County discusses condition of Secondary Road shops

Board of Supervisors
By: 
Kim Brooks
Express Editor

     County Engineer Derek Snead visited with the Jones County Supervisors during their Dec. 27 meeting regarding the former county shop in Wyoming. Earlier this fall, a new county shop was built in Wyoming.

     Snead addressed the possible sale of the county shop, saying Secondary Roads did not need to utilize the facility for storage purposes.

     “We have pretty much cleared everything out,” he said. “We are no longer heating it, and the water is shut off.”

     If the county chose to sell the building, Snead said, according to Iowa Code, a public hearing would need to be held. If there were no objections, the board of supervisors could pass a resolution to sell the building however seen fit.

     Snead suggested hiring a realtor to help with the sale, but said there would be added costs involved.

     “Or we could take bids,” he offered. “I have no preference either way. But an auction would be difficult to do.”

     Snead did say there has been some interest in the old shop building.

     The board said they would look at a potential sale in late January.

     Supervisor Jon Zirkelbach asked Snead about the old county shop in Monticello. Two years ago, a new shop building was built outside of town.

     “That building is fairly full,” Snead said. “We use it for storage, but all of the utilities are turned off.”

     Supervisor Wayne Manternach said he would be in favor of keeping the old Monticello shop in use rather than sell it or tear it down.

     “I’m in favor of keeping that for cold storage because we always need space,” said Manternach.

     Zirkelbach questioned with a new Secondary Roads’ shop and a new JETS facility in the works, whether it is needed to keep.

     “I thought the property was going to be disposed of,” he said.

     In terms of future shop buildings, Snead said the Temple Hill shop could be next on the list.

     “All of our shops were constructed around the same time,” he said, that being the late 1960s/early ‘70s. “All of them are in need of upgrades.”

     He said one priority right now is updating the main county shop’s cold storage unit in Anamosa.

In other county business:

     • The board reappointed Lyle Theisen and Denny Coon to the Board of Health for three-year terms.

     • The board reappointed Leah Nebergall and LaVerta Langenberg to the Pioneer Cemetery Commission for three-year terms. They still need to fill two vacancies.

     • The board filed a notice from the City of Monticello to severe property from the city in Lovell Township. The property is located west of Highway 151 and north of Highway 38. The property owners (Shover, Holmes, and Kraus) voluntarily agreed to severe their property. The county will also gain some roadway to maintain.

     • The board approved amended contracts with the Iowa DHS for CPPC (Community Partnerships for Protecting Children) and DECAT programs. The CPPC contract increased to $18,825 and the DECAT contract increased to $15,500.

     Jones County is strictly a pass-through agency for these contracts.

     • A public hearing was held and the board approved amending the FY 2018 county budget, as well as adjusting the appropriations for the various county departments.

     The amendment shows $21,242,268 of total revenues and other sources, and $22,862,019 of total expenditures and other uses.

     Changes were also made to the following departments’ spending appropriations: JETS, General Services, GIS, DECAT/CPPC/ECI, JETS Facility Project, Capital Projects, and Budget Holding.

     • Land Use Administrator Michele Lubben spoke with the board regarding a nuisance at 16259 County Road X-31, Anamosa.

     Lubben said the property went from the homeowner to a bank in foreclosure and now she’s working with a bank out-of-state. After finally getting in touch with someone regarding the condition of the property, Lubben advised the board she would wait to file a nuisance violation.

     • The board approved the purchase of a spray truck for Roadside Management from Freese Motors in Monticello for just over $53,000. Snead also got a bid from an out-of-county business, which was lower than the Freese bid. The board approved the local purchase, as an exception to the county purchase policy.

     Roadside Management was awarded a grant for $15,000 to help with the purchase.

     “We work with Freese a lot,” said Snead. “We got our last few trucks from them, all at good deals.”

     • Dave and Penny Schoon of Monticello were present at the board meeting to discuss the disposition of county-owned land off of County Road D-62, former county right-of-way.

     Dave said they merely want to clean up his mother’s estate and a land surveyor noticed the fact that the county still owned right-of-way, of which the Schoons were paying taxes on the last 20 years. The county owns the right-of-way by deed, which makes it more complicated than if it was owned as an easement.

     “We need to figure out who the county bought this (land) from and what process we need to follow,” said County Auditor Janine Sulzner, referring to the process of selling the land to the previous or adjacent landowners.

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