Floyd County supervisors organize for the new year

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County supervisors went through a long list of routine start-of-the-new-year organizational items at a special meeting Thursday morning, then turned back to the lengthy process of crafting the annual budget for the new fiscal year that will begin July 1.

The three-member board selected Supervisor Roy Schwickerath as the new chairman, with Supervisor Linda Tjaden as the vice-chairwoman.

The Floyd County board routinely rotates through the chairman position each year. Supervisor Doug Kamm was the chairman in 2019, and Tjaden the chairwoman in 2018.

Schwickerath is the newest member of the Board of Supervisors, having been elected in 2018 and serving the first year of his four-year term in 2019, although he had previously served another four-year term on the board from 2013 through 2016.

Regular meetings of the board will continue to be held at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, in the boardroom on the second floor of the courthouse. Workshop sessions will held on Mondays at 9 a.m. as needed.

The board reappointed the following persons to these county positions:

• County engineer: Dusten Rolando.

• Public health/home health care director: Gail Arjes.

• General Assistance director: Raina Kellogg, County Social Services.

• Sanitarian/E911 addressing: Jeff Sherman.

• Emergency management/zoning/safety coordinator: Lezlie Weber.

• Information technology director: Bernie Solomon.

• Medical examiner: Dr. Royer, primary; alternates: Drs. Schweizer, Schrodt, Molnar, Tull.

• Conservation director: Adam Sears.

After completing the agenda list of 22 organizational items, the board turned to county department budget reviews.

Departments discussed Thursday were Board of Supervisors, county recorder, recorder’s records management, auditor, general assistance, mental health, county attorney, public defender, juvenile probation, engineer, sanitary disposal, road clearing, REAP, Conservation, weed commission and Conservation capital projects.

The Board of Supervisors asked department heads to include a five-year plan in their budget requests this year.

In her five-year plan, County Attorney Rachel Ginbey again said she would like to add a second assistant county attorney to her staff, to help handle what she said is a growing caseload.

Ginbey said the new attorney would probably be a recent law school graduate and would be given the magistrate’s court workload as well as other cases such as OWI charges, while Ginbey and Assistant County Attorney Randall Tilton concentrated on more serious charges and other matters.

She had previously requested money in her budget to add another assistant, but supervisors had decided against that.

The supervisors also made these appointments Thursday morning:

• JR Ackley as a city representative and Jim Erb as a non-elected representative to the NIACOG board.

• Patrick Gebel to the NIACOG Revolving Loan Fund Committee.

• Adam Sears, Conservation director, to the Map21 Enhancement Board and Dusten Rolando, county engineer, to the Map21 Tech Board.

• County Auditor Gloria Carr as a member to the SW Bypass TIF District Board, and Frank Rottinghaus, county treasurer, as the alternate.

• Jeff Crooks, county sheriff, as a member to the Floyd County Communications Board, and Carr as the alternate.

• Dusten Rolando, county engineer, to the Cedar Valley Transportation Center Joint Board, with the discretion to name one of his assistants as an alternate.

• Supervisor Tjaden to act as power of attorney for Floyd County business with Farm Service Agency for 2020.

And also Thursday, the board divied up a lengthy list of other boards and commissions where supervisors serve as members or as non-voting county representatives:

• Schwickerath — Ambulance Commission, Business Improvement Committee, Charles City Joint Entity Committee, Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center (alternate), Conservation Commission (liaison), County Department Head Meeting/Board of Supervisors representative, County Social Services Board, E911 Board, Emergency Food and Shelter Program, Emergency Management Commission (alternate), Floyd County Communications Board, Floyd County Housing Trust Fund Board, FMC Governance (alternate), NIACOG (alternate), NIACOG Transportation Policy Board, NIACOG North Central Regional Emergency Response Commission, NIACOG North Central Regional Emergency Planning District Committee-Membership, Second Judicial District (alternate), SW Bypass TIF Board, Upper Cedar Watershed Management Improvement Authority (alternate).

• Tjaden — Central Iowa Juvenile Detention Center, Community Revitalization, County Risk Management Committee, County Social Services Board (alternate), Courthouse Security Committee, Cultural Entertainment District Grant Committee, E911 Board (alternate), Emergency Management Commission, FOCUS, FC Communications Board (alternate.), FMC Landfill (alternate), FMC Governance (Decat) Board, Foster Grandparents, LEC/Courthouse Core Team, Reg. Workforce-Chief Elected Officials, Veteran Affairs (liaison), Upper Cedar Watershed Management Improvement Authority.

• Kamm — Charles City Area Development Corp, CCADC Asset Management Committee, CCADC Jobs Potential Review Committee, Charles City Chamber of Commerce (liaison), Cedar Valley Transportation Center (liaison), FMC Early Childhood Iowa, FMC Landfill, Health Board (liaison), Hotel/Motel Tax Commission (non-voting), North Iowa Council of Governments, NIACOG-Transportation Policy Board (alternate), NIACOG North Central Regional Emergency Response Commission (alternate), NIACOG North Central Regional Emergency Planning District Committee (alternate), Regional Aviation Authority (liaison), Second Judicial District, SW Bypass TIF Board (alternate).