~by Janice Harbaugh for GreeneCountyNewsOnline
Open meetings at Greene County Development Corporation (GCDC) were the topic of public discussion at open forum during the Greene County board of supervisors meeting on Mar. 4. All supervisors were present except board chair John Muir.
Bryan Helmus of Jefferson said he would support the Greene County supervisors if they were to require GCDC to open their meetings to the public.
“GCDC is a ‘pay to play’ organization,” he said. “It’s secretive and promotes distrust. They’ve made bad decisions. If they meet at City Hall, those meetings should be open to the public. Open meetings would garner trust.”
Supervisor Pete Bardole, representing the board of supervisors to GCDC, said the GCDC office is located at Jefferson city hall, but that the meetings are sometimes held by Zoom from the meeting room at Sierra Community Theatre.
Bardole later said, “GCDC does business deals and can’t do them in public.”
The board discussed how people are chosen to be on the board of GCDC and was unclear about the process.
“This town is about a lot more than business development,” Helmus said. He encouraged the supervisors to not fund GCDC.
“That money can be put to good use in other ways,” he said.
Dennis Hall of rural Jefferson agreed with Helmus.
“If they want to facilitate business, that’s ok,” he said. “But the minute they use government money, their meetings should be open.”
Supervisor Dan Benitz said, “Community development is important, but they’ve (GCDC) have missed the boat as far as communication. They do good, but they’re secretive.”
In other business, county attorney Thomas Laehn reported Summit Carbon Solutions and Snyder and Associates met to discuss a billing problem. The problem first came to light in February when Summit questioned a bill submitted to them through Greene County from Snyder and Associates for oversight of the proposed carbon capture pipeline.
Laehn reported the two companies “worked out their differences and pledged to have better communication in the future.”
“Summit agreed to pay the bills,” Laehn said. “This takes the county off the hook for payment.”
The board heard from representatives of New Opportunities about programs they provide in Greene County for children and adults.
Toni Cunningham, prevention specialist, and Christy Jenkins, behavioral health director, gave statistics on childhood gambling, alcohol use, drug use, and tobacco use. The statistics came from surveys given to students by the State of Iowa. All answers were self-reports.
Cunningham and Jenkins said students reported gambling, vaping, cigarette and marijuana use, and alcohol use.
According to data, 64 percent of sixth graders, 56 percent of eighth graders, and 51 percent of 11th graders have wagered.
The supervisors discussed how under-age people could be allowed to gamble and the representatives cited the increase of online gambling opportunities and the availability of adults to purchase things like lottery tickets for youth.
“Twenty-six percent of students said they think vaping is safe and better than smoking,” Cunningham said. “Eighteen percent said marijuana is ‘easy to get.’”
Cunningham and Jenkins said New Opportunities conducts programs in schools for 20 minutes once a month as well as an OWI (operating while intoxicated) course, JADE activities (Juvenile Alcohol and Drug Education), and ISTEP (Iowa Students for Tobacco Education and Prevention.)
“We work with the social effects of advertising and influencers on young people,” Jenkins said.
The supervisors unanimously approved, with the absence of Muir, the hiring of Stacy Myers as a fulltime jailer for the Greene County sheriff’s office. Myers will be paid $48,000 per year starting Mar. 8.
The supervisors also unanimously approved a proposed property tax levy hearing and approval for the auditor to publish the proposed property tax levy notice. The public hearing was set for Apr. 1, 2024.
The supervisors unanimously approved a zoning change recommendation from the Greene County Planning and Zoning board that will reclassify some property belonging to Thomas Scheffers from agriculture to commercial. The property is in Dawson Township.
Scheffers has been washing out his own trucks on the property and now would like to do that commercially. He reports he has approval from the Department of Natural Resources and will be under DNR inspections. He reports neighbors within a mile of the operations have given approval.
In a related matter, the board gave unanimous approval to a waiver of separation distance for manure storage structures for Scheffers and the same property in Dawson Township, also identified as 160th St. and S Ave, on the “Spring Lake” road.
