Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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

Somebody's got to keep going, Richard.

You're right.

Thank you. It's good to see everybody come back with all their fingers and toes. I know a few odd bruises and places, but glad to see everybody made it through the four. I think there was some great celebrations around. I'd sit outside in what I call my bin driveway, and you could look 360 degrees Saturday night, and I could watch Some of the prettiest fireworks from all over. I mean, it was nice. They were, yeah, somebody spent a lot of money. A motion for the consent agenda. I'll make a motion. Second. Consent agenda consists of the agenda before us. Minutes from the June 30th, 2026 Board of Supervisors meeting. Recorders report and permit reports. Any other questions or concerns? Not all those in favor? Aye. We have no liquor license.

We're up to public comment. Oh, I have some. Regarding the resolution to put

on the ballot for November, the increase to five supervisors. I strongly encourage supervisors to vote yes. And I want to make sure that everybody understands, I think we all do in this room, this is not a vote for you guys to just say we're doing it. It's a vote to put it on the ballot to let the people decide. This is a complex issue. I know not everybody's for it. There's a lot of Even in my own mind, there's a lot of issues, and our little Mills County working group doesn't even all agree. So we understand this is very complex, but we're still desiring to let the people make that choice. We heard five people spoke last week. Three were for it, and two got up and spoke against it. One of them was because They didn't think there had been enough time to study the issue. This issue's kind of been on the horizon and talked about for two election cycles. So it's not a matter of time. We've had plenty of time to think through it. Now's the time for action. Sandy went and put out a very detailed survey to the population prior to a vote for the primary. And although she didn't have thousands of people respond, she had several hundred, 77% of the respondents on her survey before putting it on the ballot. Additionally, all three candidates that ran during the primary and two of our sitting supervisors all supported in their public campaigns. So I'm hoping that at least the two supervisors that made this part of their platform and said that they supported this to the public will vote for it today.

Also, our little group has talked about the money piece of it.

I think if you go through this and look at it very hard and come up with a calculation, we can probably add two people for a little over $100,000, which we are to show how that might be accomplished. Worst case scenario is at $80,000 a supervisor, it's $160,000 increase. The last thing I'd like to say is when I first brought this and put it on the agenda, that was roughly three weeks ago. And I asked that we do something rather, I won't say quickly, but let's not delay because that will cut into the time for us to actually collect signatures. We've now cost three weeks of computers to the public to be artificial delay and actually bringing this to a vote today. Thank you.

Good morning board. I'm Dan Stanley. I also spoke last week about having you guys vote to put this resolution the three to five on the ballot. You know, it's interesting, we're celebrating our 250th anniversary for independence. And our founding fathers, a little over 250 years ago, wrote the Declaration of Independence, which states that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governor. And when a form of government becomes inadequate, it is the right of the people to alter it. Now, I'm not saying that three board supervisors in had equipment. I don't know. I haven't even made up my mind yet. But there are, as stated, there are a lot of people in Mills County that believe that five would be better. So I just think that, I mean, the Iowa Code gives you the authority to place this question on the ballot. And I think you should pass it. trust the voters of Mills County to make up their minds. They'll have an opportunity to discuss it, to debate it, and research it. And as the Mills County Matters group will put pro and con information on there, even if they're a little biased and maybe lean one way, the people in Mills County are smart. They'll be able to look, look up the information, look at the other counties that have done this, and decide for themselves. So I would urge you to put this on the back.

Thank you. I also agree with him about both of them.

The resolution, you know, vote it up so that people can decide on their own, whether you're for or against it. I think we need a choice to decide what we want to do.

And once and for all, that would put the matter to bed. Yeah, it would.

And also, you need to tell people to speak up. If you want me to, I'll tell them how to speak up. That's all.

Thank you very much. We'll put that on hold, though.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Lucy Wilson. I'm a resident of Mills County. I'm here today also in support of encouraging our Board of Supervisors to put the vote to people. The voice of the people is critical for government to work effectively and efficiently, and it also gives everybody a chance to talk about the issues that are real to Mills County. This is one of the things that, as I've come to Mills County over eight years ago, I've seen repeatedly in conversations I've had. I don't know a lot of people in the county.

I won't represent it that way.

But what I will say is that people have concerns And I think by giving them a voice at the ballot box, be able to determine how many people represent them to make critical decisions for our community is important support. Each of us operates with a level of integrity that's supported by our conscience. So I asked the three gentlemen today to reflect on what you said at the ballot box yourself, but also what you presented to the community that you said you would support. If you're going to welcome something to the community, don't welcome it just because they voted it for the ballot box. Search your conscience and believe that the people that you represent actually want their voices to be heard. That's all we're asking you to do is to be able to give the people in the community to vote for what they want, what they think will best represent them to make the difficult decisions that our community has every day. You guys have a hard job. I appreciate the work and the service that you bring to our community. And it won't be an easy task to move through this vote today. But I have confidence. and I trust that your conscience will lead you to do what you know is best to give the community a chance to vote for what they want by way of a governing body. Thank you.

I got something to say.

You know, the three of you, two of the majority, can vote in favor of bringing this up to a vote this fall. Or, you know, people, maybe somebody in this room, people, will get petitions rolling and they'll be put on the ballot. But neither here nor there. It should be up to the citizens of this county to make the choice.

That's all I guess. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay.

Next on our agenda is Ordinance 26-06. Consideration, formal action, reference, opening public hearing in Ordinance 26 days, 06, providing for the creation of chapter 20 of the Mills County ordinance entitled residential care facilities. I would like to ask the sheriff and county attorney. They want to come up to the table.

I'll let John come up. I'll speak up. Okay. I'll make a motion to open public hearing at 820 times.

Second. A motion made and seconded to open the public hearing at 825. Roll call. Crouch.

Yes.

Yes. Sayers. Aye. Okay. Open for discussion.

My understanding is this is an ordinance that's been put in place to help the county Sheriff's Department, hopefully with better control, maybe some measures that can be passed on to some other counties, but they need some help on certain facilities that we're having out in the country. That's our main problem. It's not what we have here in the town of Glenwood. Yes, there's some problems there, but the city handles that. So I myself I guess I can speak for myself. I don't feel that the county should be babysitters for these facilities. It puts a great danger on our deputies, the sheriff's department. If this person has harmed the caretaker and stopped taking off those council bus, different areas in the area, we have to go find them, take care of them. then it's our responsibility once we put them in the car. Then we have to take them from where we pick them up, supposedly back to the facility. And here's the caretaker that's probably still wobbly or maybe still bleeding from injuries and stuff that the person inflicted on them. So I think this should help out in that situations. you know, and I've talked to some legislators and stuff. I said, you know, you guys are not watching out for the people down here. I said, this is something new that has come in in the last five, six years. I said, nobody has addressed it. So we are addressing it in our way. And I hope that, you know, it carries forward. I want to thank you guys very much. Thank you, Sheriff.

That's all I had. To your point there, Richard, our most recent incident that cost us, I'm going to say, a significant amount of time, responded to a call, the one in particular up on 230th. The employee was assaulted by a client. By the time we got there, she had called her manager, but also called her boyfriend's. A boyfriend got there, loaded her up in the car, and took off. He went to the hospital to get checked out. That left nobody at that house. My deputies chose, because there was no supervision there, to stay until somebody arrived. It was about an hour and 15 minutes. All total on our call was about two hours for two deputies. That's time consumption that we can't get back. And they're just not taking responsibility. According to them, there's supposed to be two people in that house at all times. as part of the staffing. They've never had more than once when we go there. They're just not accepting the responsibility that they need to.

And this will hopefully help us fight that. I didn't mean to interrupt, but the outfit that we're talking about is based in Vermont. They came in here to Iowa, I want to say, three or five, six years ago, Lonnie. I think you can remember coming in here. And I ridiculed them quite immensely at the meeting. One guy said, well, he says, you know, way too much. I had a child with the Resource Center for 37 years. I think I know the ins and outs and what needs to be done for care. I said, you're not going to provide it. Oh, yes, we will. We will. When you look into it, when you're in Vermont, we're in Iowa. How long does it take to get from there to here or respond back? They're getting their big bucks out of Iowa. They don't care. If somebody gets hurt, so what? It's not what needs to be. I'm sorry to say I've always had the indication that there are people less fortunate than us that are sitting here in this room today and they need our help. By not taking care of them properly, it just creates more problems. The more problems you have, the more help it takes or it cuts into your normal procedures that you're looking for.

I'll put there.

I don't know if I can ask a question during this, but my question is about if our ordinances drive a requirement that they have two people staffed in these houses, how do we monitor that and address the failing of that?

It's going to be on response on the calls. If you're asking me if I'm going to go drive up there and check to see if there's few employees there, I'm not. But when I arrive on the call, for instance, a week ago, there's one person there. That person jumps out of the house and jumps in a personal vehicle to go get checked out of the hospital, and there's zero people there. Then with the help of this ordinance, with the help of the county attorney's office, I at least have something to help us recoup some of that cost.

So there's an ordinance, but if somebody breaks the ordinance, there's no repercussions, and this is an establishment.

No, there are. There will be with this ordinance.

Okay, so that's the problem. I just wanted to understand the problem we're trying to solve. So the problem is we have an ordinance that doesn't have any teeth that we can then, as a county, hold the people who are breaking the ordinance accountable in a manner that brings change.

This is all a new ordinance. There was no ordinance to begin with.

There wasn't one to begin with.

And the ordinance doesn't require...

I shouldn't ask for a copy of it and read it before today, so I apologize. Thank you.

No, it's all right. The ordinance doesn't require any sort of like I mean, it does not numerically list out like you need this many staff or whatever. What the ordinance does is provide for if there are operational deficiencies that could be remedied that continually create situations where Greg and the Sheriff's Department have to respond to preventable operational deficiencies. It gives us an opportunity to, well, first it provides them an opportunity to correct those and provide the county with a plan on how it's being corrected and if it continues to happen and not remedied then there are penalties we can impose to ultimately to shut down i mean to rope their license to operate that's not within the county's power that lies with licensing and state but it does give us the opportunity to impose penalties on them okay that will probably encourage them to do so but we we have no control over licensing of these facilities that's all the state level

But we need to understand the route to the state if they're the ones who provide the licensing for them to ultimate to Richard's issue about the care of the people that is important.

There isn't, we would notify the state. There's a method there to notify the state.

I hate to say this when it comes to this scenario, but unfortunately, And there had been some pushback from this ordinance from people at the state level. But unfortunately, you know, it's not a matter of the people who are living there that are causing the issues. And it's not a member of the staff that are even causing the issues. It's overall two entities. It's the company that's making sure that, quite frankly, they don't they're not well staffed and there's operational deficiencies as well as. in my personal opinion, a lack of oversight from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing. And so it's an unfortunate scenario when the county has to come in and put in an ordinance like this. But, you know, there's really no other option to ensure that, number one, these residents are safe. Number two, the staff is safe. Number three, you know, the deputies that we have are being serviced to go to the needs of Mills County and sitting in the home for an hour and 15 minutes. That's not necessarily what the county should be doing. If it's an operational deficiency, we should be pushing it back on to the actual agency. Like I said, it's a shame that DHHS and EIAL has kind of given up their oversight on this, just like they've given up their oversight on nursing homes to some extent. But I think this is the right foot forward for the county.

I have just one question. Was this a problem at all before the shutdown of this resource center, or is this something that's mostly manifest since then?

I don't know that I can speak to any before I got here. Since I've been here, it's been an issue. we didn't have these problems because we didn't have these facilities being put up out in the country. That's okay. That's, that's kind of what I thought. So this is somewhat a result of shutting down the resource center.

Excuse me.

I'm sorry. There's some clients from the resource center in these facilities. They were supposed to be clients of, how can I put this? Uh, compatible, you know, uh, What they tried to do was get three people that, okay, these three people can get along, they can get here, we can get by with. The company thought they could get by with one person, but now that they have the problem, they need to, well, bring in somebody that's going to have to draw an $80,000 salary. You didn't think that company really wants to do it when they rely on the sheriff's department to take care of it? No, it should not be, as far as I'm concerned. My theory is the hours they put in out there, they should be paid for. I mean, we as deputies, I'm quite certain Greg can verify this, we don't have personnel trained to handle people like this. I mean, we can talk people down, but to go out and be a care facility caretaker, no. This is what bothers me. Even if they bring that person back and there's nobody there, Here we are still hung in this position. Can we leave this place officially without being penalized or sued because we didn't take care of the problem?

So the state basically pushed their problem down into the county and were then to absorb it.

And we are, I serve on the initial production board, and we are receiving the same problems from like Cherokee and stuff where a lot of the clients went or went Woodward. They want to see Mr. Production take some of these for what I call highly classed clients that have caused trouble and stuff. They are paying two and a half personnel per person to be taken care of at Woodward. They will only pay us one personnel per person. That's one to one on a ship. Well, You've got some places that have four clients in the house, and this is causing us great problems. We have to drag people in, and we can't get repaid. Well, we just figured you could handle it. And, you know, it's a situation that the Department of Human Services has got to take care of. Whether they have the leadership to do it or not, I don't know.

Would you write in or email or? I think there's no other concerns or questions to be asked.

I would ask for a closing of the public hearing at 837.

Question to close public hearing at 837. So I'm just listening.

Roll call, please.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Next on our agenda is considered the first reading. The ordinance 26 days, 0, 6. I didn't ask he I don't think she wants to but we will make a copy for anybody that wants to take with them. After the meeting.

Yeah, I've already got a copy 3. Yeah.

I REALLY APPRECIATE THE COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE AND THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT GETTING THIS THING PUT TOGETHER, YOU KNOW, SO THAT HOPEFULLY IT CAN HELP US OUT. I DON'T KNOW. how the Department of Human Services is gonna handle this. I know there's some grumbling at the state what we're doing, but I still think the whole rule should be in place and we should be able to use it. And it's something they've wanted to take away from us for years. And I mean, a lot of the laws and stuff start in cases like this. And if they don't wanna help us hold those people in Vermont or Virginia, wherever it is, responsible, then we should have the right to do so.

Period.

I printed it to the annex.

I knew it wasn't here.

So I sent it to there now.

There are extra copies out there, by the way.

There's no other comments I would like to make a motion to approve the first reading of Ordinance 2606.

Second. There's been a motion made and seconded to approve the first reading of Ordinance 2606. Would you continue and say Lonnie that you would approve putting this on next year's next week's agenda to have the second meeting? Yes, yes, and possibly approving.

Third one, OK, I will check with Amber to make sure we can do both of those next week.

Believe you can, but I'm not sure.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to.

Okay, there's been a motion made and it's seconded to accept the first reading of ordinance 26-06 and to be put on next week's agenda for the second reading and possibly approving without the third.

Are you okay with that, Jack?

Okay, I'm just going to go roll call again on this one. Yes.

Mayberry?

Yes.

Sayers?

Aye. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate it very much. Next on the agenda is the Mills County Engineer. General discussion only?

That's all I got today.

You mean it's not going to cost us anything today?

That could warm me up to the idea that we need a new sign truck and it's about $190,000 just to outfit it. That's not including the $110,000 truck. I won't ask for approval on that today. Good idea. Good idea. Good idea. General discussion. I got my mid-year engineers conference just one day, Thursday this week over in Ames. So that's where I'll be.

I want to discuss speed limits. So I'm back to July 1st. I'll...

paved roads that are unsigned, the default speed limit now 60 miles an hour instead of 55. The guidance being put out by the DOT and some guidance received from our attorney's office, if we have a 55 mile an hour speed limit sign out, that remains in effect until we make action to change that. My plan for the next six to 12 months or however long it takes. With projects winding down, we can start to tackle it, but to look at each paved road segment and kind of evaluate it and see if it's adequate for the default 60 mile an hour, or if we want to lower that down, or if our 55 mile an hour speed limit roads, we should pull those signs to make them 60 mile an hour, so. kind of just leave everything the way it is right now and then do case-by-case basis, look at each individual one and see if we want to change it.

You haven't looked into when to cost change signs from 55 to 60, have you?

I believe we have 23 55-mile-an-hour people that signed out. A lot of our roads that are 55 or were 55 are just unsigned. This is going to be cold, so I don't think it's going to be a, major expense to us. The big expense is going to come from, I guess, just our time looking at each individual road to see if the new 60 mile an hour is going to be adequate.

I know we've talked to some state guys, DOT. In this area down here, they're $375,000 short in financing. I know with the DOT, it's going to be a much bigger expense. Yes, because this was to be changed in that minute.

Yeah.

I don't think, I'm sorry to say, I don't think she took into consideration what it was going to cost to change state over. You know, how many, as you go across the state, all the counties have to change according to, you know. Yeah. When you pull on to the interstate or the highway and stuff, especially on the 34th, they all got to stay 60 miles an hour. Now there's five intersections between here and the Mississippi.

Yeah. Grumble roads are still 55.

So, that did not change. It's just the paper outs.

Um, also talk with Chris a little bit. He brought up there. We do know there's a couple of bumps on 21st. Just kind of. The whole keys with the hot weather, we've talked to page county and it's kind of plays into, you know. Utilizing resources, they have a bump grinder on skid loader, and so we're more than welcome to come down and get it. No rental fees or anything like that. We let them borrow our shouldering machine that goes on the grader in the past. They use it quite a bit. So just kind of having that relationship with them. Let them use our equipment. Now we're getting to use their equipment. And then we're kind of just, I've been having maybe monthly or every other month meetings with the Park County Engineer, kind of the same thing. They have a grinder. or reclaiming roads and things. We're just kind of trying to keep those relationships with neighboring county engineers so that we can kind of be efficient with the things that we share and the equipment that we can use for each other.

Can I add a couple bumps to it? Yes. Right out here on Ingram, as you come up from 34, there is two bumps there. I'm bad with the pickup and six tractor and older cars bloated and stuff.

It's just a little tough on the hips or so. That does make a big difference in my vehicle.

I can feel it, but then I'll ride with the foreman sometimes in their 2500 truck. Oh, that's a lot different.

Yes, my SUV. Yeah.

Anything else for me? I've had three phone calls on the weeds that are showing up on the solar farm over on 34.

We take a phone call from that and then I'm forwarding that on to John. I forget his last name starts with the H. So they can take care of that. I have monthly meetings with them, but then I also You can email them anytime. So I'm sending that right on to them so they can address it.

A lot of the farmers over there said, hey, we have to keep our fields clean. Why should obnoxious weeds be growing and stuff receding? We don't need it. And I agree with them.

They reached out to us looking for the weed commissioner. So I see that work order. He's probably going to give them a call back and kind of let them know what we're doing. But we're going to close that right now.

I have nothing else. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

It's on the agenda of Greg Schultz, our local sheriff. I just told you to shoot better than he did. So shoot.

I just have one thing to talk about. Most novel roads, it's too much. Yeah, it is. It's a caveat.

It is. It's responsible for the conditions and the layup. Over the weekend, we had a perfect opportunity to explain why we need the extra car.

We had four cars go down. You're supposed to drive a lot lower. but it never failed. Our calls went from to I-29, back to Malibu, over to Glenwood, over to Amherst. It's good. We were on there taking a report really quick. There was always something big where we were running faster than really I'd like to drive. We put one motor, one set of bearings on front of one car. It had a screw, go through a tire on another. I'm missing two. Screw the tire, we were able to just change one, change the tire, go to our spare, got that one back up and running. Probably the other one we blew a radiator hose. So we were short cars on the weekend. Now, fortunately, we were able to double up for long enough to go get another car from another. The deputy would go run the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the shift. But as I mentioned, like we were talking about purchasing that last month in June, that takes time. And it takes two people on the road to answer the call separately to a two-person car that can only go to one car. But I just want to bring it to your attention. It happens. Obviously, we're working on getting those repaired. We had cars ordered on two of them that should have been in this morning. Hopefully, they're back up and running. So we had to put the tire and repair that right away. So just in case you want to come in and ask at the end of next year for an extra car, maybe come.

You're going to replace the car with the ball motor?

Yeah, I've only got $38,000 on it. It doesn't have to be a fork. It's a Duffage.

We're having the same problems.

I don't want to say anything. Anyway. Nicely played, Richard. How about those Bears? They got beat last night. Anyway. We're going to keep working. Obviously, there's not a lot we can do. We've run the car hard like that. and run it for seven hours straight going back and forth at high speed. They're not meant for that. But we really don't have an option when you've got shots fired. Anyway, bless you. That's all I have. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I went back. Is that motor working? I don't know. It was still on on Brandon's trucks yesterday morning. They were all Toretto because of the invention. We're just going to have them at Chrysler, which is where we get our cars. So knowing a new engine is probably going to take a month or two. I think it's not going to go. But I do not know. Mileage-wise, it should be. But a lot of the manufacturers now are no longer going on mileage. They're going on engine hours. when you have all that electronics inside of these cars. They run a lot. When I built my car, I knew I was going to have a lot of electronics. I shut my house. I don't have to fire up the computer every time.

But that's not an option for everybody else. They have to have the computer. They run a lot. I don't know yet. I would venture to guess one of them is probably us.

The good news is we have One of the funds in June is on our lot. We're waiting on revised estimates from Placent Omaha to do the upbidding.

Ideally, that can be done in a month. And we'll have that in March. We're working on approval. I don't have a lot of time.

All right, Greg. Thank you.

Greg, would you yield this one to Melissa?

Melissa.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. Can you escort her in here, please? Yeah. Greg, same problem.

Took up and killed and murdered 25, 30,000 miles. Well, we'll have to see how many hours you have. Based on the cost. Yeah, that was $15,000. Whatever happened to warning? Well, we've kind of changed our policy and decide what you want to do. And there's nothing in the contract that says that.

Well, we're spending.

Unbelievable amount of money.

Motors. Yes, thank you. No cops. No, I understand.

Yes, I know I don't know what he's looking at more.

It's on the agenda of the lottery on the greater consider formal action reference resolution, 26 days, 26 to correct. The error of tax payment and cancel partial tax sale.

This is a new one for me. We had a customer that did short, paid the wrong parcel. He paid online, paid in March, did a whole different parcel than his own. His intern went to tax sale, received bad notice. He did pay in a timely manner. So like I said, it's a whole new correcting payment system. It's one thing, but when it comes to a tax sale, that is a whole other process. You have to wait until fiscal year end process is done before I'm able to go in and start doing anything. So as far as amounts, anything along those lines, I have those as of now. But I did converse with The county attorney, she would suggest with your approval, bring that to your attention and they should be able to do what I need to do from there. But since we're in that process of switching from one fiscal year to the other and another treasurer, we need to wait until that is done before we do that. So just request for permission to be able to do what I need to do. able to do that to get this corrected for.

But it's my understanding he made he made payment, but he paid on the wrong parcel and he evidently put the wrong parcel number in when he made his payment.

I'm going to say yes. Based on what he brought me, he paid somebody else's parcel entirely and then didn't I didn't realize that until he received his tax still notice after it had gone to tax still. So he paid that online. We, in turn, applied those payments the way that those come in. It wasn't our error as the treasurer's office. It was when he went online to pay.

He just needed permission to move forward to fix it.

Yes, when I made it to do that and then getting that other parcel as well.

His parcel went to tax sale, was it sold?

His own. His own, yes.

It was sold to a different person?

Yes.

How do we go about, so passing this resolution, what are the steps, I guess, for our knowledge to correct an error like this?

I did reach out to the protractor, as I said, Correcting payments is one thing, but when it comes to tax sales and canceling tax sales, there is a process. I know he will have, the payment that he made was over his own March amount. So what he paid, what he paid was, he paid 1376, so 1,376. He should have only paid 995. I know that with the county attorney's recommendation, some of that, OFF FOR THE TAX RAIL CERTIFICATE. HE WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYING THAT BACK. THAT WON'T COME FROM US AS THE COUNTY. BUT WITH THAT, I KNOW WE HAVE TO CANCEL THE CERTIFICATE. WE DO HAVE TO REIMBURSE THE INVESTOR FOR THAT AMOUNT. THERE IS A LOGICAL spread that I have to do on my side as far as mounts, I believe, being able to make sure the money goes to the out-gone when we cancel those tax sales. But like I said, with the mounts until I'm able to get in there and do that, that's where I'm stuck.

Will the parcel that he made for the 1376 that he ended on Will that landowner be required to pay for that parcel?

I'm going to say yes, they will need to, but it looks like I believe I'm going to say yes or no. I think you have the ability to reach out to. That's let them know, let them know that. I think I was like I you know we we fixed payments before, but when it comes to tax sales, I don't think it happens a lot. He recognized his error and did come in and say that this is what I have and showed me this receipt and he didn't say my last name, collected it and paid it.

I'll make a resolution. I'll make a motion. approved Resolution 26-26 to correct erroneous tax payment, cancel parcel tax sale.

Second that motion.

A motion made and seconded to approve Resolution 26-26 to correct tax payment, cancel parcel sales tax. One thing I would ask is, how do you get to doing this or get it pretty well done that you'd come back and report to us how it sounds rather a long process. This looks like it could take months to get this part of it and then part of it.

Thank you for working through it. It's a tough one.

Any other discussion, questions? Not all those in favor?

Aye. Okay, thank you. Okay.

Are you the one who has consideration of formal action if the copier lease agreed? Yes.

Okay. I would like to request the ability to enter into a lease with the options by with Visual Edge IT. Our current copier, I believe, was purchased or leased in 2014. It's our main copier that we use for untapped statements, drainage statements. So those are some of the third-party better drainage statements. How much? Purchase option would be $4,300, which is under our budgeted amount. Otherwise, the same option. I got $98,000.

You might look at buying it. Release it. They require to do maintenance.

Yes.

Divide. we have any sort of window where they're required to do maintenance or are we on our own?

I believe they do the maintenance because we, they maintenance our current one.

It's the same, it's the same company as we currently use. They did give us a name. It's called, at least it's,

knowing that we were going into that this year.

I used to buy them all the time, and then after this last one I got that didn't pay me to buy it, they dropped against it because I kept it for so long and didn't replace it, and they want their money every month instead of... We've had to have maintenance a couple of times, and I know that that's been something that's been in the budget

Yeah, kind of on the list for at least since I bought it, I still had to keep a maintenance contract with them for them to come and do anything so. Mind it was it paid me to reach it this time.

It's first time in 30 years. I had to. They include any sort of maintenance contract or anything like that. I believe if it is bought.

The maintenance agreements I mean, It would be $25 a month.

A month to buy.

Reasonable because eight cartridges and printing stuff is not cheap.

And I know that he did rework our agreements a little bit because the way that it was set up at that, whenever that was, color copies are included in our but not the black and white. And we print more, a whole lot more black and white than we do the color. So we did kind of prefigure that for us, which was nice. I think we're around 40 or under 50 a month right now for what we pay. And that includes a lot of copies of emotion.

Do you think you're preferring to purchase it or lease it, or are you just going to put the trail in here? I would prefer to purchase it, but... We lease it, and the costs are...

So if we lease it, the costs for maintenance are included for that 63 months. We have to make a maintenance agreement.

I'm going to say the way that I understand it, it's included in that.

So for 63 months... It included releasing it be 6,174 and we bought it and then did maintenance agreement for 63 months. It'd be 5,875. $200 less. But I told him that I needed approval. Did we get that? So.

There's a lot of questions here. I'm sorry.

I didn't purchase anything.

With the maintenance agreement, how long can we sign a maintenance agreement for? Because what I wouldn't want to happen is let's say we sign a maintenance agreement and it's for a year. And then next year they come back and say the maintenance agreement is going to be $25. It's going to be $10 extra, $35. And after that, it's $10 extra. Great. And so then it just keeps going up. And then at that point, it makes sense to lease. So if we were to buy it in a maintenance agreement for 63 months at $25.

Generally not. Generally, that's it. It's going to be built then. When you buy it, it's usually a year. There's not huge cost difference usually between the lease and the buying. It really comes down to like a budgetary strategy. If you don't have the money to buy it, then it's a little bit better to lease it. If you do, come on a little bit ahead and get by it. Is that what you would recommend, Patrick? If she's budgeted for it, unless there's some other unknown expenditures you want to care for. Because you're probably paying, let me see, that's probably not too much more than what you're at least paying them with now. So it's not increasing your budget necessarily if you

I'll make a motion to purchase a copier from Visual Edge IT for $4,300, one-year maintenance agreement, $25 a month, totaling $300 for the first 12 months. I'll second that.

Are you going to approve?

What was the second part of that? You wanted $4,300 and then maintenance.

Motion made and seconded to purchase copier, $4,300 plus $300 maintenance agreement, correct?

Yeah.

Is there any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is Patrick Bin, our IT director. Consideration, formal action, purchase of microphone for board members.

We'll have a discussion about this. see what sort of strategy you guys would like to pursue. So we did ask the question about the quality of the recording. So that's the most we have is for a microphone that would benefit the recording of certain people in the room. The challenge of the room is just how small it is. We put an in-room microphone system. But as far as benefiting the recording piece, we looked at a couple different options. The best one being a ceiling microphone that would be right above the table. They will replace one of these ceiling grids. And so for those people that are facing away from a microphone currently, it should pick up a lot better. That's a little over $5,000. The other option was a tabletop microphone, which we would have to put off to the side, maybe to support through the floor here to get wiring from,

that from the TV to the table. We could put it off to the side, maybe.

It wouldn't be as nice as a good quality, just kind of one right above you. But it's a little cheaper option. That's a little over $70. Where are the bids from, Patrick, and what's the exact amount that you have there? These are from Heartland Systems, which is their Cisco dealer. So it's specifically, you integrate with the system we have it in. So for the in-ceiling microphone, it was $5,176 per cents. The table top microphone was $1,789.95. How many cents? $895. I guess it depends on what you're trying to fix. If the concern is more the people in the room, this isn't really going to help them.

I know what I'd call them. And I've received a few complaints myself about it being difficult to hear just because the microphone is so far away. It's kind of hard to catch all the conversations where it's kind of come in and out. I know when I call in, I always prefer to actually call somebody instead of being on there because I can't hear the discussion. I remember in December, I think I seconded the motion and there wasn't even a motion on the floor. So you can't hear anything.

Yeah, so I think the in-ceiling microphone, for that scenario, was going to be a long curve, too. Yeah. Especially for those folks that are facing toward you guys, away from the microphone.

The audience back here complained a lot. They can't hear. And I realized people are facing us, you know, we're the ones they're talking to. And I think there would probably be a feedback problem, you know, a microphone for them or for a hearing microphone, that group back there being this close.

Yeah, just how small a room it is. It's a challenge. The microphone for the webinar is going to compete with that. Yeah. Definitely going to get some feedback. So maybe more about room configuration changes. Going to make more of you act. When we were the other way, it was a little more user friendly.

So I might want more of an actual microphone system.

Yeah.

We've got a better option.

If there's folks with hearing-assisted technology, there is different systems that can help that. It would not necessarily be a microphone, but it would boost those devices.

It would be something that you'd be able to install yourself, or is it something that we'd have to pay for somebody on top of the... Yeah, these we can install ourselves.

and wouldn't come with an additional cost regardless of which one we go with.

I would make a motion to purchase a microphone for the boardroom from Heartland Systems using Cisco software for $5,176.04. I would ask this from the rest of the board. I feel like this could be argued as a community betterment

we could use a lot of our extra local office sales tax we have this year, if that would be okay with you guys.

We could. We have money budgeted for our courthouse improvements too. Yeah. On our end.

So either way. Take it out of the courthouse fund, but that's to keep our others for the project.

Yeah. I will second that motion. I think that's where I fix those.

Eventually, the one on the wall or on the table here is stuck. More wires, more space. More wires and try and get it. Further discussion, we have a motion on the floor to purchase a microphone for the boardroom at 5,176.04. Is there any further discussion?

Not all those in favor? Right. Motion carries.

Reference, action, Amazon account limit.

So this one is requesting a change to how we currently make our Amazon purchases. Because of the volume of business we do with Amazon, we recently qualified for the $20,000 credit permit. Currently, each office that purchases on our government account is using their individual department credit card. But this would allow us, they could just purchase invoice without using their credit card and pay them from $30 million. So it's simple for things to reduce too. Hopefully for CAP, let's get the opportunity to sum them out of this credit card.

And it would open up the credit card limit cap that we have. So currently the credit card limit, there's card limits, then there's departmental limits, and then there's county limits. So A department may not have reached their card limit, but because some other department has reached their card limit, department limit, they don't have access to their credit card.

And within our Amazon government account, we have one of the flexibility to set limits within that. So I can't just use the whole client that was on the credit card. It says restrictions there. We'll give a doctor's office on what that should be. And the oversight is off.

Good. that's over the amount that they still have to come to the board of supervisors to approve, they still have to come.

Yeah, they still need their, when they go to purchase, it allows them to use invoice terms rather than a credit card.

I know Amazon came to, I think that board of directors asked that we ask the board to help promote this throughout all the counties in the state of Iowa. It could lead into bigger and better things.

Yeah, so they just announced that they're actually going to pay for our Amazon account for the whole state. A huge amount is for about a year, and so Isaac's going to pay for that for us now. Basically, that's our Amazon membership fee.

So we're going to share it. Well, it simplifies for you, too, then. Yeah, the Henry department.

Okay.

The motion would be to accept $20,000. Monitored by the auditor's office. I would make that motion to approve the Amazon account limit. The oversight to the auditor's office. Second that motion.

In a motion made seconded. to approve Amazon count limit $20,000 to be monitored by the auditor's office.

Any further discussion? Not all those in favor? Aye. We can carry.

Anything else, Patrick?

Thank you.

That's always an issue. Like if the sheriff's department spends... orders off supplies and then you go to last you can't.

I think that helps us all. Next on the agenda is consideration. Formal action reference resolution 26 days, 25 ordering the submission of a proposition to the registered voters of Mills County. Iowa pursuant to Iowa Code 331.203, increasing board membership.

I would make a motion to approve Resolution 26-25.

A second for discussion. I've just taken a few notes. I haven't done a ton of research on this, but years past,

Years ago, I was in favor of increasing this to five members. I had my reasonings for that, but since then, I've changed my mind a little bit since a lot has changed. I do believe in less government. I am a conservative. I've also seen the state take more and more of our responsibilities away. Workforce development, we don't have anymore. We don't have the oversight on mental health, our judicial districts, among others. I've also heard that through the scuttle at the state and through ISAC that public health and juvenile detention are on the mix. So Big Brother's already stepping in and taking more and more of our responsibilities away, which means less meetings. It's been discussed whether it's $150,000 or $160,000 or $175,000, what the cost would be. I haven't run the whole numbers on those, but I would like to see us, if we can find $150,000, $175,000, I would like to see us spend it on a deputy or take some of that money and put it with Jacob. There's always 80-20, 50-50 matches for road projects. I think that money would be better spent improving our public services and our infrastructure. With the five-member board, it does give us the ability to like to talk with Richard or Jack out of an open meeting, which can have some goods, but it can also have some bads. I've seen where it hurts other counties. The decisions are made before it's actually brought to the board in a public meeting. I believe in discussing our business here. And I think that's the most transparent you can be is discussing this and making decisions in open meetings. Another thing is, as Mr. Stanley said, there are tools in place in Mr. Whitey to get signatures and put it on the ballot. And I think while doing that, you could educate the public better to make a better decision. Unless the public wants to spend more money on government oversight, and that's their choice, and I would respect that. Personally, I think the route to do this is to go through the petition process and put it on the ballot if the people want it. I think that better educates everybody, and I think we'll get a better product in the end, either way. Just my two cents.

I appreciate you seconding the motion line for discussion. Appreciate that, so that we can have a dialogue between the three of us. This resolution was brought forward by the Mills County Matters Working Group. It wasn't brought forward by any of us on the board or any county employee. It was brought forward by the Mills County Matters Working Group because they've done research and they've compiled information. One thing that they know is that this issue on both sides is a hot topic, whether people are in favor of moving from three to five or whether people are opposed to to moving from three to five. You know, they presented this idea to us would have been three weeks ago. And Chris kind of hinted to it this morning with his opening comments. But one of the things that he mentioned is, is that the public's perception on what could be potentially classified as artificial delay And I think that's something that the Board of Supervisors wants to stay away from. There is two routes to get to this being on the ballot. Just as you mentioned, there's the petition process and there's the resolution process. The petition would be roughly 850 signatures. 825. 825, 825 signatures.

And they would need to get the signatures by

Chris, they would need to have it to us on the August 11th meeting. That way it can be ready for the August 13th. So they would have right around a month to be able to work and get 825 signatures. And whether I agree with it or not, an argument could be made that this is the route that they chose to take because by placing it on the ballot, then the community as a whole can focus on debating it with one another. You know, because we've discussed this for years. And, you know, it's been and our opinions individually have changed over the years once the facts of the situation change. But, you know, this isn't a scenario where we haven't talked about it. I know when I campaigned, a lot of people presented it to me and said that it was something that they wanted us to look after. We're not focusing on this issue. As supervisors, we wear many hats. One person said that, well, why is the supervisor focusing on this? Well, we're not. This is just one step in the process that was brought by a private organization that works to bring issues to the forefront. And like I said, people have talked about this for years. People have had this discussion for years. And I believe that by making sure that it's on the ballot, which we can do today, then the conversations of whether it's not a good thing or whether it's a bad thing, those conversations really don't happen unless people know that they're going to have a chance to vote on it. If we're being honest, those conversations don't really happen in detail unless people know that it's going to be on the ballot. And we as a board have taken the liberty just last year You know, we approved the EMS levy and we all have individual opinions on the EMS levy or where the funds are going to go to. But I know why I voted in favor of it. I voted in favor of it because I think that the community deserves to have a voice and they deserve to have a vote. We have a general election this year by placing it on the ballot comes at no cost. And by us placing it on the ballot, it ensures that it can be put on the ballot because, you know, they have lost three weeks. Um, that they could have used to get signatures. By placing it on the ballot, it moves the discussion away from the boardroom, and it moves it to our local coffee shops. It moves it to calling your neighbor. It moves to having one-on-one conversations with your friends and family about why there's pros and why there's cons. And, you know, as it's been said, this meeting and last week's meeting, you know, I find it really funny that we're here discussing it. on the 250th anniversary of our country, and about how 250 years ago people took initiative to be able to decide how their government should be run. It was brought up to me last week, and I don't like hearing about it. I don't like being told it, but it's the truth. It's that the three of us individually are all gonna leave a legacy on the Board of Supervisors. That's not why we do it. We don't do it to leave a legacy, but we are gonna leave a legacy. because of our impacts that we had on the community. That's how a legacy happens. And I can't think of a better legacy to have than by saying, we know that this is something that the voters want. We feel in our hearts and in our conscience that the voters should be able to decide. We have the opportunity to place it on the ballot so that they can discuss it out in the open and that the issue can be put to rest. And that's why I personally Besides my own personal opinions, I'm appreciating the board from three to five.

That's why I'm going to vote in favor of the resolution.

Real quickly, I would like to make a correction. It's 826 signatures because it's 825.3 to round up. So 826 is the minimum.

One more.

Sorry.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome. As I said here, I'm the old boy on the board. As some people have said, a lot of people have contacted me. I've talked to a lot of people from the eastern part to the western part of the county. I'll tell you, the first thing that come out of some people in the eastern part of the county was, well, hell, there goes Mills County. It's going to be controlled by Glenwood. They got all the votes now. Our vote out here doesn't mean anything. That's number one. Second one probably is cost. Would I do this job for anything less than what I'm getting paid for now? No. The amount of time that I put in, everybody says, well, you're not going to have as much to do. The state keeps putting things down here, keeps rolling things down to the board with non-payment. So there will still be jobs to do, things to take care of. Another thing is I've checked out with counties that have five board members. We can go right straight east of here to Montgomery County. They have a five-person board. They only have four that show up. And it's been showing up since 2023. The guy was relieved of chair. I mean, his chairmanship was up. He's never been back since. So those people in that district have no representation on that board. And if you go to the next district and ask, they go, well, we don't have to take care of you. You've got a guy that does that. If he doesn't show up for the board meeting, what do you have? You have zero. Page County has just gotten into a three to a five. And when I talked to Judy Clark that I've known for the past 20-some years, she says, Richard, all I've done was went from three to one, three to two, or three to one to five to two. or three to two. She says, we have two people that cannot come to the meeting and actually look at one another and be presentable to the public and make decisions for the public. There's other boards that have three members that do all the work. The other two show up because they have to. That's my scenario on some of this. Everybody I've talked to, I said, okay, what do you want us to do? I said, what would you like us just to pass this, us free pass it? And everybody has told me no. Yes, you can do this. You know, we'll do what you say or ask us to do, but we want to see, we would like to see people out with petitions so we can ask questions. They should know these people with the petitions should be able to answer the questions that people have in the county. You know, number one will be how are you going to pay for them? Number two, I've heard is, how are you going to do this? Are you going to redistrict Mills County? Are you going to go at large with some of them? I think the people have a right to know this before they vote on it. Yes, we have the power. We can say, oh, we're going to put it on the ballot. Good enough. No, I think the people have the right. That's one thing that they had preached the last two years is, We want to know what's going on. We want information. We want to know. Okay. For me, the petition is the way to go for it. I believe you could get plenty of petition signers at the county fair. Yeah. It's something that people said they have people who want to do this. I think it should be done. I'll put there.

I appreciate your comments as well, Richard. One of the first things I remember from going to an ISAC conference was sitting down at a table with the current Montgomery County Board of Supervisors chair, Carla Schmidt, and talking to her. And she asked, you guys have a three-member board of supervisors. So do you guys have five? I said, well, we have three. And she said, how do you even get by with three? You're too big for that. They're a county that's 10,000 people less. And, um, excuse me, 5,000 people less than we are. There are about 10,000 people and even they have a five-member board. But to go to some of your points, you know, how you're going to pay for that, you know, that decision isn't going to be made by the Mills County Matters Working Group. It's not going to be made by me individually how we're going to pay for that. But frankly, it's not going to be made by the voters. The decision of how we're going to pay for an additional two supervisors that, you know, brings Pros and cons. That decision ultimately is going to come down to how the Board of Supervisors budget it. So, you know, it's not going to be the people who are out with the petitions that's going to be able to provide that information. It's ultimately going to be the Board of Supervisors that makes that decision. And then in addition to that, you know, a ballot proposition. And I, you know, I mentioned this at the first time when this was first brought to us three weeks ago. This is simply to increase. This is simply to put a proposition on the ballot to increase support from three to five. This does not have anything to do with districts. If this were to be increased, there would be no districts put into place. I live on the east side of the county and I have my entire life. I live in Henderson. I can see Potawatomi and Montgomery County for my house. This doesn't change how the East side gets to vote. This doesn't change how any side gets to vote. We're still all elected at large. So this isn't districts. And even if this gets submitted to the ballot and if it gets approved, like I said, it'd still be at large. No districts would come into play unless, and lucky that we have Katie here today, but is it by resident, excuse me, by petition? that people can put in districts.

That one is solely by petition.

And completely different. And can that be held in a year like this?

It has to be held in an odd number year and it has to be by special election.

So it can't even be held this year if it even went to district. So right now, if this were to be approved, we'd all be at large. A lot like Pottawatomie County, we'd have five supervisors at large. So that's just my comments there. I still believe that we encourage the discussion by putting it on the ballot. We encourage the vote to take place. And at the end of the day, you know, if the community likes it, they're gonna vote in favor of it. If the community doesn't like it, they're gonna vote against it. And if the community doesn't have enough information for it, you know what they'll do? They'll probably vote against it. They're gonna vote against it if they don't have the information. But this is something that we've been discussing years I've gone back in the different candidate profiles of the primaries. It's at least the last several elections. You know, that discussion has been happening as a community. We have the opportunity now to say it's going to be on the ballot. Let's start talking about it. Let's have these tough conversations. And that way we can make sure that it gets put on the ballot. You know, we are going to give one, two, three, four, right around four months. for voters to be able to decide to do that. If it's by a petition process, if you think about it, we're really gonna cost the voters one month to be able to discuss it, because they're not gonna have any idea if it is gonna be on the ballot, and if it is something that they actually need to discuss. So I appreciate both of your comments on it, as I'm sure Mills County Matters Working Group does as well, and the people who are here. I'm still gonna vote in favor of it. I think it's the right decision to let the voters to decide, put it to rest by making sure it's on the ballot, making sure the conversations are had.

And at the end of the day, the community gets a choice and it's their choice.

I agree with you in a sense, Jack, but I still feel that the petition is the way it's been done and all of Southwest Iowa, all over the state, that was the reason this thing has been put behind it because When you contacted ISAC and asked for a resolution, did you get one from them?

No, I wrote the resolution last week. I had to write the resolution, and then I sent it off to the county attorney's office. Then after I sent it off to the county attorney's office, I sent it off to ISAC. ISAC got back to me on Monday, and the county attorney's office didn't get a chance to look at it until after the meeting on Tuesday. So then we're here now this week.

All of them down in here has been done by petition. And I called the county around and asked and said, okay, how'd you do this? Called by petition. Let the people sign for it. Let the people know what's going on. So that's my main reason why I think it should be done by petition. I realize that we could do this very quickly and be done with it. That doesn't give the answers to the people. If you bring people out and you go to the door and you ask them, would you sign this petition for another two supervisors, they're gonna ask a few questions. And I think that's the right thing to have.

And that's right. Educating people, if the voters decide to do it by petition, I think they'll be better educated. It comes down to cost. Again, I don't like what five member boards, what some five member boards do. A lot of decisions are made before they even come into the public meeting. I don't like that. I'd rather be as transparent as possible. I believe in less government. So at this time, I'll call the question.

Your roll call, please, if that's okay, as a resolution.

Crouch?

No.

Maynard?

No.

Sayers?

Aye.

I want to thank all of us for having this discussion. I think there was a lot of good points brought out. Yeah, everybody said, well, everybody's against Jack. Everybody does this. No, it's been my feeling for years that if we would ever do this, it would be taken to the people and let them decide there.

And that's, you know, that's all it's meant. At the end of the day, we both want the same thing. We both want the voters to decide. It was just how we would get to that process. And so I appreciate the dialogue that we've had, you know, to the point of everybody's against Jack. Let me just say, I don't believe that. I think that you guys have differing opinions and I have different opinions. But at the end of the day, I know that you guys have people that voted for you and I have people that voted for me. And so we're all doing what we're trying to do. best and conversations like this open dialogue open dialogue about a copier that's why we're here so thank you guys it was very good very interesting and i praise the group that wants to go ahead and do the petition part sorry what went that route but no okay moving on

Board of Supervisors Committee meeting updates. I had a meeting set on the board with Glen Haven. Our biggest problem is still the government not paying their Medicare and Medicaid bills. You know, they're in the rear sometime, and when you call and ask, they say, well, yeah, yeah, we know, we know. Well, their theory is it means we have Glen Haven and the other home and stuff that we can take one to, pay the other one. It doesn't work that way, folks. It costs so much money to run this one as it does this one. And what we're supposed to be paid, what we're supposed to bring in, it's costing us money out of our pockets.

That's about all I had, the only one I had last week. Last week I had a conservation board meeting on Wednesday. Conservation was able to purchase a new truck, the last one that they've been using is over 10 years old. It's used well, it's used heavy. So they purchased a new truck using some of the funds that we were able to give them using the hotel-motel tax since it is for conservation purposes. So that will be arriving shortly. And I was asked to give you both the invite slash reminder this Friday, July 10th at 1130 a.m. Mills County Fair Board. has asked us to join them for a roundtable discussion. It's at the Lake and Building. It's at 1130. Hope to see you guys there. And then the meal was moved from the Night of Coronation to Monday. So it will be on July 13th. And they've asked us to help serve food at the meal for the fair this year. And they asked us to be there around five o'clock.

It's still barbecue.

Yeah. Last week I had a meeting with the Saturday with Orion. Just do I go over there because solar project is shortly.

Back to your Friday meeting Jack.

I'm sorry to say I've had an appointment made with my lawyer for the last two weeks. be there most of the day Friday. Really, my opinion on this, the fair board should have contacted either the auditor's office or this should have been on last week's agenda so that we knew what was going on.

When they were here discussing the Lakin building, they told us then, but that was a few months ago. And so they just asked me to share a reminder about that.

If there's anything else in new business, you got anything? I'll make a motion to adjourn at 940. I'll second that. Motion made and seconded to adjourn at 943. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be back. I've got a meeting with Sam.