Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

for one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

It's the last day to sit in that chair.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, consent agenda. I don't think there's any additions or corrections to the agenda. I'd ask for a motion to approve.

I'd make the motion to approve.

Second. A motion made and seconded to approve the consent agenda. is the agenda minutes from july 7th 2026 board of supervisors meeting accounts payable and corners annual report all those in favor all right we do have a liquor license um the liquor license is for the back room

And it is. Effective August 1st, 2026. Not see what kind of this. For 12 months.

Amber said it was their renewal.

She said renewal.

OK, yeah, yeah, I would make the motion to approve liquor licenses.

Here was stepped down in 2nd. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Next is public comment.

Oh, sure. Chris Whitey, I just want to give people a little brief update on our petition campaign to get five supervisors on the ballot this fall. I worked about five hours over the weekend, knocked on roughly about 90 doors. I'm going to say probably about 35 responded. Only five were negative. So it's a pretty clear mandate that 30 out of the 35 signed. So I'm not sure our current supervisors say people clearly don't want it. It appears from numbers that they probably do. But in any case, we're going to continue to work forward on collecting signatures. And I wanted to let everybody know that the following places have signature petition forms that they can sign. And one is at the Bloom Senior Center, and Bonnie is handling that one. We have one at the Glenwood State Bank, Glenwood Public Library, the Vine Street Bakery, Lake Ohana Market, Club 321 in Malvern, Classic Cafe and Salty Heifer in Malvern, and the Anderson volunteer fire department station. And additionally, somebody will be at the farmers market.

Thank you.

Henry Clark, if I could stand up on this subject. I apologize, I was on the agenda last week, but was not able to attend. I was out of town. I had two agenda items, but I'll speak to this. Do you have your petition, sir? I'm against five versus three, but I'll sign the petition either way. Oh, well, that's a full sheet. All right.

I'll sign it afterwards.

Okay. The reason I'm against five versus three, because folks, you want five lollipops or three? Kid in the line will always say five lollipops. So before you ask me whether you want five or three, it should be a lot more defined. And I had a gentleman speak to that. One, salary and benefits. I have trouble having three people get benefits, but y'all are actually managers, which is different than other boards, okay? I definitely would not elect to vote for five people to get benefits, okay? So that's one problem. Second is districting. Right now, you could say we are not represented by the current board correctly. We have two people that are east of 275. The population's all west. Please, 10,000, 5,000. Now, does that mean I don't trust the two individuals? No. But perception and reality. So if we move to five, do we need to move to districting? One here, one here, one here, two general. So when you put something to a vote, I recommend it needs to be very specific. Otherwise, you're just causing more and more and more votes in the future. Because otherwise, you're asking, do you want five lollipops or three? So that's my problem. Even with that said, I'd still say no. But I'll definitely vote on this, Jim. This is a question and answer.

I'm sure Jack or Katie or somebody will say, this first vote is just to get the five. The district question can't even be part of this question. That's yet another petition that has to happen in following years. It can't even be part of this. Katie explained that last week. That has to be a special election. So the first time around, all we can do has moved to five, and they all have to be at large. And then we can bring the question about districting to the people, which would be a separate issue.

The first time around, you can explain to the voters what your intentions are, sir.

Might not show up on the vote, but you can explain the intentions.

Yes, we can do that.

You'll see in a little while on my next one, why I don't care five or three.

I just need to

one just one that represents you no forget me one that will look at us okay uh i was at that round table on friday missed you guys but i was i think it was great i mean we didn't have a lot i thought there should have been more people but You know, it's like anything else.

It's quite a misunderstanding on the lie. Us three weren't there. It has to be put on our agenda. It has to be approved. And then they have to set up an agenda down there. We have to have an agenda here. It has to be posted.

You already said, though, you weren't going to be there.

Well, I was out of town. Otherwise, I would have attended it. But... I think, you know, there's a lot of things that lead into this that people, I've heard comments, well, they just don't want to talk to the public. No, it's not just talk to the public. There's rules and regulations we have to go by. And if we step out of that, then we're endangering the whole county.

Well, I wish there had been more people that would show up. But anyway, I heard a comment during that that one guy brought up about maybe the county and the city law enforcement going together. Now, I don't know if this is through the state mandate or whatever, but I'm against that. I think the city should have their own law enforcement. The county should have their own law enforcement. If this turns out to be a mandate by the state, I think the city should give up their law enforcement budget and their men and give to the county so there isn't any more county expense. Now, I don't understand this whole thing. I just heard the guy say, and he talked a little bit about it. But anyway, that's my feeling. I don't think they ought to be together. I think there should be two separate law enforcement. And one other thing is somebody went to the treasurer's office at 355 and they were turned down. They said they didn't have time to work on it.

I'm done.

If I might talk about the meeting, which I didn't even know about, didn't attend, didn't really want to go. There's probably, without sitting in one of those chairs, a lack of knowledge of open meeting laws. Everyone talks about transparency, and it goes both ways. Let's say all three of them went to that meeting, and you posed that question about sheriff and local police officers. They would have listened. They might have answered in a very general term, but they couldn't talk to you. unless it's on an agenda, they can't talk to you. So they could talk to you generally. But until it's on the agenda, and that's for transparency, because did everyone else in Mills County go to that meeting? No, just certain people. So this here is a formal hearing. It's documented. If someone wants to see it, they can see it.

They all talked.

To the point of that, there was a forum notice. So we completely followed open meetings laws. And there was nothing that said, that all three supervisors could be there and that it would violate the open meetings laws and that can be vouched by the county attorney's office. So that was posted. That was posted 24 hours prior, which is the legal notice.

And the sheriff spoke on what I said, because I didn't know the gentleman that brought it up and I don't know that much about it, but it does.

And the sheriff can talk all he wants.

because he is an elected official. He's different than a board. The county attorney's different, auditor's different.

Oh, I know that.

So those individuals can talk. A board's just a little different.

Anyone else?

We'll move on to the Mills County engineer, Jacob Farrell, consideration formal action approval to purchase a new sign truck.

All right, get you guys into it. So this is just for the truck, not outfitting the truck. We got quotes from Freightliner International, and we attempted to get a quote from a Mac. He gave us a quote for something that the effects weren't really aligned with the other ones. And even so, it was still $40,000 more. So we kind of threw that one out. Freightliner and International were only within about $3,000 of each other. From our standpoint, we have both. You know, everyone's going to have their service department, so you have some good things, bad things. But overall, in general, you feel the trucks are very comparable. You don't lean one way or the other. So we're just going to go with the cheapest one. It's an international, $102,600. Here's the actual quote here. And there are those specs that we need that will be outfitted with and withstand what's coming. So to have both folks in the Freightliner and the International, but the dimensions and the engine, everything that we need to withstand and hold up against everything that's going to be outfitted on it, including the crane, as the side truck, the auger racks, or the signs, the toolboxes, things like that. sure this is the one that we're going to go with uh with your approval after that it's a different company that outfits them so we'll be bringing that to you guys uh corn husker corn husker So right now I have $240,000 budgeted. Now that's not going to cover it all, so I'm going to have to take a closer look before we purchase the outfitting part of it. We're getting close anywhere between $170,000 and $195,000 to outfit it.

So that's putting us at $275,000, $295,000, and $240,000 budgeted.

Right now it's important to get the truck on order. I know we're going to probably look at them, see if we can kind of take back some of the outfitting part, whether it's flights that we can do in our shop and I'll look at other parts of the budget and see if there's something you can participate under on to kind of supplement that.

Can we use any of our what's on our old truck can be transferred to the new or according to safety standards and stuff? If we're starting new, we have to put new cranes, augers, things like that?

Yeah, it's going to have to be new. One of the big things that we want to upgrade with this one of the biggest complaints since I worked here we have the crane and there's a bucket but the controls for the bucket are down at the truck and so the person in the bucket going up to chainsaw limb or whatever is at the mercy of the person down on the ground controlling them so it's hard for them to see exactly where so when he says go up a little bit he hits that joystick a little too hard and jumps him up so the new one has in the bucket so the person in the bucket can't control it and we've looked at this outfitting that and it's not swappable so all that has to be there if they can't be i just want you know safety is the number one goal of this whole situation and two with 240 budgeted um we do anticipate when it comes to it to get uh traded Whether we're going to trade in more options of our existing truck, leaving that stuff on there, we'll improve that. So we still have to look at some of that before we, right now, obviously, 105 out of 240 from there. But before we make that second purchase, we'll get all those steps as well.

Well, how long would it take to get this truck ready?

The truck should be ready by the first of the year. January and then to get it outfitted with everything. It'll probably take a while. I'm going to throw something out there, maybe say six months.

I wouldn't doubt it. June or July next year.

Probably most likely before it's hit the road and ready to go. I like having the guy in the bucket control.

That's a safety feature that you have to have. That's a huge thing, especially if They're trying to look around the truck or something, trying to yell down or whatever. It's just...

It takes a lot of trust, too. The guy running the controls. What year is the one you're replacing? It was 2006. Good year. I'd make the most of it to approve the purchase of the new side truck from Gartnester International for 1026. All right.

A MOTION MADE AND SECONDED.

GO AHEAD AND ORDER THE NEW SIGN TRUCK FOR $102,600. HOPEFULLY WE'LL BE HERE BY THE FIRST OF THE YEAR, PUT INTO USE BY THE MIDDLE OF NEXT YEAR. HOW'S THAT? DO THAT. ANY OTHER DISCUSSION?

WE CAN DO THE OUTFITTING BIDS COME JANUARY OR AFTER THAT. WE CAN LOOK AT THE COST FOR OUTFITTING.

some of the stuff that's going on. So that'll, we've already been talking with them. So that'll come sooner as far as when we actually get it out there and ready to use probably.

All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. General discussion.

general discussion um out of a lot we got out there um we've got that sinkhole we got that all the grading and uh seated so let's be back to 100 now through that project I'm going to meet with Paul Osmond with hungry Canyons for this today we're going to go down look at our bridge on L63 out there we're going to try to implement your structure. So he's going to look at it with those and see if it's good candidate for 100 Canyon funding. Also wanted to bring up, I think our staff based system is really kind of showing that it's working for us. We've already got five applicants for engineering tech position. I think the last time it was open we had five applicants in about five or six months span. So two of the applicants look really good and probably going to bring them in for interviews. One of them has, I think, over six years of surveying experience and four years AutoCAD experience. And just briefly, I fully looked at the other one, but he had his DOT certifications already, went through a program for civil engineering at DMACC over at VIM, and he's got an aggregate certification in HMA. So he's done construction inspection. So that right there is Two quality applicants that we have not seen in the past. Someone applying that already had some research. I think it's definitely definitely setting his money and helping out. Other than that, there's a couple agenda items after me.

I'm going to stick around for in case there's any discussion or questions. I have nothing.

Anyone else? Thank you, Jake.

On the agenda, it says John Piper. Not too sure. Skip this one. Skip this one? Take a vote on it?

Bonnie, you want to say anything? I think you're too hard on him. You're not going to have to complain about him being late.

It's Bonnie's fault.

What can we do?

I've had here at early early enjoyed funnels and was back on the state where she knows we were there.

I've always said that are you there if you get a chance to to move on to let those county hold you back and. I'm glad to see you moving along in a sense, but also. VERY SAD THAT YOU'RE LEAVING. YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT ASSET TO THIS BOARD, TO THE COUNTY, AND YOU'VE MADE EVERY EFFORT TO BE HERE AT OUR MEETINGS, HELP US OUT THROUGH THEM. SO ALL I GOT TO SAY IS I WISH YOU WELL IN THE FUTURE WHAT YOU'RE GOING INTO. IF YOU GET A CHANCE TO COME BACK, WE'LL TAKE YOU. YOU MIGHT HAVE PUSH BOOM OR SOMETHING.

I'LL POINT OUT I NEVER HELD YOU BACK AT WASHINGTON BOARD.

Good. I'll make the motion to acknowledge it, but not accept it.

I'll second that. Let's see.

I'm just going to ask for all in favor.

All right. Hey, Bonnie, you're going to have to bring some. You'll be missed. Thank you, thank you. We'll wait. You crying back there, Greg?

Yeah, he is.

He's getting old.

No, trust me, I'm not going to miss generally. I said next time I'm going to do a thorough background. Comments from Russ, this is for him.

Yeah. Good man. I had a protein shake. I'm supposed to be on a diet, so I'm not going to be partaking of it.

I heard he's going to. You and Richard are talking about me never buying donuts. Somebody told me he's going to the DOJ.

Yeah. Is that correct? Where at? Omaha. Omaha. Omaha. You pronounce Des Moines like non-Iowans pronounce it.

Yeah, I caught that. Des Moines. Now, everybody in Iowa knows you don't put an S on it, but everybody else outside, that's how you tell they're not from Iowa.

Are you a transplant?

Almost south of the track, it's not quite even close.

Gosh.

How come I get picked on today?

What would you do if you weren't coming here every day to hear this kind of stuff?

I'd be at the center. Getting picked on.

Catching the same stuff, yeah. She loves picking on other people, but when it comes back...

Hi. We tried keeping him, but he wouldn't stay.

Well, there's a deputy that was following him, and I think he's trying to elude the deputy, so I think we may have to arrest him and just have a house arrest. Yeah. What do you think? We could do a house arrest for a couple of years in the basement.

Garden level. Garden level.

Oh yeah, garden level, sorry. You didn't accept it. Oh, perfect. Makes my work here a lot easier. My request was just to post for his position.

So I'm going to read this. I'm sorry, folks. Sean Birdsell, county attorney, consideration, formal action, approval to advertise for open position. No worries.

You said everything I was going to say, so I think my job will not be the same.

Did you find me on the same position as Sean?

Well, I would hope to keep it the same after probationary period is complete. The State Public Defender's Office is advertising three jobs in their office in Council Bluffs to work remotely. And the salary is between $90,000 and $135,000 with a lot less experience. So I don't know that we're going to get a lot of applicants. I see my fingers that we get at least one. But there are, as we have discussed numerous times, there's just nobody left in this area. There's no one in Fremont at all. And it's just... They're struggling. Yeah, they're struggling. We're struggling. Montgomery County's struggling. Page County, like we said previously, I know I'm told in the story, but they had to hire somebody from Oregon to come in and take their assistant county, which... Not adverse to that, but I don't know how we get our message out that far. Yeah.

So. I'd make the most to approve the county attorney to advertise for the open position. Motion.

Motion made and seconded. Here's the county attorney approval to. Hopefully fill the open position. Any other discussion? And all those in favor. Thank you.

Thank you. Keep yourself so I can keep texting you.

Yeah. And if you think of a way we can just make him say, I thought about like, thank you. I thought about like when they call for his background check, which is really great. Talk about it. He's a Cardinals fan. Then the garden level.

Hey, next on the list is Henry Clark. Henry Clark, Glenwood.

Cost savings.

Thank you very much for hosting a lesson with Rob. I was out of town when you stepped up and talked about both of these. The attachment I gave y'all last time, there's not enough time to go through it. So there's a void on the attachment. There was $2 million annual cost savings and a one-time $23 million savings type of GRC. I realize the first plans you might think don't have a direct Control over GFC, but understanding politics, yes, you do. You can push the outcome of it. The once-in-a-lifetime thing, $23 million, got it. We can take it to the bloggers. So I would recommend, recommendation, that y'all look at these line items, do your own work session on them. Will the number be correct? Answer is no. but your number is not correct. But you've got the technical people, whether the thought is correct. You three have way more close to the information than I do. On some of them, I don't need one. I just know. But if you need any input or help on those five, this is just, I think, five. There's many more. But there you go. I would get access. And this is, I'll go to the five versus three versus one. You got these faucets that I'm asking for. This board is different than most boards. School board has one employee as superintendent. This board actually is managing tax dollars of everything. You know, there's departmental budget. There's still a profit for a producer. They're actually, yeah, So. Then take 5 and take three. It just takes one to say, hey, I want to look at this issue and address that they can ask for that information. When I was on the school board, I could not go to any employee other than Superintendent and ask for information. This board's different. It only takes one person, OK? So anyways, there it is. If you need any help understanding the logic or some of them will be You don't need an emergency manager. That's illogical. In fact, I think we're legally required to. I can help that, but you don't need this. Anyways, that was it. I would just request that you take the list, and if it's not good enough, find another. I really wanted my tax dollars today. I know that if I go personally for my businesses, I'm commercial. I pay the top.

I help leverage everything else.

i won't do it so the only way for me to get a tax reduction help everyone look at the code but i do understand budgets are constrained now because inflation hits every personally so deal with these tax savings our budgets will turn right around so back up okay so it's not a question of efficiency i just want to knock them down we will have inflation next 23 years

Thank you very much for your time. Henry, with two million cost savings, you said it was in the letter that the gentleman read last two weeks ago or something like that?

It was at the very back, and it was on the five versus three note.

Do you mind emailing that to us as well, please? Is that okay with you? If you email it to us, we can have it like comfortable.

I think we got a copy on the desk.

Probably emailed it in there, didn't you? for us, you know, I read through some of it, yes. Yeah, I read through it too, but I'll just email it to the.

Yeah, and then still get out to us and then the 23 million tax savings. I talked to the ERC board, Global Redevelopment Corporation last week. Give him a heads up that it was on the agenda. When was the last time that you talked to the Global Redevelopment Corporation about this?

I did not talk to them in total. I talked to Larry.

OK, yeah, I talked to Larry too. Larry asked that I pass on to you.

If you'd like to have a meeting with you, it may be with the members of the GRC.

If you're available, I've got a meeting coming up with them first part of August. As long as I know. I'll get you a date. I'll get you a date. Maybe we can come to the meeting. I sit on it. to get you on the agenda if you want to come to talk to us.

Okay. I won't go into this meeting. What I want to get this one with, the other way, you bring in a large developer, all the money gets sucked straight out of the development of future dollars. And we get left with the cost. So we can go into that.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Again, apologize for not being here. I guess enough is never not enough. So if I could explain this, and I apologize, I'm talking three individuals, just for generics, I wanted to discuss this. Thistles is a biennial plant. I mean, its lifetime is over two years, okay? You got the mature stage, you see it's big. all blooming and then there's the annual first stage which is just a small plant it might only be an interesting and then there's a third stage there's the seed which you live 60 to 80 years in the dirt it's opened up it grows problem i'm dealing with with my name probably across from it yeah is they opened it up to sell it so you could see the house side. So the previous owners bulldozed it, opened it up for all land, and they never did anything to stabilize it. They turned around and just happened to sell it. I'd sent it in last year for the Wheat Commission. Came and voted, sent it around this time for the Wheat Commission. And before you just jump to Wheat Commission, each of these individuals I talked to, so it's not, hey, let's let the government take care of it. I talked to each one and, oh, don't worry. We're farmers. We understand. No, you don't. It's right there next to your house. You didn't take care of it. What I requested in the letter is I gave it point by point by point statements of how to take care of it. Just because they sprayed it, that actually made it worse. They hit it at the wrong stage. They killed the plant stock that forced the balloon to open up. It looked like a cotton. If they had mowed it, and I asked them to, that would have made everything lay down, okay? And they came and mowed it. Well, the mowing, all that did is spread the seed. The seed's still alive. The plant died, but the seed's alive. What I'd like to do, what I requested, is that August 1st, spread it, seed it, wherever there's some slope, put some grass mat on it. Around August 15th, I'll promise there's going to be a rain. In fact, that'll start it. They fertilize a little bit then, fertilize it later. We'll have three or four inch grass cover by October. If not, the same thing is going to occur next year. Even if someone was to argue with me, no, Henry, they sprayed it. All the seed is dead. No, it's not. There's still seed in the ground. This one I'd like y'all to take an action on. One, that they graded by August 1st. Nature specific, because The problem we're having here is they didn't spray it. They didn't do it by the correct date of the year.

They mowed it.

They didn't mow it at the correct time. August 1st, they seed it, put math over the erosion slope areas. I would like y'all to take action on it. If y'all choose not to take action on it, okay, I would like y'all to follow state regulations and turn this over to the county attorneys for her to execute. Okay? If y'all don't execute against it, one, this is a problem. I can already tell what's going to happen next year. In fact, this is what's going to happen this fall. If y'all choose not to take any action for the state regulations, please turn it over to the county attorney to take action. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

I'd like to tell you this much this fall, there'll be rosettes this big round below that place. Yep. And This fall is the best time to kill them because they really take the chemical damage. I agree with you. I've battled them for years.

It takes grass. Grass is what holds them down. Grass doesn't even kill it. You just see it popping up. I got clean back here. I can tell you I got this will sit out here.

I just wanted to touch on the subject too. I know you've called in our office a couple times. We commissioner is part of our job duties of our roadside vegetation managers. So I think he's been in contact with you. Once we were made aware of it, we did reach out to the landowners. We also sent them a letter. They were responsive to us. And again, they did do the things that you said. This is just the Iowa code, so I want you guys to kind of read through it. And it might be helpful too for the county attorney to kind of weigh in. So we're clear on, I guess, the power. I mean, the power lies within the board. when the flow of hires or whatever a lead commission is. But some of the things I wanted to point out in here is the department pursuing the chapter 17A provided a list of recommended methods for control or eradication of not-for-suites. So that is the recommendation. further down. 31716 failure to comply in the case of a substantial failure to comply by the date described in order to destruction of leaves that goes into that. So that's kind of where we're at. We may contact landowners. They were responsive and they did make some sort of effort and progress. I know it wasn't exactly what you had stated and I would agree that yours is much more in-depth and would take care of the problem, help secure the problem from getting worse in the future. My question to the board is, how much teeth do we have in the game? How much action and power can we take against someone who is still working with us, who is responding, but maybe not in the exact way in case of substantial failure? The fact that they did spray, they did mow, it's hard to say. It was a substantial failure to apply. It says we can get recommended techniques through with the weeds. And it may be a question for a county attorney, but it's something to think about throughout the situation. If something comes up like this, we recommend that they do something different. How do we handle that situation? It kind of puts us here where you're still having a problem being a neighbor. You're still having seeds that are going out. So, what is the best I just want to pose that question to you guys so we can clear direction. It's an ordinance question and refer to the. I don't think we really have a code.

I don't think it's really ordinance that makes it more strict, but I would say that the best way. 317.10 says each owner and each person in possession or control of any land shall. Burn or otherwise destroy in whatever manner may be prescribed by the board of supervisors. all noxious weeds therein as defined chapter at such times in each year and in such manner as shall be prescribed in the program of weed destruction order or orders made by the Board of Supervisors. So I would say that we can practically prescribe how they're going to destroy it, when they destroy it, and if they didn't follow that direction by the Board of Supervisors, then it would be a substantial failure.

That's the route that I would like to go up if we're able to do that. You're going to need a guy in your 30s. Yeah, for sure. I grew up in the country.

There's not a piece of Iowa, not a square foot in the country that I've lived here. You leave me alone, I leave you.

My neighbor for it. 30 or 40 wrecked vehicles next to it. Okay. Love you, buddy.

Keep your stuff over there. Keep mine. Thistle is different. It flies over. I got it.

So it wasn't thistle.

It was ditchweed, milkweed. I don't care what weed.

I hate thistle.

I hate it. Yeah.

I've had pasture and cattle before. I hate it. So it's different, okay? Otherwise, I wouldn't care what.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

So our agenda, we have Miranda and Iowa Primary Care Association.

Good morning.

Good morning. Can you give us an update on behavior, health, redesign, and intro to local Iowa PCA teams?

Good morning. Good morning. Brenda Wachter. I am the district leader for District 4 for Iowa Primary Care Association. So District 4 in these 14 counties in southwest Iowa. As you know, we're one year into the behavioral health redesign that launched July of 25. It changed the landscape of behavioral health services by going from 11 regions to seven districts. The whole idea behind it is to make sure every island, no matter if you're here in Glenwood or Council Bluffs, you can have the same access. What they have seen is that some regions and the 11 region system, some people in some regions have a lot of access and the regions would fund a lot of things for them. And I know that because I came to PCA from the Southwest Iowa NHDS region. So I knew how things worked over here, but there's other part of the state where folks didn't have anything and their regions did not provide that support. And the state looked at that and they want all, all islands, no matter what part of the state they're in to have the same access. So that's our goal. And it's a big goal. We've made some progress. We're still in a state where we're looking at that data and we're getting more data, figure out how to do it because we know that it, We want the same access, but it can't look the same. It's not going to look the same in Des Moines as it does during Glenwood because Des Moines and Glenwood aren't the same. District 4 is a very rural district. And so our neighbor district, District 5, which has the Des Moines area, we're not going to look the same because it's not feasible. And so a lot of my role as a district leader is to be that voice for District 4. So I spend a lot of my time out talking to them. with the people in the community. I've met with the sheriff. I've met, hearing from what I know, with the fire department. This is kind of what I do. I go out and I meet with people. I'm learning about the communities. I'm learning about what's there, what's going well, and where are those gaps in these safety net services. That's one of the big things that Iowa PCA likes to do is they like to collaborate with what's there. They've been doing that since the 80s, supporting the 14 federally qualified community health centers across the state. And now they're kind of bringing what they've learned, that commitment to bringing what each community needs to them to the behavioral health safety net service system. We work in a close partnership with the behavioral health division with the state. I have a counterpart at the state who's kind of my go-to if I have a question or something that needs to be elevated at the state level, I reached out to Garen and he's the one that covers district four with me. And The another big thing to mention is that why, while Iowa PCA is based out of Des Moines, all district staff is based out of that district. So I am from District 4. As I mentioned, I used to work for the Southwest Iowa region. I'm very familiar with Southwest Iowa and we have a staff of seven on our navigation team that are also based out of the district and there's actually one of our navigators is a Mills County resident. So we're not. I've heard comments that when this happened, they were afraid that it was going to be a Des Moines organization running everything from Des Moines. That's very much not the case. They know that they can't do that because they don't know the districts. I mentioned system navigation. That is the one service line that we have in the behavioral health system. And the way that works is we have six navigators and a lead navigator taking calls all day long, helping connect the islands to this the help that they need. It's designed for behavioral health, but it's not like people can only call if they need a therapist or a psychiatrist. Sometimes we get calls. We had a single mother on Christmas Eve who was being evicted and was going to be living in her car with her three children. And she called system navigation. And our system navigators are experienced and they're resilient and they are determined. And somehow that system navigator helped this mom find housing so she wasn't living in her car on Christmas Eve with her children. people call because they need, you know, food banks or maybe they need help finding counseling. Really anything like that you can tie back to behavioral health because I know as a mother, if I was being evicted with my children, that would really affect my mental health. And so really anything can tie back to behavioral health. And it's also a free service. There are no income requirements, no insurance requirements. You or I can call and get help from a system navigator. The public, we ask that they call an 800 number. It is the Your Life Iowa hotline because it's answered 24-7 by trained crisis counselors. And anyone who calls that line gets a crisis screening to make sure that law enforcement doesn't need to be called because maybe they're actively suicidal or something of that sort. And if it's just, they just need a navigator, they get a warm handoff directly to assist a navigator with ACA to help walk them through figuring out what they need and how they can get that support. And the navigator kind of figuratively holds their hand to lead them to that support. They don't just give them a list of phone numbers because when someone's overwhelmed already and on the border of crisis, a list of phone numbers to say, hey, all these people, that's just going to add to it. So that navigator makes those calls and maybe they make that appointment or they help connect those dots and they stay involved until they can hand that equipment off to someone else who's going to help them the rest of the way. We call it a closed loop system. As far as funding, primarily what we fund are the access and sustainability dollars for those safety net services. We continued most of the contracts that were in the regional system for FY26 for steady state and for FY27 we've continued those because we recognize that we weren't at a place with the data to tell us to do something different. Iowa PCA doesn't believe in making big decisions without the information to back it up. So we are mainly keeping the steady state while we're re-evaluating. They have said to me, you know, in District 4, some things need to happen because we're missing a lot over here. And they recognize that mainly because they have me in their ear saying, hey, don't forget about this because, you know, I know we've had services closed in our general area and we just have areas where there's just gaps and there's just nothing. And so that's kind of my role is that voice, that sometimes the annoying voice, that voice, the loud voice. I'm always like, hey, let's not forget about this. Don't make a blanket statement about the state because that's not true across the state. And so I just encourage anyone who has questions or comments, if they want me to know about something, don't ever hesitate to reach out. I may not be the correct person, but I'm that person that will get you to that person and make sure you're getting the information that you need. Quickly, we do also fund a couple statewide options for jails for telehealth services. ITP and flow state or even psyche valves. Psyche valves basically is what it is in the jail, so they have that access via telehealth 24-7. We do also offer that in most ERs, except for this little corner of the state because We continue the Heartland Family Service contract where Heartland does that in the nine counties that used to be the Southwest Cyber Region. We also have two vendors that we offer to all school districts in the state for telehealth services in the school. So no kid has happened to wait for several months to see an insurance therapist. They can at least get something. And that is Classroom Clinic and Hazel Health. Those are the two organizations. So I know I just gave you a lot of information. Try not to take up too much time. Do you guys have any questions or any information?

How many people are in our district now?

How many people work in the district?

How many people live in the district?

I have that number, but it's not in my head. I can send that to you. I appreciate that.

Richard, were you on the former board when it was the 11 districts for this? How many employees staffing-wise did we have and how many counties did we have? IN OUR DISTRICT.

NINE COUNTIES, I KNOW THAT.

NINE COUNTIES.

NINE COUNTIES, WE HAD FOUR EMPLOYEES AT ONE TIME. WE ENDED UP HOLDING ON TO THREE EMPLOYEES FOR THOSE NINE COUNTIES. AND NOW THAT IT'S THIS WAY, WE RECOVERED FROM THE MISSOURI BORDER CLARITY, THE MINNESOTA BORDER, TAKING TWO INTER-COUNTIES THE MISSISSIPPI OR DOWN THE MISSOURI RIVER TO A CERTAIN PORTION AND WE SPLIT OFF OVER TOWARDS STATE 35 AND I'VE ALWAYS SAID TO THIS DATE THERE IS NO WAY THAT YOU KNOW YOU MADE THE STATEMENT THAT YOU KNOW IT'S TO COVER THIS THE PEOPLE ARE NOT BEING COVERED YOU KNOW THEY THEY DON'T GET THE CARE THAT THEY NEED YOU CAN'T In my version, you cannot have someone living and covering 80, 90 miles away from where they live. It takes them how long to drive from point A to the problem. You can spend a half, three-quarters of the day driving to where the problem is. And when you get there, you know, it could be the middle of the afternoon. Or, you know, the highway. Right, I've served on this and I've battled and battled, so this configuration that you come up with, you cannot make work.

My question, Miranda, would be with going from nine counties with four employees to going to 14 counties with seven employees in such a wide territory. Do you think that you guys are providing adequate resources to the community, or do you guys think it's a stretch for them?

I think that the way our services work, which are a little different than how the region works, or the DAP, which is the former region, I think they do a good job. But that is because we're not long-term, and we're not the in-person. We don't go report to an urgent situation. We are taking a phone call, and we are helping that person find the DAP. or the CCBHC through Hartman Family. So I think the way, working this way works for us, but I totally validate what he's saying. That's a huge challenge, and I worked there for a long time, and I've talked to some of my friends that still work there. It is a challenge. I think that they do feel stretched. But we work very closely with the DAP, and the DAP has District 4 and District 1. They have two districts. Um, we, I am district four. Brandy is the gal's name, she's up. She got Harrison and Manona from the former region counties and up to Minnesota, basically. Um, I think this works well for us, but it's very different. We are very short term. We're not designed to be like peace management, which is kind of what it was, what I did at the region and what they still do to some degree. But we do work very closely with them. We, Brandy and I have meetings quarterly with the leadership. at the DAP is because we want to work together. We're not, you know, what the, how they looked at it is they have these silos. We had mental health, disability, we had substance use, and we were all these silos and they pumped mental health and disability services together and gave those to the region. And then they put substance use out there all by itself. And so when they did the redesign, they were like, you know, it makes a lot more sense to put mental health and substance use together. And disability is really kind of its own thing. And so that's the disability came out and that went to the DAPs and then substance use and mental health got together. And there's the phrase behavioral health. That's where that was born from was combining those two silos. And so we're still, Brandy and I are still trying to make it not siloed because we need to work together with the DAP because there are times that the DAP gets a call that doesn't need their intensive support and can be helped by a navigator. And there are times that our navigator gets a call and they're like, well, they really need someone to really hold their hand for a long time. And this would be better served by the DAP. So we've introduced the DAP navigators and the Iowa PCA navigators. We've worked really hard to kind of help them work together so they can really help with the coverage of District 4 and District 1 to make sure that the people get the help that they need. Excellent. I'll share, when we first started in July, from July until the end of September, I was the only person that worked with us. I literally did everything. It was kind of slow to get off the ground to get the word out there, but now we were one of the first districts to get fully staffed with six navigators, a lead navigator, and myself. So it took a little bit to get off the ground, but now they're doing really well, and they have started doing some in-person locations where they have a lot of foot traffic. So like twice a week each navigator is out like a lot of it is Community health Community action agencies that kind of thing where, where are people going in the Community when they need help and they don't know who to get it from and so that's kind of where. A lot of the communities, we found that public health where people walk walk in to look for help, and so a couple times a weekend. I know Guthrie and Audubon and Cass for sure. We have navigators sitting in the public health office. So someone walks in and needs help, here's a navigator. Let's get this Medicaid app done or let me help you with this food stamp. We're trying to get creative, but it's a challenge. Like you said, we are seven, I guess technically eight people covering 14 counties.

And most of them are rural, which really makes it troublesome for you people to get out, get to work. people taken care of, you know, to talk about. When you start layering help, it makes a problem in the community because, hey, I called this person. She talked to me. She says, no, I have to call this person. And a lot of these people are looking for help from the person she just called. And it makes a problem for them because they don't understand that This is a program we have. This is what they have to do. Maybe someday people will redesign. It'll be redesigned again.

That's one thing you can count on, James.

I hate to say this, some of the people in Des Moines make some of these decisions and have no idea what goes on out here in the rural communities. I've argued and argued with Senators, representatives, I've talked to the main people in Des Moines on this. I said, rural is totally different than city. You cannot treat it the same.

And the nice thing about Iowa primary care is they get that because some of their community health centers are in rural communities. Like they have one in Leon, Iowa, which is in quite rural in the Forney-Lisk area. And so they understand that rural communities and Metro are not the same. Yeah, they get that at Iowa PCA and that's why it's important to them that their district staff be in the district, be in the community and learning and that, I mean, that's how we're going to, that's how the change is going to happen. This is, this is what the legislature decided we were going to do in Iowa. So here we are out here trying to figure it out, but they, Yeah, they want the information, and so I've been on the road a lot, and I was just down at the meeting with the Taylor County Board of Supervisors last week, so that's a very rural area down there, too, and they're, like you, they don't have a hospital in their county, so they're just down there trying to figure it out, and they're right on the border of Missouri.

We're having some problems with behavior health here in Mills County. We've passed some resolutions and things to Help the sheriff's department out over there. Maybe you're familiar with him or not, but if you've talked to him, he's probably tried to explain, but it's a problem all over the world. And just here at Omaha the other day, a young gentleman, he lost it to start shooting at the police. The police shoot back. He didn't make it. So when do you try and intervene, take care of these people? Basically, they have to ask.

I guess I didn't mention this part of system navigation. Well, we can't force anybody to do anything. You could call. Say you have a neighbor who you think is really struggling, but maybe isn't in a place where they're ready to reach out to somebody or call a phone number. You could call and say, hey, I've got this neighbor and this is what he's really struggling with. What are some resources I can offer to him? Or I've got this family member who's struggling with substance use and I think they probably need treatment. How can I help them? And a navigator can kind of help you walk through that as well. It doesn't solve all the problems. And I definitely, everything you've said is valid. So I totally get that. But I'm very willing to hear. And the folks that I work for at Iowa PC are very open to hearing. We have meetings all the time. where we're talking about what's going on in each district and it just gets elevated up the chain to the folks at the Behavioral Health Division at the state. I've had providers in the community tell me they've never had answers or changes from the state happen so quickly than before they had an intermediary to call, and I have a person at the state that I call, and it gets to the person that needs to go to really quickly, and things can happen really quickly, which is not something we hear very often when you're dealing with a state agency or so.

pretty lucky here in mills county because we are so close to the metro there's a lot of resources available for us but when we start talking about south central iowa southeast iowa northwest iowa the resources start to dwindle and so you know hopefully this this structure works for you guys one of the things that surprised a lot of people is that agriculture is one of the highest leading careers towards suicide in the country agriculture so obviously a need, and especially as a young guy, I know there's a lot of mental health issues in my generation. So hopefully it works out.

And I'm leaving some flyers and also my business card for everybody. So don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything you want me to know or anything else.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I'll go next.

Okay. Well, I'm. Talk about it really quick or no. No, just wait. Okay.

Great. I have nothing on the agenda of the general discussion. I'm going to slide a little closer here. I'm going to remind Jack. I'm going to ask for another car. You know, I'm going to go down this morning. Number two cylinder on one of our Durango's just been working around hours, miles, 16,000 hours. I don't know, but it should be under warranty. It's not. It's a car was brought into service.

Yeah, do anybody around for this? In case.

You have to budget it, Greg.

That's what you got. Sheriff's Department stuff and they've said the same thing. These vehicles will not hold up. Thanks Jake Mike will not hold up under the stress they put him in and.

I haven't been answered. It doesn't. I mean, it sounds like. We're not going to Tahoe, Tahoe slash go around. One of the guys actually loved the car, loved the build, loved everything about it that became Truth on the Road for more than a thousand miles at a time. Transmission troubles and all sorts of stuff. You know, boards are boards. We had troubles with those when we had the hybrid. I don't know. Rumor has it they're bringing back the Crown Victorias, which would be a godsend if it runs. Everybody liked the Crown Victorias. Rumor has it Dodge is bringing back the Durant or the Charger. The charger always seemed to work well, but at this point, who knows what's going to happen.

Police officers from Omaha, and they said when their car is set for a half hour, 45 minutes at a seat or something, they said you might as well take them out on the interstate and let them park for a couple of miles. Otherwise, he says, they will not start, and they will not get up and go. He said you can push the accelerator all you want until the computer gets reconciled. I don't know. He said that heat with all the electronics and stuff, he says they just don't understand what we need to do.

And we're currently planning, you know, if we can switch out cars, we're trying to keep it under 100,000 because that seems to be, that 80 to 100 seems to be where we or a bunch of problems, but right now we're getting, the engine was at 36,000, the way that I talked about last week. That's the entire engine, the one cylinder, that's 16,000. I don't know.

I don't have a good answer, but just, you know, it's a constant struggle. We're just getting through it.

That's all I've got, other than the fact that it didn't come over the fair last night. I had to find a replacement to be the judge of the pie contest yesterday. Very disappointing. Something I look forward to a lot. I enjoy crying.

Well, that's a great group of people who work there.

Yeah, it was tough. I did find a replacement. He said he was okay. I said, how was the pie? He said, that's a lot of pie. Yeah, he said there were, I think he said there were nine fruit pies of sorts and he said they were probably just as many pecan pies. He went straight into diabetic coma. He went last night. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Elizabeth. Yes, sir. Consideration of formal actions.

Recommendation to reappoint Paul Hathaway and Jess Cook to Veterans Affairs Commission.

Yes, they're on three-year terms. And so this would be 2026 to 2029.

I'll make a motion to reappoint Paul Hathaway and Jess Cook to the Veterans Affairs Commission for both another three-year term.

Second.

How long will this make?

All.

That's good.

If we want to share. I don't have that.

Yeah, it's been about 3 years ago, some time ago, yeah.

They're both very good members of the where. They were represented better. We have a motion made and seconded. Recommend all have to weigh in just cook. We appointed Veterans Fair Commission from 2026 to 2029. The other questions. Not all those in favor, right? Thank you, listen, you bet.

And then just a brief reminder to you all. And of course all people watching that our dog days of summer barbecue is this Thursday at the annex from 4 to 6 PM. We will have Nick and I just lost his last name, will be performing again. Of course, we can't do this without Emily Swinburne from Square Heel Realty and Rachel Geers from One Stop Mortgage. Very, very thankful. And we are also going to have our home-based Iowa proclamation made. Rick Honeycutt from Workforce Iowa will be down to read. And someone from HBI I hope to kind of present and I guess make it official. So yeah, it'll be really, really good. That's all.

I did mention to Travis, if you need any help with the microphones and things like that.

Stay against. Did you talk to him about that?

Yes.

Is that okay? As far as I know. Okay.

Are you going to do it in the actual conference room? Kind of hang out in there a little bit?

Yeah, we might go outside. We'll see how it works. There's pros and cons to where we've been at the park in the pavilion or inside. Inside really is nicer. It's just so hot.

Yeah.

And we want people to feel comfortable and get a sit and linger and visit. So we'll see. Hopefully it's enough room. Not a bad problem if it's not. No. So.

I was hot as they were going to say it's going to be inside would be my preference. Yeah. Might be a bit miserable.

But the company's great.

Thank you very much.

Next, our agenda is to Ordinance 26-06, Consideration Formal Act, the second reading of Ordinance 20-06, providing for creation of Chapter 20 of the military ordinance entitled Residential Care Facilities.

I'll make a motion to approve the second reading ordinance 26-06, providing for the creation of Chapter 20 of the Mills County Ordinances entitled Residential Care Facilities.

Second.

The motion made. Seconded. To accept the second reading of the ordinance 26-06, providing for creation of Chapter 20 entitled Residential Care Facilities. No amendments.

Yes, yes, yes, there's I. I'm here.

That's on the agenda is considered some formal action waive the third reading of almost 26 days, 06. Nothing. When it's 2606 to the effective after legal publication.

I will make a motion to waive third reading of Ordinance 26-06, formally adopting Ordinance 26-06 to be effective after legal publication.

Second. Motion made and seconded to waive the third reading of Ordinance 26-06, formally adopting Ordinance 26-06 to be effective after legal publication. Yes, very curious there's. Okay next on our agenda is for the Supervisors Committee updates. I had a map of meeting last week. Nothing too important on it just formalization of a lot of our trails and what we help with them and then that we're going to be looking at all the reappropriated money for anything changing in this area. We're still struggling with the area around what used to be 370, which is now the Bundy Avenue next to goes to Sire, goes to Bungie and around to the other big plant, you know, the traffic is just phenomenal up there at times. All the truckers I've talked to says, what are you guys going to do? I said, well, we're still waiting on the state to get themselves in order of getting something done. And maybe we will the next year or so, I hope. Let's see. I had a VA meeting last week. Nothing other than getting ready for hot dog days is our main topic. Things, you know, trying to get that all squared around. So that's all I have.

All I had last week was Friday, the roundtable at the fair. 911, EMA Director Travis Hitchcock, Wilson County Economic Development Foundation, Mark Norman, County Engineer Jacob Farrell, Sheriff and myself all went to that. was reported by Carlene Hall. Carlene got permission yesterday to publish that, so it's going to be published.

And then yesterday served good Mulholland's food with Greg and some members of the fair board last night too.

Yeah, probably 200 people. So besides that, that's all I have.

I just spent a couple days at the fair. I love that I'm here.

A new business. Anyone have any new business?

I will make a motion to adjourn at 928. Second.

The motion made to second it to adjourn at 928. All those in favor? Negative response.