Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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

I will make the motion to approve today's agenda. I will second. Call for a vote. Tippett. Aye. Zeman. Aye. Wolzine.

Minutes.

I did read the minutes. I didn't find anything that appeared out of order. Okay. I discovered two and missed out, and they all look good.

So I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Okay.

You want to second that?

I'll second that. Okay. Call for a vote. Chiffon, aye. Maloney, aye. Bowles, aye.

How about let's jump on the liquor license real quick.

Yep, so I think we did the temporary fold for Bloomsbury last week. So it was for a two-week hold. So this particular one is for Cedar Ridge Vineyard to be at that location. so we need to approve this one for them and then that'll put Bloomsbury back on track after this one.

And this is for the five-day?

Yep, the temporary one.

Yep, everything's here.

Last week, yep, special event, but it's going to be held at Bloomsbury. At Bloomsbury. That's why they have to suspend theirs so that you can use it. Yep.

I would make the motion to approve the Class C Liquor License for Cedar Ridge Vineyard LLC at Bloomsbury Farm for an event for five days.

Call for a vote. Tippett, aye. Neiman, aye. Haley, what can you tell me about the budget hearing that you want us at?

Yep, so as you know, Shelby needs an amendment amount too for that grant. She's one of them with a couple different needs for the amendment. So I was hoping to get a set of public hearing for October 13th at 9th. I may need to put something for insurance in my office, but I'm trying to make it work with what I got.

You want to go later?

There's a couple other. No, October 13th should work, so I should be able to get my figures and amounts to publication. There's also just a couple others that we might need to do for the Central Iowa again, just because of the delinquencies. When I figured out there was one other one, but I'll make sure you guys are aware of what those are.

Yeah, I haven't discussed with Ray the Central Iowa yet.

they're coming next they're gonna be here that's what I'll be here yes but well that's for my budget sorry yeah sorry

We need a motion. I'll make a motion to set a budget amendment hearing for the 15th of October at 930.

I mean, yes, budget amendments right now, to tell you the truth. Do we have a... Everything's going to be published and put out.

I will email you guys what those amounts of money are.

We'll have a chance for discussion. Yes. So I'll move to second that. Okay. Go for a vote. Tippett. Aye. Neiman, aye.

Derek. Yes, thank you. I know we spoke on, I spoke with Tracy on the phone and was asked to draft a letter up to the supervisors. I apologize that, you know, Jenna says this goes to the Lane County Zone Zoning Commission. It's actually the public health, their public health. in regards to the Morgan Valley Energy Center and discussing their air construction permit application which was submitted towards the end of July for the public sake The letter is simply addressing a certain part of the application. They're requesting a waiver of using certain numbers for CO2, PM2.5 and PM10, which is discussing the size of particles that could be harmful. to the human and that they are going to be more than the de minimis values that the federal's the vets have in mind for this and they were asking for a waiver to use different data from farther sources for their pre-construction application so they can actually move forth and forego the year-long pre-construction monitoring that's required when these levels are exceeded and so they want to use a Davenport monitor for the CO2 CO levels and then the closest would be seven miles and then the other proposed run would be like an Iowa City or data from a monitor for the PM's levels. And it's essentially saying that if they're requesting this, they should undergo the actual year-long monitoring because it affects both Linden and Bend County residents. And it should be concerning that they're asking this kind of waiver already. That's what it kind of says in the letter. And it's also going to be sent to the Loon County Board of Supervisors. Good. We gentlemen should have that for you.

I do. I would agree that Davenport readings and readings in Johnson County aren't doing anything for our citizens. So I'd like to have some real numbers to know what we're looking at here.

It is concerning that they're already, you know they're going to exceed and they want them to just turn their back on us. That's not the way.

Once it's in, there it is. so i would take a motion and if nobody wants to make it i will make it that we will send this letter to the public health uh yes excuse me lynn county public health and the lynn county three supervisors uh i was also wondering if we could send it also along to uh zoning

It's just not in the letter, which I don't think it's that big of a deal. No. No. I think they should get a copy as well.

Yes, they should be attached too.

Okay.

And I sent you all their names. You could just probably just send it to their chairman. Okay. Okay. That's my motion. Perfect.

I would second that motion.

Okay. I'll call for a vote. Chippewa, aye.

Scheman, aye.

Bowles, aye. I'm going to walk right there.

What's that? If they sign all three, then you'll have all original signatures. Okay, good.

Do you want these?

Sure. And then I know Haley's going to need one for her copy. So, I mean, honestly, you can get her one and I can just scan her.

Were you emailing him or you were asking him to mail him a hard copy? I don't know.

I was going to point out. I don't want to get into that, because that will be a while. We've got about five minutes there, Gabe.

How about reports?

We had the meeting entailment with the pool, which went well.

I thought it was... Yeah, I liked the question and the answers at the end too, did you?

Yes. Fortunately, I don't get to sit in on that because we have our separate meeting.

I asked a couple that I needed to know. Okay, yeah.

Good, yeah, because I don't have anything to do with that. But I do have a Heartland Zoom... that I understand is gonna be 100% closed sessions. I have no idea what that's all about.

Time to go to a private room. Next Tuesday, the folks from Central Iowa Juvenile Detention will be here so we can discuss their 28E agreement with them.

Is that at 9.30? I think she's going to be here right at a land use meeting at 9.30.

Because we do have land use right here, right?

Yep. So I think she's going to be here right out of the box. Yep, 9 o'clock. Ruth? Yep. Yep.

Because of that original 28E draft, it didn't even have us listed.

Well, we're not members yet.

Right, so we can't really approve it if we're not listed at the...

we have to approve the 2080 and then they would approve us as a member but that's yet to be seen yeah and conservation last night they're gearing up for their three-day conservation meeting starting off with Linn County they're cooperating with Linn County, so they will be taking bus tours of all our parks in Benton County, our equipment out at Rogers and everything, so.

This is a joint one like their district one, right?

Yes, yes. They're expecting 200 and some people to attend this. So, a lot of people.

And the golf at Wildcat, isn't it? Is that the right one?

I don't know. Don't know, I can't tell you. I know the supper's tonight.

Is anybody going to anything?

All the board members are attending. All three of you? Conservation board members. That's about it.

Gabe, we're close enough.

Yeah, if you wouldn't mind. No, that's fine. Because I think she had some tidbits from that, too. She found out yesterday, maybe?

She's not finished.

Not that I can think of. Josh, your smell is gone, I was told.

The horse is good.

Okay.

Must have worked.

Mm-hmm.

Must have worked. All right.

Without a question, I hope to see Matt. Yep.

I didn't want to get into recycling.

I just didn't know if they were here for the Morgan Valley.

Yeah, I suppose. You guys are here? Got any comments?

We were wondering if you could also include the DNR into this letter as well. Sure.

We have a

we have a list of about five people that you can email that to okay is that the one sent from john yeah john okay i think i think i remember seeing that okay so you have those yeah okay i can do that and then also put it on the docket oh for the iuc yeah i do and i can uh file it on behalf of the

I'll just amend your motion to include those.

Okay. Go back to revisit it. We're going to amend my motion to add all the ones that are in that letter. How does that sound?

DNR and submit to the IEP. Utility board.

Utility board. Yep. Them two. I'm amending my motion to add them a copy of the same letter too. Do you want to second my amendment?

I will second that amendment.

Call for a vote.

Chippewa, aye.

Seaman, aye. There's your amendment now. All right, very good.

We're doing public comments right now for Morgan Alley. Rob Hirsch, 3388 73rd Street. they can't wait until you have a hearing on the reason for southeast corner you have to have a very good is that what it is and they have a plan is a very bad especially on the twenty-eighth at six p.m. effort and i think that means that we're going to show The supervisors will also show up and voice their opposition or opinions on the re-run as well.

It's just for Morgan Valley.

Yep.

They pulled it out of the 21st meeting to have a special meeting for 28th at Hotel Kirkwood.

It's on the 28th this month, you said?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Monday.

Six o'clock, if I remember right.

Mm-hmm. Ms. Lundberg.

I'm here to ask you guys to revamp the recent safety class policy. Wednesday after the policy passed I went in got my yearly exam and They were told that Benton County is not paying for nothing that the employee needs to be fully charged And that Benton County was reimbursing Okay Well as you can see on the first page Same glasses I have on, prescription just changed a little bit, just a little bit. These are $480 that cost me. The one below are sunglasses, exact same thing, just a little stronger prescription, $598. So it cost me $1,098 to get out of there last Wednesday. If you turn to page two, You'll see this is what the taxpayer's been paying for my glasses, $178. This was a good benefit to us that's been taken away from us. And you can see that the taxpayers are paying more money for my glasses if you guys are reimbursing the $250 than what it's costing them to pay them outright. The next page is just from 2024. Same glasses, just a little stronger prescription, which is $173. And the last page is just the receipt that I paid. I'd like to different. the guys that wear glasses out at Secondary Roads, and they come right out and told me that there's no way we could afford it if we broke our glasses today. I was lucky I had flex spending. Now if I made, you know, 80, 90 thousand, it wouldn't make any difference. I'm asking you guys to go back to the way it was. Alicia and I come up with a couple different ways and she might want to add on to it.

So when we, when the safety committee came up with this number, we were looking at what the county was charged. More likely to cover about everybody. I looked back, there was a couple that were 270, so minimal amounts, okay? Well, we didn't realize that apparently the county gets that huge of a discount by using these companies, like this is the SafeVision by Hoya. Originally we used Bell Optical. I need to contact them to get their numbers too, but this is what Doug Kearns, the shop foreman, gave me. He only had their contact because Bill B's office here in town wanted us to use this instead of Bell. But basically all the eye doctor's doing is filling this, the form that guys take to the eye doctor out, and they're sending it in for them. So they're not getting the glasses, they're not doing anything, it's all through that company, and they get that much of a discount by using, having an account, the county having an account, I guess. It just seems astronomical, but. So I have, they must have different plans. What we used to have, Before we changed the policy, I think there was no co-pays. Basically, the county covered it, and the most was the 270. So these would be all the co-pays if there was one. When it got first set up with this Hoya, there was co-pays, which they didn't realize that until someone had brought it up. They used to never pay. So I'll give you that. There's plan four and two or something. I got this late yesterday afternoon, so I want to get ahold of this guy and see what's one and three. So yeah, I definitely think it needs to be reworded. I wouldn't have thought it was that much of a difference. We need to get Gabe situated since he unfortunately was the guinea pig here. And either get his money back or, because they already ordered him and that stuff, and it was through his flex, so we're going to reimburse him. However you guys want to do that. But the other ways we thought, and like I said, I'll have to contact this Nick and see what the other options might be, or like if you can do a max co-pay. or a minimum co-pay and then account and cover the rest, but a max 270 or I don't know what else they would have. First, I thought, well, we could run it through anything over through payroll, but then again, then it's hard for them to use their flex spending. I don't know how the company would handle like a invoice from the auditor's office that stated, you know, I took this out of their payroll for safety glasses if they had that plus their invoice from the or the company that the county would have for accounts payable. So that's kind of a few options. I did reword the policy, highlighted what I changed. I don't know if it's easier just to temporary lift it, or I mean, we still need a safety glass policy. We never really had anything written in place. So all we're changing is how much the county is paying. So for this portion, I just said, we're going to cover anything, but anything over $250 just needs to be pre-approved by the department head. If all of a sudden they're like, oh, they're going to be $500, you'd be like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What else are you getting that's making that so much? Like on his, the no-line bifocals was what really increased it. But you don't want him to have different glasses than what he's used to when he's operating machinery. Especially when he's in my area, so.

Were you signed up for vision?

Yes, but they do not cover safety glasses at all. Nothing.

And honestly, the frames were

Yeah, we learned that when I checked into it and she checked into it and So I've been paying, you know, I've been on the insurance for a year or whatever we've had it and it's no good to me The next question The old policy or the one that we just passed it says up to 250

for each pair. So would he be classified for 500? Yeah, he would.

I mean, it's so cost him over 500 for two pair. And the two pair was because the policy just started, so that's why he got the two pair. Otherwise, it would be one.

But the county gets the big discount when we run it through the discount.

Yeah. Or through the county. I can't have them use Gabe's name on it. They have to use the county. So I was like, well, could we use the company? like bill it to the employee and that was done. I'm sure a company, they only know they're getting paid, so they're not worried.

Not to put you on the spot, which I'm gonna. How many people have, the sheriff's department, probably conservation, secondary roads, of course. How many people, ballpark figure, have to have the safety glasses or do wear safety glasses prescription?

Anything I've seen run through these companies, the Spoya and Bell Optical, has all been through secondary loads. I don't know the conservation. I know they have their own policy as well, and they're required when they're cutting and all that. They all just have regular... I'm trying to think who all wears glasses out there. They just have stuff that goes over their glasses, or they're just working without themselves before. I did ask Buchanan County and Secondary Roads. They paid them, which I didn't get more into, because I was asking the auditor's office, and she got it from Roads. So I didn't go into more detail, but I'm like, so they're all paying this amount, or are they getting them somehow cheaper too that You know, and the whole point of the 250 is what we'll cover is so they can go anywhere. Because a lot of these eye doctors, they don't want to deal with this, so they don't. And so then they're limited to where they can go. And then with safety glasses, you're limited on the frames. And some people, these won't work on my face or, you know, they have very limited options from what I've been told. So that was the whole point. I was trying to get, you know, just go get what you want and then it's comfortable and we'll reimburse you.

Well, that didn't work out. As you can see, to make the lenses safety-proof, they have to have the lenses themselves, and then they put on a polycarbon. So there's another expense onto it.

Yeah, and that's all the OSHA standards.

And I've been going to... They'll be out here since I've had glasses.

But you were able to walk them through the other way.

They automatically did it. The most I ever paid out there was $45 for an exam and something else, but when she printed all this out and told me it was $1,098, I was like, whoa, whoa. And then so I talked to Alicia about it, and she got doing some checking, and I called out there, and what they told me is, well, we're a business. We've got to make money, too. Yeah, I understand that. But that's a pretty good-sized markup. Yeah, the exam went through the insurance, our health insurance, not our eye insurance. But it's not like I'm trying to get some... high-tech pair of glasses. I'm just trying to get the same glasses with a little stronger eyeballs, you know.

Every time I go in, just a little cheek.

Yep, just a little bit, yep.

And that's where the policy, if the prints are still good, no matter what we do, you know, they can get different lenses, different prescription change, but if they're ruined, then they can get great. Like I said, the prints are cheap.

So essentially it's a logistical thing of who you go to and it's painted, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll throw my two cents in right now. One, I just assume you investigate this Nick and sent you this information. You can kind of use him for a case scenario. All right. The other thing I'm thinking about, do away with the total dollar amount. If you want to keep that, just get rid of it and just say 70, 75% the county would pick up, my opinion. That way they can still go where they want to go, but yet that person is still going to be responsible for, in your case, $250 to $300 for that new parent class.

I see what you're saying. If you're saying 75%. Pay 75%. We need a cap up to whatever the price is. So they could go out and spend it. So it could be $2,500. We need to have a cap on it that says 75% up to a certain amount.

Just because otherwise how do you budget? That's why I'm hoping this policy, the new guy, would be cheaper.

You know what I mean?

But they won't run it through there if it's billed directly to the employee.

So it's still going to be that cost, and it's going to be 75% of that $1,000.

I know. If it's billed to that county, will they run it through there?

Yeah, but... That's why you've got to talk to this guy to find out if the savings...

Currently, what he had, the max we would pay is $2,000. Right. So I mean... and that was 173 or 178 a pair, so to me, the county would still save money right there.

Is it a place like, for instance, like with my glasses, I got a pair, which is on my meal, which I just need to go to the eye doctor. They gave me a slip for my prescription, and I just gave it to the pair because they're more reasonable. Could you do that with these?

Yeah, from my understanding, this is just what the doctor fills out with the prescription, and what they highlighted is what is needed for the prescription. but your options are a lot more limited. I don't know if online, I'm sure there's options out there too.

Supposedly what she said is the safety frames have to go through a special lab. That's why I don't know all the logistics. Getting them online, Are they a true safety, you know, what Meyer and Watts? You know, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm just, that was a big shock to me.

I can imagine that.

You know. Yeah, if I wouldn't have had flex spending, there's no way I could get them. There's no way whatsoever.

That's what paid for you, the contact only. He wins and then he loses.

I mean, Alicia and I, like I said, talked about different ways of doing it. You know, when you guys set an amount, $200, $250, whatever, anything over that, comes out of the employee's check or payroll. But as she said, you know, with the flex spending,

Or it's simple as she said department head anything over a certain amount but as you can see you know you guys are offering the $250

which was costing taxpayers $178. So in a way, if you look at it that way, you're costing taxpayers more money. Yes, $75, but still, it adds up. I mean, and yeah. As far as employees, I don't know. Do bills get worse?

I don't have a clue. A lot of change in the roads that don't go on the same way.

Gentleman. That's Tracy, 7 to 10, Secretary of the Police. I'm not sure. It's a rough guess, 7 to 10, Secretary of the Police. You're correct in one of those.

Okay.

Dave, you got any guys that would want them?

We're just looking at the polls yet. But, you know, we don't, you know, we don't, you know, we're not out pushing, you know.

So I guess my opinion is check with that and see what kind of deal we can cut. You got your glasses on. You have them ready? They're ordered.

They are ordered.

We're going to have to work something out to cover them.

I paid for them last Wednesday and they ordered them. When I called in the morning I said I had an eye appointment at 3.30 and I was told well I need to get down there and Tell them the new policy. Now, if this policy is going to change, I would like it to come from the auditor's office. They're the ones that's in charge of this. Not here, say there, say they. A letter.

Yeah, I can send it. I mean, I know if you use Martin and Bill, you can distract the letter, and then if anybody goes anywhere else. But these aren't contracts with me. We have an account and this is what we set up. Like I said, I can get the other figures. Maybe they do a $45 copay or whatever they had in the beginning and then we cover the rest of it. Okay. But I can see what those other few plans would be and then I'll get ahold of Bell Optima because we didn't have any contact with them yet.

Okay.

But I just wanted to get him taken care of first.

I'm special. You're right, I'm the guinea pig in this deal.

I already told them sorry for all that.

I would not have thought... You guys didn't have the full... The way it sounds, you didn't have the full amount to pass this. Or, you know, to pass the last... But now that it's in front of you... Maximum amount, sorry. Yeah. Now that's in front of you.

Which I think I've had calls prior to this from the eye doctors asking what our cap was before we were discussed it. So I think that is a normal other people do the cap.

I mean, it's a great benefit for us guys that wear glasses. Sure does. And if we have, you know, we had to have safety glasses for working on cutting and grinding. It's a big benefit for us. We have to have it. So I don't know exactly, the union had wording in the last contract, and I can't remember exactly how it was stated, but they just always went with that, as in if the employer requires safety glasses, you'd have to look back on, I can't remember the exact wording, that they would supply them. But I know that secondary road supplies now non-prescription safety glasses. You know, and they do make flip-over things that you can put on regular glasses, which, once again, then the insurance would pay $130 for street glasses. But now how much them are, I don't know.

Those can be costly, too. Or, well, those, but I mean like regular glasses can be... But I just wear these all the time. I don't need street glasses. And the way we understood it is that the insurance would pick up. And they don't.

That first set you got minus the 50 bucks for the polycarb, safety upgrade, that's pretty close to what I paid.

They're pricey.

Oh. Let's leave it at that. I don't know how long you want to...

I'll try to get some answers this week. Yeah.

Are you going to wait a week, two weeks?

We can put it on for next week. I'll call and...

Sorry you had to be guinea pig, Gabe, but it's good that it came to us now.

Well, I've been working with Leshen when I got it, you know, and just trying to figure something else out because I can't afford that every year because my eyeballs change every night.

Every year. The best way to...

Please mind him. It's just a little every year. Every year it does.

That's the way to reimburse him because he used his flex. I don't know if we can talk to the eye doctor and get them a check or credit his flex back or just reimburse him directly.

We'll figure something out. Let's get this. We'll take care of you. Yeah.

I appreciate it, gentlemen, and thank you for your time. And hopefully we get something figured out.

Yeah, we will. All right. Thank you. I do, and I guess we get back.

Yeah. Yeah. Table it for one week.

Or until she's ready to get it back. As long as they get back to her.

I spoke with Jeff Holmes and Henry. Did he use your name? Anyway.

Yeah. He's on their VA commission.

Yes. They just had some questions. I handled it out in the hallway, so we're good.

Okay. So we don't need to publicly discuss anything. Okay. Great.

That's item nine? Yes. Okay.

I forgot Jeff Haynes is on there now. Yep. And then the Sahanik is the third.

Mike.

See you guys.

Thanks, guys.

Have a great day.

Yep, it's in my car.

I'll make a motion to table the aye.

Safety glass policy? Yep. I'll make a motion to table the approval of the changes to the safety glass policy pending further information and would brought up at a later date.

I'll second that. Call for a vote. Tippett, aye.

Damon, aye. Bowles, aye. Recycling men, here we go.

So we had a few inquiries last week, and I think Ron was asked in the public as well, of who handled those recycling bins, who owned them, etc. So I just thought this would be a great time to share that in the public. Those bins are taken twice a week, normally Monday and Fridays. Obviously, if weather's permitting, snow or a holiday, they can alter that schedule. And that's just the Benton ones. So I think that was the main topic, obviously, for those sightings. And we do pay Curtis to haul them back and forth. And then we also pay those other vendors for the sorting and stuff. I know Myron can talk on some of that, too. The history means to have more bins, right, Myron? In the county, too?

uh we used to have trailers many years ago that were in every city and the county was the landfill when curbside pickup was made a part of city collection the majority of the cities asked for those trailers to be removed from the said towns they didn't they were necessary and didn't want to be responsible for the activities around them. So outside of Vinton and Belle Plaine, we still have some of them scattered around the county that are on secondary roads, maintainer shed blocks. Whether that be in town, as in the case of Van Horn, There's one in live camera. There's one outside of Garrison at the maintainer shed.

Sheldberg, I know.

Sheldberg maintainer shed.

Is that when we were having issues and that has been resolved with the camera too, correct?

But then, as Haley mentioned, it's being serviced twice a week, typically on Fridays and Mondays. I know it's usually about the month of July there was nine trip charges for servicing and one didn't. Whereas like Bell Plain, which is the same size container, was once a week for large 20-yard containers purchased that were one place to then one placed in Bell Plain and then there were some used smaller containers that were purchased from City Garden that are that make up the comprise the other locations and currently Curti is servicing those five days a week has created a pattern, kind of followed a pattern of use and set up a schedule based on that. What they find at least when dumping the material on the floor at the recycling facility is that there are a lot of boxes that aren't broken down so you end up hauling a lot of air to Cedar Rapids. these are intended for most rural residents you have it set up in your budget that 10 is paid out of general basic and 90 of these expenses are paid on rural services and i gave them the three-yearly report from last fiscal year so you can the office manager at secondary roads takes care of the invoicing

the last fiscal year we spent $7,623.44 out of general basic and then $68,610.93 out of rural services and that that's not covering our quarterly payment we pay the landfill we pay them $226,980 a year to the landfill for our allocations in addition to those. I just thought that we needed to address that to the public with the concerns and recent articles that were circulating.

The questions I had was who did they belong to? We own them. KERDI services them. And the other big question was did we need to have the Vinton one emptied more? I can't see emptying it more than twice a week personally. Are we getting by on the other ones once a week? Yes.

There's an occasional surge here and there. I know that cut down on some vandalism or, you know, there are, when the container gets full, I can't guarantee you what day it is, I don't know exactly what the schedule is as to which town it was picked up, but there is an off chance that somebody may have to make a visit to the site a second time because the container's full or maybe the container's being extra container that he usually takes to a location, but depending on how his truck and drivers are set up, at one time he had to have two different trucks because the two large containers, the one in Van Horn, excuse me, the one in Benton and the one in Belle Plaine needed a different truck than the smaller containers. I believe the equipment he has now can service both with one truck, so that's that there are times where the one in Belle Plaine or the one in Vinton may be gone for a short amount of time. Until they can make that trip. To be dumped and returned. Yes.

Or maybe they are full, you know, and tomorrow it'll be... Well, I think a lot of the problem is folks are not breaking down the boxes.

yeah that's when we talked with Eric last week he was at the heartland meeting too and he said that same thing now whether or not you have more you have curbside collection in the city of mitten available to residents i do not know how the city of mitten handles all of their commercial businesses uh businesses and whether they are assisting with that or if that's left up to the business. And I know years ago, the county had a large semi-trailer parked out at Secondary Roads when they had their own, when the county had their own personnel addressing recycling, and cardboard was taken out there. That trailer, very heavily used by businesses in the city of Pitt. When that trailer... You go back even earlier than that in time, I think when Family Foods was operational and bitten, I think they were taking cardboard from businesses, bailing it, because they had a bailer, and accepting cardboard to create more bails, but they had a market to get rid of bailed cardboard. That grocery store doesn't exist in town, nor does that bailer.

I know in the past, the problem was over there by the courthouse. We had mattresses and bed springs showed up. We had brush showed up. That's why the cameras come to be.

Yeah, so it wasn't just recycling that the people recited.

No, it wasn't that it was full. This other stuff was there that shouldn't have been there. I guess we did the unfinished business. Public comments. I got some questions about recycling.

Sure. Where are the wagons currently in the rural areas?

There's one just east outside of Garrison. Okay. There's one at Watkins on the city lot. There's one in Van Horn on the maintainer shed. The Bell Plain at the grocery store, back on the south side of the grocery store in the back part of the night. Sheltsburg at the maintainer shed on the, just outside, west of town. And what else? Where is the one here in town?

Straight east. Northeast corner, across the road.

There's a little garage there first, and then it's on the side of it.

The northeast corner. In years past, I think the county had an ordinance where trash haulers had to provide curbside recycling. And then that was done away with. I don't think that's not in effect now. Yes, it is. So you're saying that Klusner is supposed to recycle for rural residents? Yeah, even for rural. They're not. Yep. The guy that we had before that, Blue Docks, I think it was. They did. But we've called several of us in our neighborhood, and they'd say, no, we're not recycling. The cities, yes, but not in the booties.

Yeah, they used to. J&R, did they recycle in the county areas?

I don't know that. I don't know. I don't want to say one way or another. I don't get into that.

So rural garbage pickups, they're contracted through who?

Each person gets their own guy that they want to hire. Whoever the resident is, they... For instance, the city of Watkins now, since two years ago, they have three different haulers for that town. up to the citizen or the resident of that house who they want to get and what day they pick up the garbage. So you go to that town, there's garbage cans every day of the week, Monday through Friday outside the house.

We have an ordinance that says that they have to provide

What was ordinance number 44? I'm just making sure we never repealed that one.

I don't think we never did. I know I'm not for recycling.

You're not for it?

I'm not for it. I don't know if you go to... Colorado. It was repealed. Wisconsin don't even do nickel cans or glass bottles, you know, beer bottles. North Carolina doesn't. It was repealed.

We adopted our court of ordinances in 22 and we did all that. It's listed as repealed.

What was the thinking be right there? Why we repealed it? It costs a lot more money to recycle than it does to bury it.

Does that go for paper products too?

Yes. I mean it goes for any kind of recycling. Recycling right now, as of yesterday, because I was just dealing with a, how can I say this, a church that's getting new hymnals. They're going to have about five, six, seven hundred hymnals. They don't need no more. Nobody wants them. The hymns were actually printed like in the 70s. Okay. Can we recycle them? I said, okay. I called down to Cedar Rapids. Yeah, they'd take them. It would cost them close to over $100 to get rid of these hymns. So I said, your other option is you burn them. So it costs $40 to bury something at the landfill. compared to $110 a ton to recycle. So really, if you're looking at money, it's a no-brainer. Yes, and I understand why we kind of drug our feet on them, because it took how many years to get everybody to recycle? So everybody recycled. Now the cardboard ain't worth nothing. The glass ain't worth nothing. Nothing's worth nothing. Even paper. Yeah, it's not worth nothing.

Didn't it cost the county money to get rid of a bunch of glass?

Yes. Now we got down on the landfill, we got a glass bin down there that they can throw their bottles and stuff in there. And that's... We got a company out of Missouri. I don't want to throw them under the bus. A company that comes up and gets the glass for free. It don't cost us nothing, but we are keeping it out of the landfill. So technically, yes, we are recycling it, and they are reusing that glass. But they're only coming to the landfill. Yes. because they come up with a semi and they load all that glass up and they take it back to Missouri to the plant. So that was a win-win, you know, when you look at it. You're saving space from the landfill, from burying it. You know, of course, metal we recycle.

So that.

It is what it is. The hope is someday it'll be worth something that we can make money recycling. But as of today, no.

Well, I've heard enough horror stories that we do or did ship plastics to China and then they just got thrown overboard somewhere in the Pacific.

They used to take all our recycling stuff. Any more public comments?

Just fast. Becky Yance from Atkins. I just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys directing the county attorney to file as an intervener with the IUC for the Morgan Valley. The proposed plan there. Living in Atkins now, that's the big topic. But I think the county probably has a lot more sway with the IUC than everyone individually. So I appreciate the county taking the reins with that. What they're trying to do when we have zero positive impact to the county is absurd and I think that the Linn County supervisors seem to be open to hearing that so I appreciate that you're also working with them there they go