~by Janice Harbaugh for GreeneCountyNewsOnline
“It’s a criminal act to destroy a pioneer cemetery,” supervisor Dawn Rudolph told the Greene County board of supervisors at their meeting March 28. “I support the cemetery.”
Rudolph reported “discarded stones and bones” in the Kendrick Township pioneer cemetery called the Horan Cemetery, located north of the Raccoon River Bible Conference camp. She said the old cemetery is being plowed and farmed with “about only one-sixth of it undisrupted.”
“This could be criminal trespass,” county attorney Thomas Laehn said. “A report should be made to the sheriff.”
Laehn said he would try to attend a meeting of the local Pioneer Cemetery Commission Monday afternoon.
“Kendrick Township is responsible for the cemetery,” Laehn said. “I’m the attorney for the townships, too. The cemetery should have been surveyed and fenced off.”
Chair John Muir and supervisor Pete Bardole agreed.
“It should have been surveyed when it was transferred,” Bardole said.
The board discussed protection of pioneer cemeteries and legal requirements for access to them.
Supervisor Mick Burkett is the board representative to the local Pioneer Cemetery Commission. The Commission will decide how to remedy the situation.
The board voiced its support for finding a remedy and auditor Jane Heun said the township can approach the county for money if needed.
In other business, Muir led a board discussion about whether the county needs an ordinance to guide the reimbursement of outside attorneys acting as guardian ad litem (GAD) for juveniles involved in the court system.
Attorney Laehn described a recent case in Greene County in which Judge Joseph McCarville appointed attorney Jessica Morton as GAL for a juvenile. Morton requested her regular fee of $240 per hour.
Laehn said the State Public Defender reimburses attorneys at a rate of $66 per hour for cases that fall under certain Iowa Code. At a previous board meeting, the supervisors approved the payment rate of $75 per hour for GAL services in the case, while also denying responsibility for payment of outside attorneys in juvenile cases.
“The juvenile needed representation,” Laehn said. “Even if we were not legally required, we paid.”
Laehn said Morton rejected both rates and Judge McCarville appointed another attorney as GAL for the juvenile “so the juvenile could have proper representation in time for court.”
Laehn said, “In other cases where the county is responsible for reimbursing attorney fees, the law says only that those fees should be reasonable.”
Laehn said he will research whether a county can set rates of reimbursement and will report to the supervisors with a recommendation.
The board unanimously approved Snyder and Associates, Inc. as Greene County inspector in the construction of the Summit Carbon Solutions Pipeline System. The proposed pipeline will carry CO2 through 12 miles of Greene County to North Dakota.
Attorney Laehn said he has received documents related to the proposed pipeline from Dan Tronchetti and he will report to the board at the next meeting April 4.
Engineer Wade Weiss reported to the board on the Iowa Department of Transportation Secondary Roads budget for FY23 and the Secondary Roads Five Year Program for 2023 through 2027.
Weiss described projects and expenditures at length with emphasis on bridge and road projects throughout the county. The board unanimously approved both budgets.
