County board discusses courthouse employee parking, new jail proposals

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com 

Floyd County supervisors heard complaints about a new employee parking policy and continued a discussion on a new county jail at a planning session Monday morning.

The supervisors had approved a new parking policy for the lots around the courthouse at their Oct. 10 meeting. The new policy moved some parking for county-owned vehicles to a lot where county employees had previously parked their personal vehicles.

Primary employee parking was transferred to the lot at the corner of Gilbert and Jackson streets, the lot formerly known as the Davico lot.

Rachel Trainer, legal assistant in the Floyd County Attorney’s Office and president of the Courthouse Employee Association, said the parking change was made without notifying employees or getting their input, and they didn’t know why the change was made.

Supervisor Chairman Doug Kamm said the changes were made to provide additional parking for the public close to the courthouse.

“The people of Floyd County are our customers,” Kamm said. “That’s who we serve here. It was never done with the intent to punish any employee or with the intent to take parking away from anybody.”

He said county-owned vehicles were moved to the upper-west lot rather than across the street to the former Davico lot because there is no security camera on the Davico lot.

County Auditor Gloria Carr said the parking lot policy was on the agenda for four different supervisors meetings and had been discussed at department head meetings, but Trainer said she doesn’t read the supervisors’ meeting agendas or minutes of their meetings.

“I’m assuming that these workshops don’t really pertain to me, and if it did, why wasn’t a email sent out to all of us? We get notices of all kinds of things going on. … Why couldn’t we have been notified that way?” Trainer asked.

“You can send an email to department heads, but not every department head forwards that email of the minutes,” Trainer said. “You guys can’t assume that department heads are forwarding this information.”

Trainer said employees have expressed concern about using the Davico lot in the winter, because part of it isn’t paved and the rocks in the unpaved portion of the lot will get pushed around when the lot is plowed.

“Somebody is going to twist an ankle,” she said.

Also, there is no crosswalk to the courthouse and traffic on Gilbert Street often turns up Jackson Street to avoid the Main Street stoplight when drivers see it turn red.

Reserving the upper-west lot for county-owned vehicles means that the lot is empty for most of the day while those vehicles are being used, Trainer said. It makes more sense for employees to be using that parking, she said.

Supervisor Linda Tjaden said her biggest concern was that there wasn’t the right kind of communication and there were employees who didn’t know about the proposal.

“I was under the belief that everybody did, and that you had the opportunity to look at this and to share your opinions,” Tjaden said.

Kamm said any parking changes are likely to be temporary, because the county is looking to build a new county jail that would cause several of the existing parking lots to be closed and other parking made available.

Supervisors can take no official action during a planning session, but members indicated they might put the matter on a future agenda.

Also at the meeting Monday morning, Supervisor Tjaden recapped the results of the county Board of Supervisors meeting last Monday where representatives of Prochaska & Associates presented a potential design concept for a new county jail and county Sheriff’s Department.

Tjaden said she identified five issues coming out of that meeting:

• Whether the county should be concerned if part of the proposed jail and sheriff’s offices are within the 500-year floodplain, and where that line actually is.
• The number of beds in the jail. Current plans are for a 32-bed facility, based on 20-year and 30-year projections done by Prochaska.
• When to hold a bond referendum to ask voters to approve funding for a new jail — during a special election in March or May, or during the general election in November.
• Whether the dispatch center will move from its current location in the Charles City City Hall to the new law enforcement center.
• Notifying the Charles City Public Access Network when topics such as the jail are being discussed at a planning session so those meetings can be recorded for public viewing.

Supervisor Mark Kuhn had raised the issue of the floodplain at the planning session last week, saying he had been part of the Rebuild Iowa/Disaster Recovery Committee of the Iowa Legislature after the 2008 flood, and that committee had recommended that no critical infrastructure be built in the 500-year floodplain. The Legislature never made that a law, however.

Supervisor Kamm said if the courthouse is out of the floodplain then the new law enforcement center should be, too, because they will be built on the same elevation.

The supervisors indicated they will do more work on establishing exactly where the floodplain lines are, possibly having a certified survey done.

Tjaden said the county Communications Commission and the 911 Board will meet in December to make decisions on the location for the dispatch center.

Kamm said he would like to see space left in the LEC design for a dispatch center even if it doesn’t move from City Hall right away.

Kuhn said he wasn’t lobbying against a 32-bed jail, “I’m asking a question I think the voters of Floyd County will ask. Why 32? How did you come up with that?”

Sheriff Jeff Crooks said he didn’t want to build a jail that was too big and have to explain that to the taxpayers, but he was more concerned about building one that is too small for future needs and have to explain to taxpayers why they have to start transporting detainees to other facilities if a new Floyd County jail becomes full.

“We had a record year last year and we’re going to have a record year this year,” Crooks said about the jail population.

Tjaden said she was relying on the experts they hired, Prochaska, to come up with the size numbers, and a lengthy study had already been completed in Phase 1 of the process toward building a new county jail.

Kuhn again said he would like to see the bond issue decided at a regular election if the county decides to seek a vote.

Tjaden said sometimes at a general election other issues can sway feelings and people might vote against a project without fully understanding it.

Kuhn said, “Is the idea just to pass the bond issue and build the jail, or to get the majority of Floyd County residents supporting it and behind it, and I think you do that better with a general election.

“You have to make the case either way, whether it’s a special election or a general election,” Kuhn said.

The supervisors also discussed whether more detail is needed on proposed remodeling to the courthouse that would be included in the project. The current proposal includes new windows, new heating and air-conditioning, and new handicapped-accessible elevators and restrooms to serve the courthouse.

Other remodeling costs could involve relocating or renovating offices within the courthouse to utilize the top floor where the current jail and sheriff’s office are located, and making changes on other floors to link up to the new restrooms and the public and the detainee elevators.