Treasurer Mechaelsen tells reduced hours for driver’s license services
Thomas Laehn has his foot on the gas pedal in the county attorney’s office even while campaigning for U.S. Senate. He briefed the county supervisors at their Aug. 24 meeting on the various tasks he’s working on. None of them are small.
He has started revising the county’s zoning ordinance, and told the supervisors “that’s going to be a much bigger project than I expected.”
Revisions will cover to three future projects in the county: repowering wind turbines; adding battery storage systems at solar projects; and adding distance requirements between data centers.
Other revisions are needed to align the county’s zoning ordinances with changes in the Code of Iowa.
“This is going to be a pretty big undertaking. I have about 12 pages single-spaced of new text we’d be adding to the zoning ordinance, and that’s about half,” he said.
He reminded the supervisors that changes in zoning ordinances require a public hearing.
He reported he is dealing with three petitions from convicted felons for post conviction relief. “It’s kind of a good thing, because it means we have a lot of people in prison who have nothing better to do than to file petitions with the court. It’s a symptom of the success of our jury trials,” Laehn said.
The post conviction relief petitions are civil matters and require a civil trials. He said that along with 10 criminal trials scheduled before the end of the year (and his term of office), there will be at least two civil trials.
Laehn is also working on a state-required report concerning the July 26 Jefferson police officer-involved shooting.
Finally, he explained state code as added responsibilities for county attorneys regarding victims of crimes. He said 83 counties have victim/witness coordinators; Greene County is not one of them. He told the supervisors to expect incoming county attorney Ben Smith to request the three counties he’ll serve – Greene, Calhoun and Sac – hire a one such person to serve all three counties.
County treasurer Katlynn Mechaelsen told the supervisors she is reducing hours her office will provide drivers’ license services to 9 – 11:30 am and 12:30 to 3 pm. The change is due to a staff shortage and the increased workload in her office collecting fall tax payments.
She said she and her staff have been subjected to “not acceptable” language more in the past two weeks than in the past eight years. More of the offensive language comes from out-of-county persons who have driven to Greene County because walk-in service is available. The number of out-of-county persons coming in for driver’s licenses has increased from an average of 16 per day to 24 per day.
Mechaelsen hopes to be fully staffed by October. The office will go back to offering regular hours at that time.
The supervisors approved amendments to the 28E agreement with New Opportunities Inc for youth-focused and per-support opioid use disorder remediation services. The agreement had expired June 30; It is now extended to Dec. 31, 2026. That will allow New Opportunities to use the final 41.700 it received in opioid grant funds.
The board discussed GIS (geographic information systems) mapping with county assessor Adam Smith and real estate/tax coordinator Pam Olerich. Michelle Fields had done all the GIS work for the county as GIS/IT/drainage clerk. She left the position last September. Since then, Smith hired Schneider and Olerich have shared GIS responsibilities, the county has hired a part-time IT specialist, and AgriVia provides drainage clerk services.
Smith has used Schneider Geospatial since then and has a contract with the firm through June 30, 2027. Cost is $16,081 per year. According to Smith, doing the work in-house would require training, which would also come at a cost.
Supervisor John Muir suggested that continuing with Schneider would provide more stability in view of staff turnover. Auditor Billie Jo Hoskins suggested staff turnover should not be a basis for the decision.
In the end, the decision will be made by the conference board, which includes representatives from all entities that receive a share of property taxes collected in the county.
Olerich also reported she had recalculated taxes due from NEW Cooperative for their facilities west of Cooper and in Highland Township, resulting in a need to abate $27,634 in taxes from 2024 (already collected and disbursed) and 2025 taxes (bills were recently mailed).
Laehn explained NEW Coop had appealed its assessment to the Property Assessment to Appeal Board (PAAB) for tanks on their property. Other coops had done the same. A Chickasaw County case ended up in the Iowa Supreme Court. The court ruled the tanks should not be assessed. Laehn recommended settling with NEW Coop. The coop agreed to accept credit against future taxes for the amount already paid. Laehn called the settlement “the best outcome we could achieve.”
Minutes of the meeting are available under the Calendar/Agenda tab on GreeneCountyNewsOnline
