Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning, everybody. Lots of echo. MIT grad.

Maybe we're going to hire him. He's one letter short.

Is that any better?

I don't know. Nope.

I don't know. No, it's not any better.

Give me feedback. Okay, we'll go with that. Can anybody else hear us?

Yeah.

I'm going to do this. There you go.

Is that better now? Maybe a little bit better?

It's not giving back, so I think you're okay.

I think he's getting it. First thing is approval of the agenda.

Make a motion to approve.

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Minutes to the August 25th, 26th board meeting. I'll move to approve.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Authorization of obtaining the credit card for American Gothic House.

I'm going to make a motion to approve.

I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Resolution 40-2026, Transfer of Funds from General Supplemental Buffalo County Health Fund. I'll move to approve. I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Extension to farm, ground, line, and contact with Brad Deager, 2627.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Educational Mailer and Cost of Mailer, Jail Expansion. Aye.

So I sent that to you this morning in the email, and I each have a copy of it. The estimated number of active registered voters, and this is an estimate, is 15,596. The mailer would be a standard postage would be a total of $6,070. That number could be more or less than the registered voters, but that's what we have to work with. There's a second one in there for all residents, which is estimated at 35,000. That cost would be approximately 13,000. I suggested to them that we go with registered voters, because they're more likely the ones that would vote. It'd be nice to educate them all. They all had some input, but I don't know that we'll get that kind of response.

read someplace that we have to do the registered voters, but we don't have to do the total population.

That is just the honors responsibility for the bonding language to be sent out. They can either be sent out to the registered voters or to the all residents. I think she's looking to do just the Registered voters, just because it's cheaper. That's the two options she has available is my understanding, talking with her.

I would certainly be inclined just to do the registered voters.

What's this other sheet he gave us?

From the print shop?

Yeah, $23,000, $10,000.

That's a 35,000 residents. To put it together, first class would be 23,000. Standard would be 13,000 total. That would include putting them together and putting them in the envelopes and sending them. That'd be the total cost by standard and first class. Standard and first class for the 15,596 would be the 6,000 and 12,000.

I don't know why we'd only deregistered voters because everybody's gonna have to pay taxes on it. Not just the voters. Steve, I know you called me and told me we couldn't do this. Can you comment on that? You want to come up, please?

So I know the one contract that is for basically to send out to promote for it, we can't do that. That's statutorily, we cannot. The mailers, I would have to review what's going to be sent out to see if we can legally do that. The case law on it leans towards probably not if it's for a specific position. But it's, again, I haven't seen that, so it's I would need to review that first to see if that's something we would legally be able to do. Because we can't use county funds to promote anything that's on a ballot.

And I think if you're saying promotion, I would agree with her on that. That this is an educational piece that's being sent out and not advocating for one way or the other. So that's the difference. And that's what the bonding attorney had sent us and I forwarded to you. I did not include Stevie in that email, but I'd be more happy to forward that to her so she can see it. But it was clearly an education piece that we're trying to do with the public. It's not a yes or no vote.

And this has nothing to do with the contract. This is part of the expense of the contract, correct?

This is expense beyond the contract, correct.

Okay. Do we have any idea where these funds are supposed to come from? It'll come from Don's budget. So in addition, number nine in the contract that was applied to us after the last board meeting. Okay, I haven't seen a new one. I did for being gone for a week.

We haven't sent anyone to Steve either. Were you though, right? I think the only difference is the number nine that was included that was the request of the board to be included in the contract.

I reviewed it last night. That was the only change with the addition from Brian's request from the last board meeting.

I think the request, you correct me if I'm wrong, Carrie, was... you know, for an update and tweak on what's being spent and what's being done. So they have a running idea of what expenses are being made.

I'll just read it to you. Number nine, service providers shall provide an estimated cost breakdown for turning to the services outlined under the agreement, shall submit weekly reports outlining the actual cost of services. Service providers shall provide an estimate. Any associated print, postage and mailing services to owner. Owner shall approve those costs prior to the introduction letter being mailed. Owner hereby requests and approves the payments to the outline and its agreements and to be disbursed from the service provider from the Wabla County Sheriff's Budget.

Do you have a chance to review the rest of the contract?

I think I

I think I did, but I can't remember off the top of my head because I just remember thinking, oh, I don't know if we can do this. Because it's, I mean, if it's for a company that is promoting for the jail, I just don't know how it's going to be neutral. Because, I mean, anytime you say why we need the jail, there also needs to be a section of why we don't need the jail. So, I mean, it's very... Like it has to be completely neutral.

Do they have a copy of the flyer that we want to mail out?

I believe it was forwarded to you guys here a while back as example letter, not this particular letter. It's a sample letter that they've done with They don't have ours done. I asked them if they'd have it for this meeting so you could see it, but they didn't think they'd have it ready. I think they're, yeah, they said they wouldn't have it ready.

Is this still coming out on the show's budget? This is not part of the contract.

What the mailing?

Because we have a mailing we have to do anywhere at our own expense. Number nine was the 35,000. That is budget. Not the mailing.

and approves the payment for the services outlined in this agreement to be disbursed to the service provider from the Waterloo County Sheriff's Budget.

So both then come out of this budget. The contract and this. Is this just the mailing or is it all of it? I'm just reading the mailing in. The print, postage, and mailing service costs to the owner.

That's what was agreed on last at the last ordinance.

Number nine is just the mailer. I thought we agreed to the contract was that he has.

Thank you.

I mean, four is different than nine. Four is the contract.

It's a $35,000.

Correct.

That's not specified where it comes out of. The mailing and stuff will come out of the sheriff's office.

I remember that Fred Berry didn't talk about that, but that's where we're supposed to come out of.

The 35,000? Yes. No, we talked about it coming out of local option sales.

In my opinion, our mailer, we can't approve our mailer until we have what the mailer is. Make sure it's not a violation. Is that all there is in CUNY, attorney? managers, pro or con, either way. Completely neutral. Completely neutral information only. Brian?

The item on the agenda is the educational mailer first and then it goes to the contract. Since there are some questions, can we I know we have the mailer. Table this until the next meeting, but that puts it off.

That's the concerning part is it puts us two more weeks out. This mailer includes the educational locations for each community with agency Blakesburg, Eddyville, Eldon, and two of those meetings in Ottumwa, one which is on a Saturday. I think it's important that we get that information out. You were sent a sample letter that was sent. When I looked through the letter, it wasn't promoting one way or the other. It was basically facts and information and educational information spread out. These are the same ones that same contract or similar ones. I'm sure I can't really speak for them, but I don't know why ours would be any different than what they did at Page County and Webster County. Um, so, you know, they did that stuff, uh, there, and there was no issues. I don't know that, uh, I guess before it gets mailed out, we can move forward with it and it'd be reviewed by Stevie before it gets mailed out, if you wish. You know, I think, you know, I don't think it's like, again, I think it's an educational piece. It's not yes or no.

Stevie, how soon will we have a kind of a final answer on your position or your thought on it? And I guess the reason I'm asking that is could we approve it contingent upon your decision? Because I would like to respect your decision and I'm a little bit concerned that we're moving ahead without your input.

Right. I mean, I haven't even seen the example one yet.

So I just don't know.

And then how quickly, if there are things that are promotional, then how quickly can they revise that to take it out? So it's just, there's some things that I just don't know yet.

I guess based on that, I'd be inclined, I think it's risky to make a decision today contingent upon your decision. I would propose that we table this till we know more However, we could have a special meeting between now and two weeks from now if we need to. I would be willing to do the special meeting.

Yeah, because you said they're working on the mailer, right? The letter, yes.

Can you contact them to see when they will have that complete? Maybe we can set a meeting for next week or the end of this week.

Okay. So is that going to be your motion then?

Do we need to? Yeah, if we need a motion to table it, that would be fine. I'll make that motion to table it.

So motion to table and then we'll get a mailer sample in and review it with Steve and set another date. second that you were reading i'm trying to read it too is and so we have first and second on the first point until we get the sample all those in favor all right seniors group contract jail expansion this is the up to 35 000 I think you requested a breakdown of everything, Ryan.

That was divided by email last week. I'm not sure I sent it off for you this morning.

Get all the information you need to look for it. The requirements that I laid out last time I feel are being met with the intent that some of them are going to have to be met in the future, of course. So I'm fine with the contract. And I do think we want to keep looking at some things and we can make some adjustments later if we need to. For example, whether the money comes out of the sheriff's budget or the sales tax. We can still do some research on that. But I'm fine with the way the contract reads now.

Do you have a motion? Anything you want to add to it?

I'll go ahead and make the motion to accept the contract as provided.

I'm going to second it.

All those in favor? Aye. I'm going to vote nay just because I don't like it. Open that end at zero to 35,000. Resolution 41-2026, temporary road closure and detour for T61. Greg?

Yes, we were contacted by the railroad. They worked on this crossing south of Lakesburg and T61 last year or two.

Yeah, last year.

They're saying that they've got some failure of the material they placed underneath the tracks, so they need to go in. They're talking... three to five days to go in and pull the tracks up and put them back down. I do know from our perspective, the DOT rejected the crossing funding because he did not make it wide enough on the edges enough to cover the shoulder width. So we do, we ask them that they correct that while they're there and they should be aware that they paperwork all goes through the railroad for the grant that was funding that crossing upgrade. So yeah, this is just really restoring the official detour for traffic to travel. We'll put some advance warning down at Unionville on the north side at US 34 advising traffic that it's closed and to choose another route. I think that only affects Eddieville schools. Yes.

Any questions on that? I'll take the motion to go through.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Wappel County Board Commission, American Goblet House Board.

So we had a resignation for that board. No one had talked to one other person and he did not want to do it.

Okay. That guy turned it down. That guy turned it down.

Yeah.

We talked about something. So then we need to still find somebody. Awesome.

Yeah. I just assumed it was the other one, but.

She'd be good.

Carrie, she provided information, but did you know the person? Oh, yeah.

She had a lot to do with the actual project.

Okay.

I know her, too.

Okay.

I'm going to make a motion. Do you all agree?

I'll second. Aye. Stevie left, didn't she? We got to get that new paper for the American God of the Council done. Yeah. Contract Billings, Sharp, Auditor's Office, Grinner.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Yeah, I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Aye. Contract Renewal, Otter, Board of Supervisors Office. I'll move to approve. I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Aye. Renewable energy ordinance discussion. Miranda kind of spoke to me. I think she probably spoke to you too, both, but getting the battery storage for commercial out of that. She did not speak to me. She did not speak to me. She spoke to me. We're putting it with the new data center ordinance we're working on.

And I'd certainly be fine with that. I guess one of my thoughts on that process just to put it out there is that if we do the data center and the battery, I'd like to engage either a company to develop it or an attorney to work on it, to approve it prior to the point where it comes to us. And I think at that point, we might want to investigate what the cost of that would be. But I feel like any ordinance needs to have the stamp of approval of an attorney that specializes in ordinances. So we protect ourselves from any type of risk or any kind of conflict internally within the ordinance. So that's just my thought at this point.

Like I said at the last board meeting, we've spent thousands of dollars on a renewable energy ordinance, and it's gone nowhere, which is fine. I have a hard time spending another $40,000 to $50,000 for somebody to write an ordinance when we have several ordinances in our possession that we can copy from and then maybe give it to the county attorney to authorize.

and that's certainly a fine way to to proceed and i don't have any problem with the county attorney doing that perhaps we can do that but i still feel a little bit uncomfortable with that standpoint of i feel we would need at some point some outside attorney that specializes in ordinance development to take a look at it so so i'm okay with developing it that way i just at some point feel we need a little more input from somebody outside of a

I'm sure we'd probably get ISAC to look at it for free.

And that'd be appropriate, of course.

Because they've been looking at a lot of them. Okay, we'll leave that up.

Yeah, if I can just add, remember, you have five hours free legal service. And Brent Henders is the attorney that has actually written a lot of the ordinances for the counties around the state. He's also been the one that has defended those counties when there have been lawsuits as a result of those ordinances. And I know at our last planning and zoning meeting that when the commission talked, there are three specific counties that have passed these types of ordinances in the past eight to 10 months. And we were looking at those and going through the similarities because those have all been approved by the attorneys. So there is a process that we're working on for the development, especially specifically for the data centers. So when we get all of those things put together and we go through the, you know, dotting the T's and crossing the T's and dotting the I's, whichever way you want to. then I think that next process is to see where we're at on the number of free legal hours we have left and have Brent or Eric review those.

And this is a whole new company, correct?

Well, yeah. They were Hopkins and Hueyner and Brent and Eric spun off, and now it's their specific professional corporation.

Do you know how soon you can have some output from that process?

Well, that was August 10th when we had the actual three different ordinances from those specific counties.

Well, I know Miranda's going to call you guys some quicker sessions because we've got to get ahead of the ball.

So at this point, we can let Miranda do her part and go from there.

Yeah, you're already paying her salary, so... And then the commission members as well are reviewing those. Okay.

Thank you. Personnel request for salary approval, change of employment assessor's office. I think somebody forgot to turn in paperwork.

I'm going to make a motion to approve.

I'll second. All right. Any other business? for the board. We're gonna throw Carrie under the bus here a little bit, and Lori's here too, so Chad, tell us about your experience with your visit to Altoona, to LightEdge. They went and toured a data center. Turn your mic on.

I mean, I guess I... I didn't really know what to expect because you hear all the outside noise about what these data centers are and aren't. Um, so you kind of have to balance that out and kind of go in, I think with a clear kind of an open mind. Um, and I don't really have a, any skin in this game and I don't, I'm not really sure if I've been, you know, if I have one opinion or the other at this point, what I would say is, um, They're loud, but only if you can really get inside them. Because from the outside of a very thick walled exterior building, you're not going to hear these data center rooms with all the servers running. It's only when you go back, I guess, into the corridor, you know, where you really hear that stuff. I would say... You know, I guess, you know, the one thing they always say is like, well, how many jobs is a data center going to create? And I don't think there's really any way to sugarcoat it. It's not going to be a ton, except on the front end with construction. I think they said 10 to 15 is what they had at wide edge.

Yeah, but they also have people coming in that use those servers. So, those jobs are also, I mean, if you want to look at it in a roundabout way, those jobs are also provided. So those people come in, do their maintenance, and do everything on those servers.

They create jobs outside, like yard work and different things.

Yeah, I just, inside the building, there weren't a ton of staff, from what I can recall. And I'm not an engineer, so I don't know how the closed-loop system works entirely as far as water usage and And everything I know Tim Albert has said over and over again that this area has so much water, it really needs a big investor or a big company to come in and use some of that water because they do have a lot. I know he's made those comments to me personally, and I know he's made them. I think he made them to the Atoma Water Works board about just – they really would like to see a big user come in here. Now what that looks like and how they use it. I don't know.

Um, I'll piggyback off of that. Um, he said that they actually, when they fill that closed loop system, they don't ever add water to it. Um, they just add chemicals. So they're not using water continuously from outside sources. So they fill it once they add chemicals. Um, I just think that everybody should do their research. Not all of them are created equal. And I think if you do an ordinance, you want to put in there the exact things that you expect on it, like a closed loop system. They build their own, you know, they pay for their own energy grid upgrades or whatever. Yeah, that was, yeah. I mean, it was interesting. And it was, I think people don't have a lot of knowledge of them. They're just going off of what they've read on Facebook or social media or The internet, whatever, it's not all. And they're nothing new. No, they've been around for years. And like he said, you can't even, the noise, unless you're in the building, and even in the corridor, you don't hear it that much, really, honestly. So when you go inside those sort of sections, yeah. And you don't have to, and the only thing we heard outside was generators from the other building, and it's an older building. We didn't hear anything from the newer building on the outside. So, I don't know. I think people are misinformed about them a lot. Now, does that say that I'm for them, I want them? I don't know because I don't know the whole cost of has people's electricity bill risen because of them. I mean, I don't know any of that. So I think that's something that should be researched.

Yeah, I, you know, here's my pro bono legal advice since I'm a great attorney. You know, I think if you do Do an ordinance. I think, you know, location really matters. And I think, kind of like Lori said, specificity and the specs really matter. Do you want one that's, this one I think was six megawatts. Six megawatts. It wasn't huge. It wasn't like a hyperscale data center. Yeah, it wasn't like a Microsoft or a Google data center.

Yeah, he said it's not like Facebook or anything like that.

It had a lot of private storage.

There's a lot of hospitals and things that use a lot of data. And they do have one area we went to that does produce more because it's more a little bit AI, but that's not really what their business is for.

And, you know, That's just what Wide Edge does. I don't know what the other.

I mean, there's a million.

Yes. I don't know. Well, just the different companies that own these data centers, you know, like Wide Edge, or I don't know who it was you visited in Waukee a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, Signal.

Travis, it was very comparable to the first one you went to, right?

Yes, I would liken them.

This one had, again, to what she said, had AI stuff running in one of their corridors, which the other place I don't think did that we were at. It was much louder. It was hotter, but it's confined to that room. So it's not, like you said, we were able to stand in the hallway right outside that door and have a conversation.

And outside, you couldn't tell it was. So if you put it in a, even in an industrial park, a business park, you wouldn't even know what it was. you'd have no clue that it was a data center.

Yeah. And I think the other thing is if you build one here, there's only so many locations you could put one, you know, out by the airport in a non-residential area, maybe Helgerson flats that they've been trying to develop for years, you know, away from resident. I mean, it's just, unless you're, unless you're actually inside the building, you really can't hear them.

And you really don't know what that building is. When you drive by it, you have no clue what it is. It's not labeled or anything. It's got an address on it, and that's it.

It really kind of felt like you're walking into a government building. It was just very blah as far as the hallways and security. I think what they say, seven levels, 12 levels of security. So it's not like just some random person could go in and walk into a data center just to see how it sounds.

And when you walked in the reception area, you couldn't hear anything either. I mean, it's just like a normal office building.

It's very sound. It was very soundproof. I mean, but I think, you know, the education piece seems to be so important here, you know, because there's so many misconceptions and, and preconceived notions about what they are and what they're not and the whole AI aspect. And, you know, when a lot of it is really just housing servers because businesses don't have the space to do it on site. So they go into these data centers and they have just racks and lockers and shelves of just computer hard drives and power strips and ethernet cables.

I mean, they're basically your, they're basically your cloud.

Yeah.

So that's where your stuff is when it goes to the cloud.

I assume they had chemical fire prevention like the one we went to.

It's a really great system. And it actually, above each one of them, if they have sensors, they know when it's getting a little warm so they can go in, check it out, do whatever. But it would, what they say, Travis, it would go under that one only. It wouldn't get on anything else and it would immediately take care of it.

It would only set off the the sprinkler that melted. And that wouldn't set the next one off unless it melted above it.

So it was a different fire suppression than the one that we visited. I think this one was more water-based than anything where that one messed with gases in the air. It was gases because of the lithium batteries.

Yeah, this one I think was more of a water-based suppression system that

I mean, there's a lot of components to it. I think people don't realize that. And I think you could, if you're building your ordinance, you could set it up to, you know, regulate those things.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I think if you do an ordinance, you kind of have to lay out exactly what you're looking for and how much, you know, and have some deliverables such as, you know, kind of like what Jefferson County did, you know, there there's had, We want regular reports on how much water, how things are getting used, economic development, you know, things. We want reports on that annually. You know, you can build some of those things into it. But, yeah, the information and the education piece is the critical piece, especially if you do end up wanting something like that here because there's so much negative perception on data centers right now. that nobody wants them.

And you could put a, you could cap off how many megawatts up top, you know, that they use and stuff like that too. In your ordinance, you can say, we don't want one higher than this.

They were either a four or six. And I thought they were about out of room. I think it's what the guy said. They were just about capped out maybe. And they, did they have the ability to expand? Yeah.

Right.

Right.

So I just want to say they could use 10, but they weren't using 10.

Yeah, that's what he said. They should go up to 10. So.

Anything else for the board? Yes.

I'll just add that, you know, a couple of weeks ago at that convention. I was talking to Sonny Schroeder, you know, he's a supervisor over in Monroe County, and he's actually on a construction crew that builds those data centers. So that might give you another perspective to get from him about all of the, from the ground level up. I didn't know he did that, but yeah, he said he was starting an expansion. I thought he said Altoona or Ankeny had a data center.

Yeah, I know what lawyers here in town are doing. one of the main construction groups to build them. So I think they have, I'm going to say 17,000 people employed at Cedar Rapids doing those. They don't set up there. There's six on one and 12 on the other buildings, 12 buildings. And they'll be there for a few years building them. Then they'll go down to I think 40 to 50 per building.

Well, I couldn't remember what the guy said, who had to create the ordinance for the White Edge once. If it was the city of Altoona, if it was Polk County.

The city allowed their own. That's what got Cedar Rapids and some general wars.

They didn't have a road use agreement. Right. And the ones that are being built are just inside city limits. But do the counties themselves have to have one?

If it's going to be in the county, yeah.

because these were out by Adventureland, so they weren't really any residential areas, I didn't think, to really... Yeah. But no nice...

There were a lot of houses around where we went to, but they weren't there when they built it, because it was there in 2013. Is that right, Andy? 2013? Yeah. It's been well over almost 15 years, so It was a cornfield when they built and the houses built around them, so.

Go ahead. Brad, could you do an introduction for us, please? Sure.

That's what you get for coming to the meeting. Yeah, thanks for coming, by the way.

New assistant engineer for . I started with this a week ago. then having to do some job shadowing with the foreman and working with Rob to get familiar with projects we're doing. So just getting them set up with a computer and so forth right now. So we'll get them working on design here shortly. Hopefully focus on some of the pipe work and eventually the road plans on 87th. under way on that, so.

Welcome, my brother. I'm sure you want to stand up and bury yourself, right? Glad to have you. Glad to have brought your family, all enrolled in school. He needs house searching if anybody finds a house down the road for him. Motion to adjourn. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Thanks, everybody.