Groups seek county support as budget process gets underway

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

Area groups began their annual appeal to the Floyd County Board of Supervisors Monday morning, asking for county support for their organizations and activities.

Leading off the presentations was Healthy Harvest of North Iowa.

Executive Director Jan Libbey told the supervisors that Healthy Harvest’s mission is to connect, educate and support the local food system, including local food producers and consumers.

“Floyd County has been among the leading counties to make this kind of commitment to local food work in north central Iowa for the last six years,” Libbey said. “That really puts you in a leadership role in terms of agencies that have stepped up to see that this is a value.”

She said the group’s mission is to “connect and educate and support the local food system.”

“We do that in connection to local food producers, to consumers, to communities, and we pull regional partners together,” Libbey said.

Figures from 2015 show 24 local producers generated $822,550 in sales of local food, and that isn’t including all producers, she said.

Wendy Johnson, a Healthy Harvest board member and owner of Joia Food Farm near Charles City, talked about a couple of local projects that have been very successful.

The community garden has been booked up every year and has a waiting list. More space could be used, but it would have to be in a different area because all the space is being used in the garden’s current location, she said.

And the edible arboretum in Charles City is also off to a good start.

“We just received some grant money to get signage, finally, for the arboretum, so people know what that property is, and signage for the trees and the bushes,” she said.

More trees bearing fruit or nuts will be planted in the spring, and “people seem very excited about it,” she said. Currently grants are being sought to install walkways within the arboretum, probably to be made with permeable pavers or a similar material.

“It’ll look really nice once it’s done,” Johnson said. “We’re really excited about that project.”

Libbey said Healthy Harvest of North Iowa is asking for support of 30 cents per capita, which would be a little more than $4,000 for Floyd County. Last year the county gave the group $2,500.

Monday’s meeting was a planning session, so no official action was taken, and decisions on community group support will be made early next year as the supervisors are settling the county’s annual budget to take effect in the new fiscal year that will begin July 1, 2019.

Supervisor Chairwoman Linda Tjaden said, “I think it’s great what you guys have been able to achieve here so far. The programs are going over very well.”

Supervisor Mark Kuhn, who is attending his last meetings as a supervisor before stepping down at the end of the year, said that the local food movement “isn’t a niche market any more.”

“This is mainstream,” he said. “Consumers — people from all across Iowa and the United States — are looking for healthy foods. They want to know how they’re grown and how they’re produced and they want to avail themselves to that.”

The other group requesting funds Monday was the Floyd County Community Foundation.

Governing Chairman Charlie Newman and Development Associate Diane Neuzil represented the foundation, seeking $7,000 in the next fiscal year — down from $10,000 in the current year — to help support Neuzil’s paid part-time position.

Neuzil said she thinks the support from the county and from Charles City for having a paid development associate position “has made a big difference” in the foundation’s ability to add to its endowment funds.

The Floyd County Foundation has more assets invested on a per capita basis than other area counties, she said.

“I encourage you to look at this as an investment, not an expense,” she said.

Newman said the amount requested is going down because the foundation is able to invest state revenue dollars in a county endowment fund that has grown over the past 12 years and can be used to help self-fund the development associate position.

“Our hopes are that we can always give out at least $100,000 or more of gaming revenue to the non-profits in our county and in our towns,” Newman said. “But we want to get to a self-funded position for our development associate, because we feel, as a committee, that that’s an important position to fund.

“We just want to convey that message, that we’re not going to come to the table year after year after year,” he said.

Also at the meeting Monday, the board received an update on the new law enforcement center and courthouse updates project.

Tjaden said the county had received seven applications for the construction manager position, and the county core team would be meeting with project architects Prochaska & Associates to narrow the selection down to three candidates who would be invited to make presentations to the board the first week in January.

Tjaden said she is continuing to investigate locations that might be used to temporarily relocate some courthouse offices, especially the courts, during especially noisy parts of the construction project.

County Auditor Gloria Carr said demolition preparation work would begin soon on two residential lots the county purchased for the project and on the Davico property the county already owned, but it might be after the holidays before significant demolition will be able to be seen.

Carr also said the Charles City Planning and Zoning Commission will recommend required property rezoning and Jackson Street vacation to the City Council for approval, but a request to add head-in parking along Jackson street on the access road to the boat ramp will not be recommended.