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Floyd County assessor placed on leave after ‘allegation of wrongdoing’ in office

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County assessor has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted regarding his activities while in office, a process that is expected to take about three weeks.

Floyd County assessor placed on leave after ‘allegation of wrongdoing’ in office
Gary VanderWerf

The Floyd County Conference Board voted during a special meeting on Wednesday last week to place Assessor Gary VanderWerf on paid administrative leave and have an investigation begun by a law firm that the county works with on labor and other issues.

Dean Andrews, the Charles City mayor and a member of the Conference Board, told the Press there had been “an allegation of potential wrongdoing, and so we’re having this investigation just to see if that’s a valid implication or not.”

The discussion of the situation was held in a portion of the special meeting last Wednesday that was closed to the public under an exemption of the Iowa Open Meetings Law “to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation and that individual requests a closed session.”

Once the board came back into open session a motion was made “to do an investigation of the assessor based on discussion in closed session and place current assessor on paid administrative leave until results are in.”

That motion passed 8-0 by the members of the Conference Board who were present.

The Conference Board consists of the county supervisors, the mayors of the cities in Floyd County and a member from the board of education from each school district in the county.

The Conference Board is the governing board of the office of the assessor and appoints the assessor, approves the office budget and appoints members to other boards that work with the assessor’s office such as the board of review.

After the vote regarding VanderWerf on Wednesday, the board members agreed that another special meeting was necessary to appoint an interim assessor, and that meeting was scheduled for Friday morning.

At that meeting Friday, the board members decided that a more appropriate title would be acting assessor, and they appointed Floyd County Chief Deputy Assessor Brandi Schmidt as acting assessor.

Members of the board declined to comment on the nature of the allegation or whether it came from within the department or from outside. They said it falls within the Code of Iowa regarding reasons an assessor can be removed from office, but declined to discuss specifics.

Iowa Code Chapter 441.9 covers the removal of an assessor, and says: “The assessor may be removed by a majority vote of the conference board, after charges of misconduct, nonfeasance, malfeasance, or misfeasance in office.”

Members of the board would not comment on whether this was a monetary matter or some other type of legal issue.

Mike Galloway, an attorney with the Ahlers and Cooney law firm who works with counties and cities around the state, including with Floyd County, is in charge of conducting the investigation, although members of the Conference Board said he would be contracting another attorney he had worked with before who had familiarity with the type of issues in this matter.

VanderWerf has been with the Floyd County Assessor’s Office since 2003, first as deputy assessor, and since 2016 as the assessor.

VanderWerf was not able to be reached for comment.

 

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