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Floyd County’s new Board of Supervisors gets down to business

Floyd County’s new Board of Supervisors gets down to business
The new Floyd County Board of Supervisors held its first meeting Tuesday morning and afternoon, lasting almost 7½ hours. Supervisors are, from left, Dennis Keifer, District 2; Chair Mark Kuhn, District 1; and Jim Jorgensen, District 3. At left is County Auditor Gloria Carr. Press photo by Bob Steenson
By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The new Floyd County Board of Supervisors spent a marathon seven-plus hours Tuesday morning and afternoon going through the minutiae of the annual organizational agenda, setting up the procedures for meetings, deciding which of dozens of outside boards and commissions each supervisor would represent the county on, passing routine annual resolutions and also beginning work on the county budget for the next fiscal year that starts July 1.

There was some uncertainty on procedures regarding a couple of the items, owing to the fact that two of the supervisors were completely new to the position and the third had not held office as a supervisor for four years.

All three board members were new this year because all three seats were open in the November election, the first where supervisors were elected to represent districts, rather than being elected at-large.

One of the members, Jim Jorgensen, representing District 3, had only been appointed on Monday, filling a vacancy created when the person elected to represent that district declined the position.

As the first order of business, the board quickly selected Supervisor Mark Kuhn as the chair for this year. Kuhn had been a Floyd County supervisor for 14 years, from 1993 to 1998 and from 2011 to 2018.

Kuhn noted that this was the fifth time he would be serving as chair of the board, and said the board had many challenges ahead of it, particularly budget challenges and finishing the Law Enforcement Center and courthouse update projects.

District 2 Supervisor Dennis Keifer was elected as vice-chair.

Kuhn announced a couple of changes right away that would affect how that first meeting and future meetings will be run.

He said one of the primary responsibilities of the board was to keep the meetings open and accountable and to that end he started a policy of calling for public comment – from people attending the meeting in person and from those listening in by telephone conference – for every agenda item and before every vote.

Kuhn referred to a time in December 2020 when he had filed a complaint with the Iowa Public Information Board (IPIB) against the then-Board of Supervisors for not being specific enough in agenda item descriptions.

At that time, Kuhn said an agenda item where the board would consider a COVID-19 mask policy for the courthouse did not mention the potential for that discussion, even though the assistant county attorney had advised the board that the agenda item should list the mask mandate discussion. The board was using a “catch-all” agenda item each meeting for action on the Law Enforcement Center and courthouse update project that did not indicate specifically what would be discussed at each meeting, he said.

As a result of that complaint, the IPIB mediated a resolution whereby the board acknowledged that it had not met the requirements for posting an adequate notice of agenda items, worked on a process to develop agendas with more specific language, and board members attended a teleconference training session regarding the Iowa Open Meetings Law and Iowa Open Records Law, presented by IPIB staff.

“This board doesn’t ever want to violate the trust of the people of Floyd County by violating the Iowa Open Meetings Law, and that’s something we’re not going to let happen, ever again,” Kuhn said at the meeting Tuesday.

Kuhn also instituted a policy of requiring anyone – including his fellow board members – to raise their hand and be recognized by the chair in order to speak.

He said he instituted the policy because there were times when he was attending meetings or especially when he was trying to listen to a meeting electronically where people including board members would talk over each other and it was difficult to follow what was being said.

Many of the items handled at the organizational meeting were routine approvals of policies that seldom change from year to year, although board members this year had questions regarding a couple of them.

On an annual resolution allowing department heads to destroy documents over 10 years old that are not required to be kept, Keifer wanted more information on what type of documents they were talking about, and action on that item was postponed to the next meeting, Monday, Jan. 9.

While discussing resolutions and the differences between a resolution and a motion, a member of the audience, Gordy Bode, the president of the Coalition for Better County Government, said a resolution needs to be passed by a roll call vote.

The board and County Auditor Gloria Carr weren’t sure that was the case, so that item was tabled until later in the meeting so the assistant county attorney could advise the board.

Later in the meeting Carr received a message from Assistant County Attorney Randy Tilton that, according to Iowa Code, motions can be voted on by voice vote, but ordinances, amendments to ordinances and resolutions require a recorded roll call vote.

On a question regarding an annual resolution allowing the County Engineer’s Office to allow the secondary roads supervisor and three foremen to take county vehicles home with them after work so they can respond quickly to road emergencies, accidents, etc., the board requested more information on the policy and whether just the person on call should be allowed to take a vehicle home, and postponed action on that resolution to Jan. 9.

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