Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Please bow your head with me in prayer. Father in heaven, you are great and greatly to be praised. You are thrice holy. You have made us, cared for us, given to us all that we have. Every good and perfect gift is from you, from above, coming down from you, the Father of life. But we have not received your gifts with gratitude. We have not taken the breath inhaled into our lungs and exhaled it to the praise of your glory. No, instead we individually And we as a people of Madison County, we have blasphemed, we have sinned, and we've fallen short of your glory. We have broken your law. In our iniquity, we deserve your eternal wrath. We deserve as a people and as a county, your righteous judgment to fall upon us all. But oh, how amazing it is. That in your great mercy. You have sent your son Jesus the Christ. To die in the place of sinners. So that according to your word. Whosoever believeth upon your son Jesus. Should not perish. But have everlasting life. For you did not send your son into the world. To condemn the world. But that the world might be saved through him. And so, Almighty Father, we confess to you our sins, both personally and corporately. We are sinners in this room, and yet you say to us that we will but repent of our sins and believe upon your Son, Jesus, who was crucified for our sin and raised up for our salvation. And we will but come to him by faith. You are faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What an invitation. Let us take it. but we do not confess personal sins only. We confess to you also our corporate sin. We confess that we in Madison County have spurned you. We have not lived. We have not governed according to your law. There is little to no fear of you almighty God in our midst. Oh, grant us repentance. Grant us eyes to see how we have erred. Grant us eyes to see how we have abandoned your perfect standard in your holy word, the Bible. And how we have replaced your standard by a standard of our own making. A standard rooted in worldly wisdom so that we find ourselves constantly blown around by every wind and wave of cultural sensitivity and evil desire. Oh Lord, there will be hell to pay for such things. Help us deliver us from ourselves. and cause us instead to return to you, Father, through faith in your Son, Jesus. Your Son, Jesus, is Lord. He and he alone is the King of kings and Lord of lords. There is no truth apart from Jesus. There is no salvation apart from Jesus. There is no healthy society apart from Jesus. There is no good and righteous government apart from King Jesus, your Son. So grant now to all in this room and to all in Madison County the grace to bow the knees of their hearts and to declare that Jesus Christ, your Son, is Lord and Master. grant that they kiss your son by faith and receive him as savior and obey him as lord grant that to all who govern over us and make them to know that they are called by you to be your deacons your servants including these supervisors here this evening almighty god you instruct heather and diane and jessica from romans chapter 13 that they are to serve jesus christ that they were put in their places of authority to serve jesus To govern according to his word and his truth. Not the word and the opinion of any other. So cause them to fear you God. To govern in the fear of the Lord. We ask that you grant them wisdom this evening. And your word tells us that there is wisdom. There is no wisdom apart from the fear of the Lord Jesus. Your word tells us that where there is no fear of God in government, the peoples perish. But happy are the ones who keep your law. So we ask that these three supervisors and all those in authority in this county would govern in such a way that we, the people, would not perish. And instead, that we would be happy. For happy are the peoples whose God is the Lord. And so may this meeting... and all that come after it be governed in the fear of you, the Lord, that we might be happy. For Jesus' sake and in his name I pray. Amen. Amen.

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

Thank you very much, Pastor Grant.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Can I have a roll call, please?

Finch? Here.

Sanchez? Here. Powell? Here. All right, next is review the agenda. Have you changed the agenda? Any discord or conflict of interest? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. We are now into the department head reports and discussion. Michelle.

All right.

Some paperwork out here. It's a matter of old business. I have the contract for unison to sign, and I'll elaborate a little bit about my conversation with Aylors and the committee and the contract policy that we have, but here's what we need. Then, I'll ask my auditors and board of directors For the evening, Michelle Grant, Medicine County Auditor. I'm going to go ahead and go through my report just like usual. There are no updates with the accounting weekend. TIF reconciliation continues. I'm working with the city of Winterset to ensure it's all done correctly, which means I go into our software system and I set percentages that they're to receive. The goal is to be done with state valuations by the end of the week. I have a meeting set up with Solutions on Friday to discuss creating new transitionary school districts from the OM dissolution. Now the budget process timeline continues. I anticipate the second or third week in February when the next meeting will be scheduled. I know that there was discussion today about one next week and I'll get back to you guys on that, those dates. I feel comfortable that revenues will be available. and input into our worksheets. The ancillary budget should be complete, and as that is done, I will be forwarding to all the supervisors, hopefully by the end of next week. The state audit report, the fiscal year 25, I reached out when we awarded the contract to Modlin and Jenkins. letting them know that they were the designated. I also let them know that I would be in touch as soon as I knew we could proceed. I reached out to the state auditor's office to request a formal extension from March, and I did receive unsolicited recommendation from the city of West Des Moines as to how good Modlin and Jenkins is. So that was nice. I was talking to Tim Stiles about that. They were very pleased. The other concentration are I put evaluating deactivation of employees and onboarding on hold, and that's from a time constraint. There's no point in me saying it's in progress, in progress, and I'm not going to be able to do that until probably the end of February, or at least until budgets have been presented reformally. Again, I completed the audit about VPN. I thought maybe I would be able to get a resolution on the docket tonight. That did not happen. As far as being the custodian of the courthouse, that's the spokes of the work for vendors and the staff is on hold. I continue to have meetings on a regular basis with staff. Now the courthouse generator, I was going to go ahead and I did spend some time researching that. So the best I can tell, and I was going to provide this to you as well, you'll consider that there was no, I'll let you pass this around, there was no resolution about using diesel versus natural gas and that was never in play if something on the contract well i think it was just honestly i think it was just um i think what you were going off of just was the sheriff's diesel and it was just that's all it was it's just the wrong resolution was attached And there was never any discussion.

But I was asking why we didn't use natural gases. Yeah, and that was my response. It's much more economical over the life of the generator, a lot less maintenance, a lot less fuel costs.

Sure. That's why I was asking that. Correct. And so when I talked to Marty Hirsch, he found out that, and I'll read you what he wrote. The peak kilowatt usage of the courthouse was 45. Natural gas and range typically only go up to 36 to 40 kilowatts with the brands that they installed. So the Cummins currently wasn't offering the 60 kilowatts, so we went with the 80 kilowatts. So hopefully they did look into it, they discussed it, but it was ultimately a decision of the Board of Supervisors with CHIP that that's where they were going to go. So that's what I have. I'm going to share this here. He needs to give you guys some information about the generator now that it is filled with diesel. And I'll go back to Mary.

Good evening, everybody. Chip Seed building the grounds. The generator is now up and running. We've got it programmed. On a 7 a.m. Monday morning to start, and it will run for 10 minutes. During the energizing process and re-energizing, there is about a second, second and a half, where the lights will kick off. So those two intervals, but it doesn't affect any other operations.

Okay, and you run that by solution, the brief interruption? Yep. So they're aware that, okay.

Are you notified? Is there some notification?

Well this is great information. I would suggest in the future you can come to the daytime meeting. We don't need to

You know, this is kind of update that's not time sensitive. We could do that during the daytime hours so we don't need to pay overtime. So you're not paying overtime.

Okay.

To be clear. Okay. Oh, that's great. We've adjusted. Okay. Thank you. I know it's consuming. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And we'll get copies of this then?

Or do we need to make copies? Well, first of all, you have access to that on the Board of Supervisors directly. That's, if you just look up the date, I would be happy to sit down with you. Okay. I think you have that copy. No, that's in the Board of Supervisors directory.

And if you don't have access to the directory. I do. I just didn't know where it was.

All right. Okay. So that should hopefully wrap up the generator conversation, except for the fact that I know there's concern about the unsightly area around it. And I have working on, I was going to bring pictures tonight. Four different solutions, and I think that I think pictures will be a great option because you can do the wrought iron, you can do the wood, but I don't think that fits with the aesthetics of the courthouse. And so we're having two bids prepared for stone or a vinyl book stone. So again, it'll be something I'll let you guys evaluate and decide based on

And historic preservation, we are looking into vinyl wraps that will cover the piece itself with historical pictures on it. We're just looking into it to see it. That's amazing.

We'll probably have to make sure we run it by the manufacturer. We will.

We are looking into it to cover it with a historical wrap.

Great. All right, so again, I have made a small progress on our future plan, which includes creating a five or ten year plan for the courthouse and the annex. What we're doing right now is we're reviewing the lost expenses and the 51 department expenses because until we know the better descriptions, what our budgets are, we don't know what we want. So that's kind of combining that effort with the budgets. Tonight, Solutions is installing the SharePoint in the courthouse and they will do the annex tomorrow. He will have an individual conversation with each office so that there's no interruption in the service. Let's see, the vault and IT room conversion. I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail other than what I provided in the report. And I'm heading right away, so. I think that's all I have. I just was going to ask you if you guys have any questions about anything. I just have a couple.

Sure. The state audit report, do we know? Last time you said they shouldn't have the state to know all their information for fiscal 24 at the end of December. I'm assuming that's all been said.

Not to me. No, I'm saying to them. Oh, yeah. Everything we had been requested. There is a question in my mind that they have requested additional salary and wage information, and that was yesterday. And so, again, I'm reaching back out. We provided it within 24 hours of the request.

But other than that, they have everything.

That I'm aware of. You can ask the other departments that same question. I'm not privy to that.

Is there any way we can find out if there's any stragglers out there in other departments if they're holding anything up?

I would say just reach out to the treasurer's office and to the attorney's office. Does that make sense? Yep.

And then the other question I have for that fiscal 23, is that kind of still on?

I'm still waiting for the invitation for the exit conference.

Oh.

Do you think so? We're waiting on the state. Yep. Exactly.

If I could produce you a magic solution, I sure would. That would be a priority. All right. The other question I have was... By the way, the vault room conversion looks great. Doesn't it look fabulous? I like that you guys did the individual carpet tiles, so if someone spills something, you can replace it. And I'm assuming we have bunches of spares of those tiles. We do, yeah. Just to what Jess is concerned, that was done after hours. Is there a reason why the vendor couldn't come during the day for that? I'm sorry, which... When they were putting down the carpet, it was after business hours?

I don't have an overtime report. Okay. All right.

I was just curious, because a lot of times the vendors come during the day. I was just kind of surprised. He was here during the day a lot. He was here at night. But he was here all day, too. I just want to make sure I'm not paying overtime unnecessarily.

So those are my questions I have. Thank you. Go for it. How is everyone settling into your new space? Everybody getting adjusted and liking it?

I think so. We had a desk sharing didn't really work well. And then opening up the conference area for absentee voting because we lost our window and our little hallway. That's going to work really well.

Awesome. Great. And then I have one more question. Do you Do you want to provide an update to the board twice a month? Or is it you? Okay. I just want to make sure, because I know it takes time to do that. So I want to be sensitive.

I made a commitment to do that, and I'm going to continue to do it.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Mike, you're up. We have visual aids? No visual aids? Okay.

My name is Mike Hackett. I'm the secretary of roads engineer. Thank you for letting me talk. Thank you everybody for being here tonight. I can think of other Januaries where it isn't as nice as it is tonight. And not as many people. The reason I'm here is to talk about a few items of what's going on in the road department and the resolution that we're presenting to the board today. This resolution is a federal aid city, state-city agreement. I think I've talked about this before, but I'll kind of make a quick review. That kind of receives HPP money, which is bridge money throughout the year for bridge projects. It's part of our allocation. It's hard to stretch that over all the projects that we have. I'm always looking for other alternatives to find resources. We've been pretty successful over the last few years doing that. This is another good opportunity for Madison County and the city of Patterson. I reached out to the state of Iowa and applied for their city grant or city bridge replacement. And you might be asking, Now, I'll remind everybody here that any FM route that goes through a incorporated town that has less than 500 vehicles a day, the county maintains that portion. This is actually the bigger bridge that goes over Middle River, so this is a plus-plus. So applied for it, got the grant. So we got $1.5 million to put towards that project, which is hopefully going to be about a $2.7 million project. And we combine our other HPP money with that to replace that bridge. So that's what that agreement's for. This is the first stages of getting that agreement. The county will agree to it, and I will present that to the city of Patterson. and then back to the DOT for approval, and then programming, and then federal aid programming, and then start the process. So it's a few years away, but it is locked up.

How much money does Patterson have?

How much money?

How much would they have? What would their amount be?

They won't have anything. Well, we... because we applied for the grant on behalf of the city we've gotten a grant of 1.5 the city of hatterson for having participation this is similar to the p root project that we have so that's on the agenda today um i guess if you got any other quick questions on that i'll just give a real quick kind of review what's going on with the secretary of the department and that's it any more questions on the great fantastic i like that All right, here's the million-dollar question that I've been receiving lots of questions on, and it's the Pitzer Bridge project, and when will it be open? I wish I could say tomorrow. Unfortunately, we got to a point, they tried real hard to get it open this winter. However, we've kind of come to a standstill because of winter. We still have shoulders and did shaping to do on the project and some guardrail installation, which means we have to move some earth. Specifications, we will not get the project and we will not meet specifications if we use earth or dirt right now because it has too much moisture and it's broken. You can construct it, but what would happen is we'd have failures, premature failures. So we have to wait until the ground stabilizes, which if we have a great winter like we're having, it may be, you know, Could be March or April once that's done and hopefully we get that bridge open. I know it's a bottleneck for a lot of people. It's a bottleneck for us just for our snow removal operations. So got a lot of questions on that. So I'll just grab past that information. That's kind of like say optimistically we'll have that done at that time. Okay. General road conditions. Well, they're actually pretty great for January right now. Not a lot of snow or ice out there. So we're continuing to patched with patch rock and have rock projects. I have another kind of great thing that kind of happened here recently. We took an opportunity here with emergency management and Secretary Rhodes through an ICAP grant and purchased some cameras, four of them actually, and what we're using those for on four areas, corners of the county, to monitor road conditions for winter management. The current system right now is we have an on-call person, which would be me or three or four of our other people. When we have bad weather, we have to physically go out there and drive it. We have 110 miles of road. That takes a little time. In my 34 years of doing this, I've been in a ditch, I've hit deer. Hopefully the camera system will give us a little bit better picture of what's going on with the road conditions in the corners of the county. Not have to spend as much time and resources to drive all the roads, but at least get a good picture of what's going on. I've also had times where we have weather in one part of the county and not the other part of the county. So there's no sense in mobilizing the whole snow removal fleet. but we don't have to. So I'm optimistic that this is going to be a good tool. I also think we have some benefits for this system in the summer for construction management. A couple things on our local crews. We get a security camera out there to make sure our equipment doesn't get vandalized. That's happened over the years. Also just having eyes on, let's say, the Pitcher Road. see what's going on out there on a daily, more daily thing. There's a lot of times there is not a need to have an inspector be there all the time. They're not doing operations that don't require inspection for materials or different phases of the project. At least now we don't have to spend the trip out there. We can kind of see what's going on. So I'm kind of excited about that. Hopefully I can bring you some more visuals of that as we go farther to the next one. As you know, our phone system took a dive. It was 30 plus years old, and we've got a new one installed there. Please be patient. We're still working on the transfer stuff, but it is up and going. We have right away, I've talked about that before. That's starting to become a little longer process, but we're optimistic with that done, those projects out and going. And then I have, unfortunately, news of some staffing changes. Beginning of last week, I was notified that the assistant is going to take another opportunity. So we are losing the assistant to engineer. I'm happy for him and his family and what he needs to do, but it does leave us kind of a spot. We've been here before. We'll be okay. It's just going to cause maybe some delays in some of the construction, planning, management. It's just going to take a little time. Be patient with us and we'll move on. We'll get it done. We've been through this before. That's all I have.

Let's do the cameras. Could you fly a drone?

Probably could. There are some licensing requirements. There's also some rules about flying over highways and that type of stuff. Yeah, technology is exciting. It's good to see that. Hopefully it plays out for us. I don't have anything else. I don't want to take any more of your time. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, again, always reach out to me. I'll be here at least at the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. All right. Kylie.

All right, well, my first treasurer's report. All right, this is the last one. I think I was sick all day. So, as I was preparing for this, I'm like, where do I begin? I mean, it's now January, so do I start at last January, go through January, February, March, April, and I'm like, holy buckets, that's a Netflix series. We all know this. We all know this. And you know, that I was like reminded of, I think it was October, November of, what year were we in? 26, 25, 24, 24. A little back story. October, November, I don't remember what month it was. And I kept looking at it. 310, 310, 310. Like every morning, every morning, every morning. And I'm like, oh, why can't I sleep? You know? And then it was like 311, 311, 311. I'm like, who sleeps? Like, can't I just sleep? And then 312, 312, 312. You know, same thing. So finally, I get to like 314. And there's like this big boom. And I'm like, Christ, did you hear that? And he's like, no. I'm like, what? You know, I'm like, okay. So I like go and I'm the brave one to like go and explore our house. There's nothing, nothing, nothing at all. And while they're like, what, what is this? Like, why am I waking up so often? So I'm very like new to my faith, but I was like, you know, I'm just going to like Google this. I'm going to just, put it into my phone and be like, is that going to tell me something? Like, I don't know, you know. Well, guess what? I fully believe he was. Because 1 Peter 3, 10-12 says, For whoever would love life and see the days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good. They must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And his ears are attentive to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So that has been my heart for the last October and all last year. Because it has been a hard year for me. So I know that you didn't hear from me for a year. but I honestly just didn't know what to say and I felt like I couldn't stand up here and tell you anything when I honestly wasn't sure what to say. But what I do know now is some really fun things and some other things that I'm learning along the way. So the fun and interesting things stats for Madison County for titles. And I know that you guys have heard some of this before, but some of you guys haven't. So for titles issued in Madison County in fiscal year 24, there was 6,543 titles issued. In fiscal year 25, there was 8,414 titles. That's an increase of 29%. The average growth for titles was 13% statewide. So Madison County is rockin' it. In fiscal year 24 for drivers, there was 19,250 drives. In fiscal year 25, there was 28,725. So that's an increase of 49%. Driving tests? Yep. Are they from out county? Yep. In county and out. It's a mix. So that is also compared to Clark County. They've had an increase of 31%, and Jasper County had an increase of 29%. Otherwise, the average growth was only 9%. So Madison County is up there. So now vehicles for fiscal year 24. It was 225,430 vehicles. And 25, this one blows me away. Fiscal year 25, 401,872. It's an increase of 78%. So if you guys were wondering why you couldn't get to us on the phone, that was why. That was seriously why. We were at the counter all the time. Clark County, they had a 73% increase. Jasper County, they had an 81%. Otherwise, the average growth was 51%. And so in July of 2024, The titles issued in Madison County, this was just for that month, was 468. Of that, 443 were issued from Madison County residents, and there was 25 issued to non-residents. In July of 2025, the titles issued for just that month, it was 714. 605 were Madison County residents. 109 were issued to non-residents. So we had 32% came from Poole County and 56% came from Dallas County. And that's a, you get paid $10 more. Yep. So We are seeing an increase. I mean, that was in July. I should have pulled the December staff, but I didn't. I mean, they're coming to us, and it's because those counties have appointments. They are appointment for everything. So I do not want to go to appointment. I will do everything I can to not go to appointment. Trust me. Believe me. But, I mean, it might happen, but I don't want it to.

appointments other than licenses?

Yeah, they have appointments for everything. Appointments for renewals, appointments for titling, everything.

But we have appointments for just licenses.

So with this increase, One thing that we've been doing for quite a while now, but we're going to make this permanent because it honestly works out really, really good for us, is we will be closed for a lunch break from 11.30 to 12.15 every day. This gives us a hard staff time so that we can get the door shut, finish up the transaction, and then we have about a half hour for lunch. This helps all of us to ensure that we actually get a lunch break It seemed like before, maybe that first person would go at 11.30, that next person would go at 12. And then like the third and fourth person, well, that doesn't happen. And it wouldn't happen until like 2.30, 3 o'clock. And who's hungry by 2.30 and 3 o'clock? You just might as well work right through it. Because I was that 2.30, 3 o'clock person. So this really gives every employee a time when they know they can make an appointment, run a quick errand, and actually get food. So I know that that's a hard thing. This is a big change for Madison County for the Treasurer's Office, but it is what we are going to do from now on. And I think that this change has already kind of gotten established with people because we've had less and less people at the door waiting for us. So people are getting used to it.

Um, Kylie, have you had any complaints given that a lot of people that work might need to come on their lunch hour?

Um, very few. Very few, honestly. I don't really hear about it anymore. I do.

I do. Okay. Because they use their lunch hour to come here.

Well, we're open at 1215, so it's not like... I mean, most people's lunch hours are from 12 to 1230 or 12 to 1, so... I mean... So another exciting thing happening for the driver's license side of things is a program called MVD 360. We will be rolling this new system out in just a few days. We're not really allowed to talk about it too much. We can't leak out too much information. The one thing that's important to our office is that we cannot make any appointments right now from January 14th to which is tomorrow to January 20th. So it's not saying that we don't have appointments, but just we can't take any more appointments during that time period. This is statewide, so please don't be upset with my people. Don't be mad calling.

So we need to go on tonight and get it done before? Yeah. Thanks for the warning. Yep, yep. But it's really exciting.

what is to come. So January 20th, it will be rolling out. Also another new and exciting thing that is on the horizon is that we are going to a new third party mailing company. So this means that our renewals that we send out and our tax statements, that sort of thing, you will be saving money on that and also a better service will be provided so hopefully people will actually get those renewals because i know there was a lot of complaints last year about people not getting their renewals how did you do it before um we went through manual services so you found a new company yeah yeah the um a bunch of other treasurers were having the same problem and so they did a lot of research and work and yeah um So on the treasured side of things, my positives are the monthly apportionment has gone out on time every month. So good job. I very much feel that relationships with the bank have been restored. They were pretty rocky there, but I worked hard at restoring those. Everything on my end has been submitted to the state auditor, so there's my answer for that. So, I'll be honest, there's a lot of things that still need to be gone through with the fine tooth comb. It's truly going to take some time to completely get it caught up. There's so much that I want to do and have great ideas for. especially talking to other treasurers, but I can't get ahead of myself and skip over any of the details that need to be worked through. Currently, my main project right now is balancing. The doctor's office, solutions, the engineer, we have been working very hard and very diligently on getting through this. Right now, we were in August, we were making way, and then another issue popped up back into July. So hopefully we'll get through that and push on through, because I would really like to see something other than July.

As would we.

Yeah. July 22nd is no longer my favorite day. Not that it was before, but I'm really tired of it. With that, they're time-consuming, beyond belief, but I don't give up on things, and I'm going to work really hard on it, just like I do with all the rest of this stuff. So if there's anything that I can do for you guys, any suggestions, please just let me know.

Thank you for the update. All right, we've come to the time for public comment. We'll go ahead and for the folks on the phone, we're going to take public comment from folks here first, and then once we're done here, we'll move to you. So if you want to make a public comment, please come ahead and come to the microphone, state your name, the town you're from, and you will have three minutes to speak.

Hi, Hannah Davis from Winterset. I'm just confused. I'd like to understand why the opening prayer is not limited to the same amount of time as public comment. Just a reminder, the country was founded on separation of church and state. More importantly, I find it really interesting to hear repeated concerns of overtime pay Yet there's been an amendment to the budget to give a private law firm more money. We, Madison County taxpayers, still have zero transparency into what we're paying for. But based on the recent closed door session that both the auditor and county attorney were excluded from due to a conflict of interest, I would assume it directly relates to the lawsuit filed by Supervisor Stancil. Why do we have to pay for her legal counsel?

Your assumption is wrong. Please, elaborate. I will elaborate later. Go ahead. I don't want to take your time.

That's it. I want to give you all the time to elaborate on what we're paying for.

I'll do so during my board report. Well, I can do it now.

Let's do it.

I mean, I have three minutes. Okay.

What report is really important? It's an update.

It's an update. Thanks for your comments. Anyone else?

My name is Tim Moses, and I have a very simple yes or no question. Can you sit here and guarantee us tonight that that none of the roughly $60,000 that you've asked for for legal fees are going to your personal lawsuits against our county officials.

Yes, yes.

Okay, that's all I wanted to know.

Thanks for confirming that. Anyone else?

Hi, my name's Joshua from Baltimore. I just wanted to come up here tonight on our county's 180th birthday. Thank you guys for working through all the chaos and division and problems we've had. Just appreciate you guys all through. Thank you. Thank you, Josh.

Anyone else? Yeah, Brent Sharon. Just wanted to comment. Last night I saw a news reporter on KCCI, which was, Brant gave an interview. Just would like to see some consistency from our officials. At the beginning of the interview, she claimed the services for these legal teams were not expended conclusively for the county business. Within 30 seconds she recanted that and later she said she needs to make sure the bills are for the good of the Madison County Public. So she acted with certainty before and then uncertainty afterwards. I just feel like the interview on TVA, Ms. Brandt has said numerous times the storm needs to be calmed. I don't think that calms the storm whatsoever. And I think the more officials we should expect a little more consistency from that.

That's all I got. Okay, thank you, thank you. Anyone else? Okay.

I don't have prepared comments tonight, but I think two points have been made, calming the storm. So I would ask, what are you, all of our elected officials, doing with intention to come to the table and figure out how you all can work together on behalf of the people of Madison County? Thank you. That includes being respectful towards each other and respectful towards your constituents. For one example, after the Board of Health, I approached the Board of Health about some inconsistencies in their information. Supervisor Stancil accused me of spreading lies. I brought the receipts. I had the documentation. of unprofessionalism and toxic culture, I think 99.9% of the people in this room would like to see you address that with some intentional actions. The other thing I want to mention is that I'm sure I'm not the only person in the group who questions how you can be taking action on issues that affect our sheriff's department, our auditor's offices, and the county attorney when you have a lawsuit against those people. So I would ask that you perhaps recuse yourself from taking any action, at least where it comes to business, until your lawsuit is resolved. Thank you very much. I have no, in case you wanted to ask me, because you asked other people, I have nothing to enter into the record tonight.

Thanks.

Anyone else?

Joel Welch from Winterset. I think we're missing the overall question. Why does this board feel it's okay to spend $60,000 in tax money for legal fees? I'd rather see that go to schools, to the roads, or something else that we consider as important, not your damn legal fees.

Anyone else? Okay, we'll go ahead and move to the phone. Folks, if you wish to speak, please hit star six to unmute your phone and give your name and your town. You have three minutes to speak. Please note, though, if there's about a three second delay on the call for you guys. So be patient. We don't intend to talk over you. So go ahead. okay i don't hear any comment from folks on the phone so we'll go ahead and move to resolutions uh first resolution for board consideration is approving payout of personal and vacation time to find the barber moving from employee to elected official you um i have a motion to approve some drive for a second a discussion okay and for the public this is because you moved to an elected official all earned payout time this is the transition that's what this is for um all right another discussion all right uh any uh i'll go ahead and take the vote all in favor please vote aye aye all opposed motion carries all right the next resolution is approving the dnr construction evaluation we do this every year um so do i have a motion to approve so do i have a second second any discussion uh this is a manure management is what it is

they have to sometimes um their confinement they have to remember their management plan and this one happens to be legal management it's required yeah it's required yeah it's not like the hog confinement expansion it's different thank you for clarifying all right any other discussion all in favor please vote aye aye all opposed motion carries

The next one is approving Iowa Department of Transportation federal aid agreement for a city highway bridge program project. This is what Mike talked about earlier. Do I have a motion to approve? Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. The next one is approving tax abatement for a late mobile home credit for the following VIN. Do I have a motion to approve? Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Approving the tax abatement for an elderly credit for parcel that's given on the paperwork. Do I have a motion to approve? Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor, please vote aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. All right, we're going on to board reports. I will let someone else talk, but I do want to wish Madison County a happy birthday.

Happy 180th birthday.

She's doing good. So happy birthday, Madison County. So, all right, who would like to go first?

A couple of things I would like to add on upcoming agendas. Number one, safety. We're getting the safety committee back rolling. It had been dormant for several years. Our workman comp insurance rates are set to increase dramatically, and they're much higher than they should be. So I've been working with the committee on trying to develop that. We're making some progress. I know it's a little slower than I think all of us on the committee would like, but we're We did have the active shooter training that Deputy Kenney put on for county employees. Our intentions are to have a quarterly in-person safety training for the county employees and then monthly ongoing video training for everyone. What I would like to do is add as an agenda item, to just our bi-weekly, bi-monthly agendas, just safety as a line item, just so that it's top of mind, and we can continue to focus and make that a priority. So I'll be doing that for future agendas. I just wanted to make sure I was explaining why I'm doing that. So would that go under reports? That's what I'm thinking under the department head reports and just add as a line item. And possibly sometimes Mitch can present. You know, if there's nothing to add, it's literally just there's nothing to add for safety. But I would like a placeholder for it if it's okay with the board.

Are you good with that? I'm good with that.

yeah just informational just make sure we're we're making it a top of top of mind like i said there may not always be an update there may not be new information every month because it can't be to go off the agenda as long as it's just a simple reason um yeah i'm concerned about because workman's comp rates

increased dramatically this year but see now you're getting and now you're getting off here genuinely she's she's talking about working with conscience in our report they increased a lot this year so i'm concerned about safety as well we want to make sure that our employees are have the right tools so okay

Okay, next I've been doing some work with the elderly services building in that space that we are considering for veterans affairs. I think if we can refinish the space, I think it'd be a great space for them and be dedicated for them. They would have privacy, easily accessible, but I am going to continue to further vet that. I've met with one contractor on site. I've got two more meetings, actually three more coming up tomorrow and Thursday to meet on site trying to identify just some rough orders of magnitude and some budget numbers. Then I'll bring that to the board and we can discuss it. So potentially a work session going forward on that if that would be appropriate once I get the data or would we want to slide it into a normal

a normally scheduled meeting and just have a line item? I think we should do work sessions because we need to get the building sold. And if that requires, if we decide to use that building, it's going to require work, which means we'll have to bid it out and then it'll take some time. So I'd like to get the building sold by the end of this fiscal year if we can. I'd like to just get three bids and not... And just do it? Uh-huh.

Okay. Yeah.

We can't sell it for under what it's going to sell.

I'm talking about if we remodeled that elderly services space. Have you reached out to Veterans Affairs? I mean, I would approach them first before I come to this. Do they want to move up there?

Well, it's just a matter of time.

So I'm going to gather the data, and then we can talk about it. I'm getting more information about it. Next. Kelly replied regarding the insurance. I'm not sure if either of you have pursued health insurance options.

This one, we've looked at it, but it's been a while. I think the last time we looked at it, I don't know, Diane, I think it was when I first came on the board. We looked at ISAC. Yeah, we did. We looked at ISAC. Yeah. I'm not opposed to looking in for, you know, seeing what the prices are, you know, different. But we... Our current provider doesn't just do benefits. I think they work with third-party vendors too for like COBRA and stuff like that. So we want to make sure that you have the full picture on what exactly they do. It's not just medical benefits. But I don't know if ISAC does any of that either.

So I've talked to a few different supervisors from other counties that use them. They save significantly by doing so. I don't think the coverage is as good though. Well, I'd like to explore it because I understood our health insurance plan was really good and that hasn't been my personal experience. So I'd like to explore it and make sure that we are looking at options.

Okay.

So that's moving and Kelly did reply. She's waiting on Walmart and she should get some information back and I think they can turn around information to us pretty quickly. Then I also did appoint or applied for a grant we had for some of the strobes that we got. Those were approved, so we'll get books for that. The courthouse, that was actually already purchased. Oh, okay. So I applied, they approved, so yeah.

That's that $1,000 flat rate.

Yeah, that flat rate program. That's great. Yeah. But what I would like, I would like to talk about grants in a future meeting. I'd like to know more of what we can do to maybe capitalize on those grants and get our hands around that. So possibly an agenda item for two weeks that we can just have it as a line item and both of you. And then the other thing that I would also like to discuss is goals for 2026 and so possibly that's a work session we can kind of weave in i would just like to talk to the board about where you two see this going uh what uh initiatives you might have and goals and let's make sure we can find the common ones so we can all work together to get them done okay all right and that's a great idea thank you i attended seacov um

Since I've been a supervisor, we have Household Hazardous Waste Day, which many of you know. So the engineer and I go out. We make some volunteers help us, and we take all the nasty garbage out of your trucks, and the DNR takes it away. So that will be July 27th. I think it's on the 7th. Yeah, 7th. And it's at the fairgrounds in the front. We do it every year, and it's free. And then I've been... EMS and I are working with hospital on some things, and then budgets, budgets, budgets. So that's what I've done.

I've never degraded my statement. Do you want to present first? Can I finish when I move on? Okay. Are you okay? Okay. All right. So like the other two supervisors, we've been knee-deep in budgets for the last week and a half, two weeks. I had an NPO meeting. We received the first, I received the ADA report from the courthouse. I'm waiting for the ADA report from Annex. Once I get both, I will send it to the board. We can put it on our next agenda for public inspection. So hopefully we'll have that soon. I'll follow up with her tomorrow. We had the on-site review of our inspector at the courthouse. Reitholtz was here. Unfortunately, there was a communication mix up and OPN was not. So we, actually it was fine. I mean, we talked about it. I think it was just, I think it was both of our faults. But either way, we'll just kind of come back out and look. But they had some really good conversations with Reynolds. There's some things I think they acknowledged that could be possibly fixed. Some things look to appear to be a design issue. And that's why we'll have to have OPN take care of that. So hopefully I'll have more for you later, but they did come out for their first inspection. So that's good. The last thing I want to tell you is this is actually some fun news. I got a call from a gentleman from Omaha named Robert McClune. Four years ago, he was here working on the courthouse And a young lady came up to him for a raffle. They were raffling off a handmade grandfather clock. They made one for the band, to raise money for band, and one to raise money for the brownies. And they were taking tickets to raffle. And he says, I'll just give you a dollar for the raffle, and I don't need to fill out the form. So he filled out the form, and he won one of the grandfather clocks. People were so upset in the county, he was told by one of the supervisors to pick up the clock early in the morning so no one would see him leave. But anyway, they were upset that someone from Omaha won the clock. But anyway, that's the back story. The real story is that he has stage four cancer and he has no heirs and he wants to get the clock back to Madison County. When did he get the clock? 40 years ago. So that's before my time. So maybe some folks out there remember this. I don't know. But anyway, so he has no heirs. He wants to give it back to the county. He said he'll make arrangements to bring it back here because he knows it's a very delicate clock. It's a full-size grandfather clock. So I don't know if we want to put it in the courthouse or we want to put it in the museum. You'll have to ask me.

Some of that, too. I have a daughter-in-law who absolutely hates it, so her beautiful grandfather clock never ticks.

So anyway, I bring it up because I think it was a very generous offer that he, after 40 years, he thought of the county and how perfect for our county's birthday. So I gave him my number and my contact information. So once he's ready to get the clock back there, I'll reach out to Jared McDonald at the museum. I don't know if we want it in the courthouse. If you move it, you'll have to pay a clockmaker to redo it again.

He's going to make all those arrangements. He's going to pay for the moving. He's going to pay for it to be set up and everything.

He wants to make sure he's back for a time. We can put that on the main floor of the courthouse somewhere. I mean, we can see what it is. She was talking about the ticket mention. It does. And I always echo. And some people say that might drive our staff crazy. But anyway, I just wanted to share it because I think it's a, for him to think of us after 40 years, I think that's wonderful. So I wanted to share that with the board and the public that we have folks that outside our state that love our county. So that's very touching. So anyway, that's all I have for reports.

Yeah, I promised a statement. I'll read this. And this statement is going to be going out on my supervisor page later tonight. Happy 180th birthday, Madison County. I want to provide an update regarding the BOS outside counsel. The BOS outside counsel did not advise on any private cases. BOS Outside Counsel did review all pending litigation as is customary for attorneys when engaging a new client. The majority of BOS Outside legal costs incurred to date are a direct result of County Attorney Swanson's actions. There is a clear conflict of interest regarding County Attorney Swanson and Auditor Brandt's inclusion on BOS legal matters. Both County Attorney Swanson and Auditor Brandt are fully aware of those conflicts and know that we cannot disclose the specific information yet. I will continue to defer to BOS Legal Counsel's guidance regarding legal matters and greatly look forward to sharing more information with the public as soon as I am able to legally do so. Below is the link for my original post and as always, contact me directly for questions. Thank you. All right.

Moving on to old business. Discuss the contract policy updates. I know, I think Michelle had mentioned this earlier. I don't know if it's the same thing or not, but if you do, our contract policy is old. It does need an update. And considering the issues we've had last year regarding contracts being signed without the knowledge or approval of the supervisors, unfortunately, It's happened again. We fixed it. We addressed it. Everything was fine. However, I think we should have something official in writing so it does not happen a third time. Did you share the one I have on there with the other supervisors? Yep, that's the most recent. This one?

So this is for the... Well, I wanted to make sure you understood the why behind the Atkins.

Well, I'm not talking about the Atkins. Okay, good. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the other one. so anyway um however so we were able to address that the board addressed it professionally and all that kind of stuff without a lot of people and i think if we have something in writing going forward we can prevent that from happening again um so i would like to work with michelle because she's helped with it there's one we wrote that one yes we helped we worked on that together so I would like to do that with to make sure and then bring it back to the board so we can have an updated contract policy so everybody's on the same page all elected officials know what they can and can't do and so Michelle you and Michelle will work on it yes if the board is okay with that yes yes thank you to both of you for working on that okay um so that's all I wanted to discuss you guys have any questions on that okay Okay, so the next one is new business discussion of meeting location options to ensure confidentiality during closed sessions. The reason why I bring this up is because I've had multiple people contact me and I see multiple Facebook posts that whatever is said in this room during closed session can be heard outside. We have elected officials, county employees, and the press listening at the door. One press member was actually filming and zooming in on our attorney's paperwork. And it made it on the broadcast. That is an issue. So I don't think we can have these meetings here longer in this room. So I'm asking the board for a potential room to where we can still have the open session, vote, discuss that. And then when we go into closed session, it actually is a room where we can have confidential conversations where people that are not pretty and that should not be pretty in those conversations can hear it.

Where could we potentially go where people aren't going to sit there and sit outside the door and hold their ear to the door the whole time?

Let's stop having closed session and let's put, if you move on.

We're much larger than the city of Winterset.

We've had less Closed sessions. So it's rare. It's not a normal occurrence. It's not a normal occurrence.

We have way too much closed session. And if you start moving around in secret locations, do you think people are going to be furious?

It's not going to be a serious secret. We post it just like a normal post.

No.

Diane, we've had closed sessions. For the last five years I've been here.

You've never had all this controversy.

Well, I'm not, I can't, I can't speak to that. People can hear outside their door. Do you want people listening when we're shouting at each other?

Okay. That's your only warning or you will be asked to leave, Ms. Brenner. That's it.

Diane, do you really want to have a closed session here when we were talking about an employee? When people can hear outside, do you want that?

I don't want that. You want to move it around. I don't. Let's move on.

No, I'm not going to move on. Yeah, we are going to move on. what i don't know well it's two against one you're gonna vote to move it on so that's right we're not doing any votes it's a discussion it's gonna happen so i would like to know what room you think would be good to where people are not listening at the door i will send pictures of people listening at the floor how about in the basement in the furnace room okay for the living room i don't know somebody to come around that exterior door and probably listen so

I mean, no, I'm not for it. Diane, there is a purpose, and I will close the closed session. The purpose seems like we're so sneaky.

Diane, you know exactly what was discussed in that closed session. I do. Yes. So, Diane, I do not want to see a precedent where people can listen to our meetings in closed session when they're supposed to be confidential, because that puts the county at risk.

I think we're at risk now. Yeah. Okay.

So in the future, if a closed session is needed, then we can have it in a different location.

So I'm not quite sure what would be good. So the reason why I brought this up is I wanted you guys to brainstorm and have different ideas.

Pizza ranch.

So anyway, so if you guys can think of a location that would be available to this, because obviously this location does not work if members of the public and the press can visit in on our closed sessions with our attorneys.

We do have an email. Looks time to end the entertainment for these folks. So, okay.

So moving on to 20.6, my ladies, we'll interview and update. Who's Ryan here?

no and he said his next meeting is on 127 he did send you a report he's moving forward okay okay all right uh anything else otherwise i'll entertain a motion to adjourn second all in favor please vote aye aye aye all opposed motion carries we are adjourned thank you thank you