we're still looking at that. Most likely it's going to end up going downstream, southeast, yes, downstream. Yeah. Because that existing bridge is eligible for listing. type of trust that it is it's a i have to pull up the historical study it's it's eligible but is it list i mean is there a difference on so if it's not listed already so federal highway will not let us since it is eligible they will not let us just tear it down without having to do a whole bunch of mitigation And that mitigation cost is not something that is covered with any of the grant money grants that would all have to be 100% local effort.

And it's really kind of a... Whatever expenses we have going forward, because it's still sitting there, they will take over that, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I wish. Look at the Eastline Bridge in Monmouth. It's got trees growing up in it, and it's basically waiting to fall in. And so this... bridge over the Makoka River at some point in time, hopefully not in our lifetimes, will be considered a hazard, or we're going to have to spend enough money to keep it up enough so it don't fall in the river. But if and when it does, we'll have to clean it up.

Yeah, and it's going to look, say when the new bridge is in Indiana, You drive down, it's like, what's this old bridge sitting here for?

So anybody driving across a new one's going to gawk over at the old one.

And then cause a break.

So I will say that for the Timber City Adventure Race, it will be kind of nice if that old bridge is there, if we can keep it open to pedestrian traffic or whatever, that there's a lot of spectators and all that kind of stuff that could maybe park along there and be able to get out and watch and not have to have cops and everybody on the normal right-of-way. But again, that's like for three hours. I mean, it's not, I appreciate them trying to preserve historic, but the type of trust I don't, I mean, does that mean the iPhone 7s are historic now because they were, I don't get, just because something's old doesn't mean it's historic. Did Abraham Lincoln go across that bridge?

Mike, it's not historic. I'm sorry.

I mean, the thing is, to me, there's also a liability issue here.

Yeah. Federal Highway, they don't, Since it's eligible for listing because there's there's no way we can change it, the state has already done a historical report throughout the entire state of all the bridges and there's I mean there's no changing that determination, but. In order to try to put the new bridge in its place by tearing down the old one there's what they call the feasibility study it's got to be done which there's basically three options one. What happens if you do nothing? Is that feasible? The second one is, can you build on a new alignment? Is that the feasible option? Which that's what we're doing. That's sometimes the easiest avenue. Or the third option is, is it feasible to rehab the bridge? And when talking with the DOT, that is the one Federal Highway really looks at with a fine-tooth comb. They get real in-depth on that because it's very hard. This is Clank. It's not like, well, it's going to cost us an extra $500,000. That doesn't matter. Is it feasible to rehab it? Again, we have to pay for that study to get it done. and avoid all that is what we're looking at moving the bridge downstream. I don't know if it's the right or wrong answer, but it's just the way we're going to move forward, I guess, to get the bridge replaced.

That's why we're trying to eliminate red tape. It seems like there are more and more companies that need every project.

And for looking into the future, too, for river bridges, this truss is a sister bridge to the Damon Bridge north of Preston. So it's without a doubt or most likely that the Damon Bridge is going of its type of trust are trying to recall exactly from the historical report that was done. I want to say it's like a Pennsylvania style trust, which there's only three of them.

Why do we need two? We're showing that style.

And there's only three left in the entire state. And of course, two of them are within our county with it being those two bridges. So it's unfortunate, but at least we got some grants to get the I mean, good for them. County conservation doesn't need one anywhere. Other counties have reused. Our county conservation. Both them bridges are long. Because other counties, I think, I think it was Linn County that actually had army helicopters and probably, were they Chinooks maybe, that actually lifted a historic bridge and moved it to a trail for conservation, for their conservation.

Jones County. Jones County.

Yeah, they did.

I was there.

Yeah, in this place, yeah. they had issues where when they were trying to lift it, one of the cables broke and the bridge fell and they had to get it all repaired. And it's all that unknowns that it's just, I feel like it's easier to leave it in place. It's easier to leave it in place and we'll just build a new bridge and let's keep going.

Some ballards or something so it's only a walkway.

I don't know if anybody got the opportunity to listen to Just Talk last week, but it was very interesting. We got that confirmation last week and he was so nice to accompany me to the Just Talk and go over it. Well, you got out of it. I didn't want to mumble up the grants that were available and why and what and the amount. So he actually went back to 22, four years. Yes. It totaled over 10.

Over 10.7 million with probably... Iron Bridge, the Chenoweth Bridge, you know, the City of Monmouth Bridge that got applied. What was another one?

Of course, those two in itself. Well, I would just say over the last four years, roughly, and I can say that because I'll speak to the last four years because that's how long we've been sitting in the chairs. If Jackson County hasn't figured out there's been a focus on bridge maintenance and replacement between day laborers and these bridges, I mean, it's a significant volume. I mean, what, two years ago, we did what, nine or something day labor bridges. And I mean, it's been a concerted effort on the roadways of Jackson County, both with the reclaiming the bridge It's really starting to be a noticeable thing, even with the volume of roads that we have. It is a tangible result of the dedication and hard work of our secondary roads crews.

The map that's in our office. I mean, there's still a lot on there, but from when I came here four years ago, there's significant bridges taken off over there.

And with, you know, of all of our bridges in our county, 15 of them are, we have 15 bridges over the Maquoketa River. And you could, with some of them on paved routes, some of them on gravel, but it's really easy to, on average, each one over the Maquoketa River, on average, it costs about $3.5 million to replace. Obviously, we have many more bridges other than that, but what these grants do, essentially for these river bridges, is one allows them to get replaced, but then used. on the Z15 or Springbrook Highway and those types of bridges freeze up the money that would have been used for the river bridges, freeze up money to replace other bridges like that.

So a general knowledge question for me, because now we know the Damon Bridge and Iron Bridge are historic in some manner or fashion. and all that would be like the bridge on 150th there by Esgate coming down that steep hill and the Canton Bridge. Are they historic? No.

Not to my knowledge because there's nothing those are more standard bridges and when they're standard they're not unique in that regard.

I guess I'd like to think that frequently when we do our conventions and whatnot, we have extensive conversations with our legislators about our bridge situation in the last five years. So somehow I think that made a difference somehow a little bit for us. I don't know that.

And if we are fortunate enough to get awarded this from today's agenda, the CHVP grant, which would include Moorhead Bridge, I mean, you can say in a six-year time span, we'll That's pretty substantial. Morehead, going back to historic, Morehead Bridge is not eligible for listing. So we can replace that one in its current place.

Well, we'll give it back to the state who gave it to us. That's your historic bridge. We just leased it.

Cool.

Any other questions?

Just an update, if you would. We've got some projects.

Yes, so the one over by, of our three bridges that are going on right now, the one over by Preston on 458th Avenue, the bridge is done, just waiting for the contractor to, the subcontractor to do the final grading and our seating restoration stuff, which should be expected here. hopefully the 362nd Avenue or Springbrook Highway Bridge. They're actually out there installing guardrail today. And I think the seating is getting done today with pavement markings scheduled for tomorrow. So assuming all that happens,

Yes.

Of course, I get questions on that one, but I just tell them it's close. It is a little warm out, so them boys are at it, you know.

It is, and everybody, all the subcontractors have been there as planned up to this point, so assuming that holds true, and weather, I mean, it's hot, but it's dry, no rain at all. hopefully again by tomorrow afternoon that's opened up um chenilworth they should be hopefully setting the bridge beams on the piers uh don't know if it'll be next it'd be late next week at the earliest late next week or otherwise the following week will be set the bridge beams over that there's got to waters have now been receding a little bit where they can work their way into because they got to get cranes making progress there and then the concrete overlay project the majority of the paving work is done as far as the true overlay now it's just they're forming up and working on some of their tie-ins like at intersections or doing the side road aprons with shouldering to follow after that and then pavement markings so I'd say about a depending on weather and contractor schedule, maybe a month yet. But I know at this point, the local people that live on that stretch are now getting in and out of their driveways on the new slab. The contractor's got all that taken care of for them to have access.

It's nice. I drove on it a little bit Saturday and It'll be, it'll be nice.

Yeah. You know, for that being our first concrete overlay, I mean, it's, I know it's more, it's more of an inconvenience than our, what our asphalt overlays are for the residents on there, but there's a few people that just called with some, whether they had doctor's appointments, what have you, but we worked with that. And I guess I, with talking with the contractor, it went really well. But I understand there's not as many people on that stretch of road as maybe some of our other highways, but it went really well for as good as you could ask for it. And then on the maintenance side of things, sorry to keep you for so long here. We have two crews now reclaiming. They're over by the Springbrook, Preston area on the kind of the east side of the county. And then there's also a crew over here We got two crews going finally, and weather's looking good. It's hot, but it looks dry where we can try to keep that rolling. So everybody's firing on all cylinders, I guess. Good to hear. So, yeah, sorry for taking up a lot of time there. It's all good.

It's all good news. Good. We appreciate it.

Good things.

All right. Thanks, Jim. Next up is Lisa Smith.

This morning, I need a motion to approve that July 7th, 2026 meeting minutes is written by Auditor Smith and authorized publication in the official newspapers. I would second.

Got a motion by Mike, seconded by Ninh to approve the minutes of the July 7th, 2026 meeting as written by Auditor Smith and authorized publication in the official newspapers. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

I need a motion to approve and authorize the auditor's office to issue warrants in the publication of the claims listing in the amount of $170,638.91. I'd make that motion. I would second.

I got a motion by Ninh, second by Mike to approve and authorize the auditor's office to issue warrants in the publication $638.91. Any other discussion? I didn't really see anything that overly jumped out. It's pretty much kind of run of the mill, pay the bills kind of thing. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

I need a motion to approve a Class B retail native wine license to Friends of Jackson County Conservation at 18670 63rd Street, Maquoketa, effected July 25th, 2026 through July 24th, 2027.

Move to approve.

I'd second that.

Good. A motion by Mike, second by Nguyen, to approve a Class B retail native wine license to Friends of Jackson County Conservation at 18670 63rd Street, Makoka, effective July 25th, 2026 through July 24th, 2027. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

We need a motion to approve a Class C retail alcohol license with outdoor service to Linda S. Wells doing business at Bluff Lake at 9369 95th Avenue, Maquoketa. Effective July 17, 2026 through July 16, 2027. I would make that motion.

I would second. Got a motion by Nen, second by Mike, to approve the retail, or Class C retail alcohol license and outdoor service to Linda S. Wells doing business at Bluff Lake at 9369, or 95th Avenue, Maquoketa. Effective July 17, 2026 through July 16, 2020. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Based on last week's discussion that you had with Dan Betterman from Beckwith Commercial Roofing, he did present a proposal to me of which the county share of repairing the roof at the Pearson Center at the Jackson County Fairgrounds is $1,285. What is the board's wishes as far as this? Is this something that you...

again we had a conversation last week and everybody watch it we we talked about responsibilities and i my part i do appreciate them stepping forward and say they're they had some responsibility maybe to do this prior when they when the work was done so again what he's proposing is that we pay for the material and they're going to do the labor so to me that seems fair

So if you agree, I would need a motion to approve an authorized chair signature on the acceptance of proposal between Jackson County and Beckwith Commercial Roofing for $1,285 for repairs to the Pearson Center Roof at the Jackson County Fairgrounds.

So moved.

I would second that.

And a motion by Mike, second by Nunez to approve an authorized chair signature on acceptance of proposal from Beckwith Commercial Roofing for the repairs on Pearson Hall Roof at the Jackson County Fairgrounds for $1,285. $1,285. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

That's all that I have for the board today.

Anybody got anything good in the order? I do not.

I did have a meeting with, I don't know what I just did. Ports of Eastern Iowa. They are wanting to know about wanting the, basically the five counties that are part of this Ports of Eastern Iowa about a financial input of $2,500 to become a lifetime member of the Ports of Iowa or something like that.

Paid annually, probably.

No, I believe this is the one, if you do the, it's either 500 year late, or if you do the 2,500, it's a lifetime.

And I remember when, and I know you're the lay person, but this, I remember when they were forming this, they said there was no financial commitment for the counties whatsoever. They figured it was coming. Yeah.

Again, we discussed this several times when this whole port of whatever it was come about. And you know, what was the benefit to Jackson County? I understand that there's,

What we get for it.

Right. Yeah.

You know, cause right now it would be just us funding everybody else's.

If our name is on it, that's, that's what you get.

Yeah. And again, I'm just kind of throwing it up there. It's been like early talks.

Yeah. Bring us something in writing that I can read so I can crash through it.

You know, they've talked in the past that, that, uh, their meetings which are very hard meetings to follow because again you're getting our main representation at the meetings are like the corn belt port and these other ports so they're kind of talking about what's going on in them areas and it's very hard to to relate that back to what benefit it would do for jackson county as you said like it's easy to see dubuque or Clinton, where they have the green belts right there.

Not only that, but again, the input or whatnot from the other side of the river. I mean, we have a large representation of Illinois in this part of this deal, so it's kind of complicated, but whatever the emails you get, they're complicated.

Right, and one of them conversations from the meeting also was like so much given to ports of eastern Iowa to get a base fund going or whatever, and So, and that was a per capita, you know, and I didn't think that was a real benefit to Jackson County at that point, but.

Well, it's amazing to me. Most of his emails come early in the morning, late at night. I mean, it isn't during business hours, so it's kind of sporadic. All right. Anything else for the good of the meeting?

If there's no further business, I'll make a motion. We adjourn. Seconded by that.

Got a motion by Mike, seconded by Lynn to adjourn. Any other discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.