Floyd County supervisors continue shared engineer discussion

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Board of Supervisors continued discussing options at its regular meeting Monday morning, Dec. 23, to replace the county engineer who resigned effective Jan. 10.

The board had met in a joint meeting with the Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors on Friday morning, tentatively agreeing to explore sharing the current Cerro Gordo County engineer, Brandon Billings, between the two counties.

While Supervisor Chair Mark Kuhn expressed support Monday morning for exploring the sharing possibility, Supervisors Boyd Campbell and Dennis Keifer were hesitant.

Campbell said he agreed with continuing to pursue a sharing agreement with Cerro Gordo County, but wondered if Floyd County could also look for a full-time engineer at the same time, noting that the assistant county engineer in Kossuth County had expressed an interest in the Floyd County position.

He also said he would hate to see either county “get shortchanged” if Billings couldn’t devote the time needed to each county.

Kuhn said the experience that Billings had, including three years as the Cerro Gordo County engineer and years as the Cherokee County engineer before that, was important. He also noted that Billings has family in the Nora Springs area, indicating be might be someone who would remain in the job for a long time.

Keifer said he liked the idea of sharing resources, “but the more I think about it, I have some questions.”

Auditor Gloria Carr, who will become a county supervisor on Jan. 2, replacing Kuhn, said she doesn’t want the county to agree to a six-month trial period with the idea that Billings’ services would stop immediately after six months if the counties decide to not go ahead with a sharing arrangement.

Rather, she said, she would like to see the contract state that if the counties decided against continuing sharing, that Billings could continue in that role while Floyd County looks for a full-time engineer.

The board appointed Carr to represent the county in a small group to include a Cerro Gordo County supervisor, Billings, and perhaps human resources representatives, to see if they could come up with a proposed engineer sharing agreement to bring back to the full supervisor boards.

Carr said it would be ideal if that group could meet next week and come up with a proposal that the county boards could consider the following week, potentially coming to an agreement before Page leaves Jan. 10.

Duane Folz, Floyd County assistant to the engineer, who dropped in to the board meeting, said it’s important to have an engineer on hand, because a lot of the county’s projects are tied to funding that needs an engineer to be involved.

Folz also said he had wondered who would do the engineer’s work when the engineer was in the other county under a sharing agreement.

Also at the meeting Monday morning, the supervisors:

• Got an update from county Emergency Management Coordinator Jason Webster that the county’s new 300-foot communications tower had been erected at its site near Rockford to serve the western part of the county.

The next step was for installers to connect the needed antennas at the top of the tower and drop the lines to the equipment building.

Once the system is operating – by the end of January and hopefully a week or two earlier, Webster said – a Motorola tech will drive all around the county testing that the radio signal is what they promised.

• Approved a resolution saying that Floyd County will continue to use the “Master Matrix” to score new or expanding confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) proposed in the county.

Kuhn, who as an Iowa legislator helped design the state’s Master Matrix process, said mostly it gives counties that use it an opportunity to make a recommendation on proposed livestock projects to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. But he acknowledged that the DNR had never turned down a project based solely on a county’s opposition if the project had enough points under the matrix.

He said that participating in the matrix does allow a county to set up its own requirements for the matrix process, such as Floyd County did when it required that all neighbors to a proposed project be notified, and required that the person proposing the project had to attend a public hearing on the project.

• Agreed to assess the landowners in Drainage Ditch No. 3 $500,000 for the final costs of the ditch repair project, and to have a cushion for future spraying for weeds and eventually for saplings along the riverbank.