Zoning Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome everybody. Today is August 19th, 2025. The Mills County Zoning Board of Adjustment. Can I please get a roll call? Collins here. Here. Like here. Warren, yes. Gentlemen, thank you. Can I get a review action and an approval of the current meeting agenda? I approve the current approve by Jenny and a second by Ted. Thank you. Can I get a review action and approval of the previous meeting minutes and the resolution? Motion to

second. Motion by a second. Okay. for tonight's new business. I will start off with a letter that we received from Deshawn Burgell who is our Mills County attorney. The subject request to suspend zoning board of adjustment meeting landfill discussion. Dear members of the zoning board of adjustment, I am writing in my capacity as Mills County Attorney regarding the meeting scheduled for this evening where the sole agenda item is the Mills County Landfill. At the request of one of the board of supervisors outside legal council has been requested to review the landfill's fee structure. Specifically, there is an interest in exploring an amendment that would address tonnage would address tonnage fees. At this time, the Department of Natural Resources has indicated that no counties in Iowa currently assess fees on tonnage and that such a provision may not comport with Iowa code. Given these pending legal and regulatory considerations, it is the county's position that proceeding with scheduled meeting would be premature to ensure compliance with state law and to allow the board of supervisors the opportunity to receive legal guidance before any further public discussion. We respect respectfully request that the meeting not be opened and be suspended until further notice. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in this matter. Please confirm receipt of this request and advise on the next steps for formal suspension or rescheduling. At this time from the board, I'll have to recuse myself for a conflict of

interest, but I believe that we need to uh address it. The letter from Mars County Attorney.

Well, we have a county attorney and an assistant attorney. And why do we need outside legal advice? One thing that I recommended on that Pat was it's not something that these attorneys deal with on a regular basis and it was a big enough of an ask that we really needed to have somebody who dealt with those issues before to be able to guide us and either ed educate not only the board of adjustment but also to the board of supervisors on would this is this legal? Does it conform to Iowa DNR regulations? says it formed the Iowa code and so that's why we had to we have to reach out for outside counsel.

So which county which supervisor was she talking about? Which supervisor that is requesting we look into tonnage fees that would looking into delaying this hearing?

No supervisor was looking into delaying the hearing. I wasn't made aware that we were going to suspend the meeting until the same email that you got two hours before the meeting. So I was not made aware of that. That's when I called Matt and I called Deshawn briefly after but uh no supervisor was aware. We're all three have been aware that Matt would like to get outside legal counsel. Uh this was a plan that he thought about a few times and had talked to us each individually to come to the board of supervisors and to know our our understanding and our feel about it.

Is there steps that we have to take at the county if you're going to get outside counsel? You can't. I just can't reach out and ask for outside counsel. The county attorney's office first has to be okay with me going with outside counsel and then the board of supervisors would have to approve it and then we'd enter into a letter with an attorney with an attorney firm that would that has the ability to handle an issue like this. So in the be the first week there of September is when we'll go to the board of supervisors and ask for the ability to get outside counsel.

I'm sorry I didn't hear that last part you said. So be right at the beginning of September, I'll go before the board of supervisors and ask them to approve me to be able to get outside counsel. So my question on this is I don't understand why she said we can't go forward with the meeting when our agenda was just to address the conditional uses that were allowed. Why did she go ahead? Because nothing in our stuff that we've reviewed prior to this meeting talked about fees. So I don't understand why we weren't able to go forward.

I in my conversations with her on that was it was to separate the two issues with the public in the room. It would it would have been too difficult to do. Everybody's going to intermix those issues into one thing. We realize the zoning board of adjustment realizes that their part in this is the conditional use permit expansion area. But then there's also an operational side of it that's going on right now that we would just have to keep saying we can't address. But if it's not in our agenda, how would the public want to address fees is where I'm going with this. Well, it was a published meeting for the landfill. So, it was it would have been

I'll add it's beneficial honestly to have outside legal counsel before and during you guys have the conditional use permit review. That way they can lead you through it and they can talk to you about what you're legally able to do because quite frankly our county attorneys they don't have this type of knowledge at this broad scope and they definitely don't have knowledge when it comes to landfills. It's a budgeted item. There's there's areas in the building and zoning budget where we can hire outside legal counsel we can find the money. We can do it and it benefits you guys because then you know you have the experts at the table when you're making your decisions. So overall, it's beneficial to the board of supervisors because we can figure out the tonnage fees and whether we can actually do it and it's beneficial for you guys because you can understand exactly what Iowa law allows you to do in this meeting as well.

It's definitely

today we get it. This has been on the docket for what months? It was it was right after you had mentioned it that you wanted to make sure we had somebody here. I mean, I emailed out directly the next day and let them know what was coming up when we were planning on when it was planning on happening. I've been staying in contact, but today was I know they had a busy day today. They told me that they had trials going on both of them. on to give reference how and why Deshawn sent it out today, why she didn't send it out earlier. I I can't speak to her state of mind on that one, but Matt Matt reached out to her and said, "We have the meeting tonight. It'd be nice for one of you to attend." And that's when she sent that email. So, that's how we're in the predicament that we're in today.

So, Matt, is it your opinion as a zoning official that we postpone this meeting then? Is that your advice? I do. Yeah, I told Jack the same thing. I mean, I've never gone against what the county attorney says. They're there to defend us, so I want to make sure do everything right. And if they're asking us to postpone it, then yes, I definitely think we should. So, are you saying September then? September is when I'll go to the board of supervisors. I'll have the legal counsel hopefully secured in within that month. And then we're going to have to do they're going to have to get caught up to speed on what we've already done. and um any considerations for the future and so I'm sure that'll mean conversations with everybody. So it could be October

been this long pat few months more. Yeah, I suppose. Would it be okay to tell these guys some of the big issues that they're going to be that I for one and a lot of county members are concerned about? I did have a meeting with them uh We kind we went through some of those uh concerns. I took it directly from concerns I'd heard from the public in the meetings. You know, I watched the meetings, listened to all of them, and addressed them with them. So, I don't know that right now if you uh what I was told to sell say is that if you move forward with anything, just let you know that it was against the advice of council to move forward with anything at this time.

So, no. I would be on record saying I'm kind of upset with our county attorneys. It is it's a tough role with the trials especially when they get when they get tied up in those trials. It's hard to say with what Yeah. But this goes back to 2020. We're five years later and we still haven't done a review. Right. But the re the fact we didn't do a review up until now is not the county attorney's fault. It was the fact that it slipped through the cracks with the change of personnel in that.

So, we probably need to um have a motion to suspend the meeting then. Is that correct? Do we need to do Can I get a motion to suspend the meeting? I'll second. No, I'll make I'll second. Oh, because Corey, sorry. I second. Roll call, please. Collins, yes.

Yes. Well, we apologize to the original sanctity landfill, but I guess this is going to get prolonged. So, um, thank you for coming tonight and we will, uh, I guess see what the county advises us to do here in the near future, probably before the end of the year. Sorry. Sorry to the public that showed up. That that's where we

Is there any other business? No other business. Is there a motion for the meeting to be adjourned? I'll make a motion to adjourn. The motion by Ted. I'll second. The second by Jenny. And turn to finish it off.