The Greene County supervisors at their Dec. 8 meeting held a second “first” reading of the proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance dealing with data centers and crypto mining facilities. Auditor Billie Jo Hoskins said the supervisors at the Dec. 1 meeting had not formally approved the first reading after approving a proposed amendment to the draft ordinance.
The supervisors set Thursday, Dec. 18, at 10 am as the time to meet as the compensation board to consider wages for county elected officials for the coming year.
This will be the second year the supervisors have acted as the compensation board after the Iowa legislature made that an option during the 2024 session. Supervisor John Muir said at that time that the supervisors assuming the role of the compensation board in setting wage increases is justified because the supervisors control the budget.
The supervisors held a public hearing on proposed tile improvements in Drainage District 20, primarily north and east of Churdan. The district’s main tile system is was installed in 1908 and is severely inadequate for modern agricultural needs.
An engineer’s report prepared by AgriVia proposes installing a new main tile system and two branch tiles. Total cost of the project is $2,107,000. Of that, improvements to the main tile is estimated at $1,574,632, which would be assessed to all landowners in the district at a rate of $1,011 per acre. The cost of the branch tiles would be assessed only to the landowners who would benefit from those tiles.
AgriVia projects corn yields would increase by 10-20 bushels per acre and soybean yields would increase by 4-8 bushels per acre. Payback for the project would be just longer than eight years.
Several landowners in the district spoke during the public hearing. Joanna Hunter noted that the report is geared toward row cropping of corn and beans. She uses organic practices and has part of her ground in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and grows row crops only one year in a five-year cycle. She suggested that land use should be one of the criteria used to determine cost sharing of the project.
Drainage engineer Jacob Hagen of AgriVia said land use is not a criterion because it changes from year to year. Hunter pointed out that computer technology would make it easy to reclassify land as needed.
Other persons asked about scheduling the work, calculating cash rent for tenant farmers, bidding the project, and more.
The public hearing was continued to Jan. 19, 2026, at 9 am. Landowners have until then to file a written objection in the county auditor’s office. Auditor Billie Jo Hoskins said all landowners will receive a notice of the public hearing, and that returning the letter with a signature and “no” written on it would constitute an objection to the project. The project will be approved if 50 percent of the landowners of 70 percent of the district do not object. The full report is available under the Drainage tab of the Greene County website.
