Floyd County confirms size, compensation for commission to draw precinct lines

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County Supervisors made it official at their regular meeting Tuesday, setting the membership of the temporary redistricting commission at three members, to be reimbursed for mileage for meetings but to not receive any other pay.

It was the action they had discussed at a workshop meeting Monday.

Many people involved in the Aug. 3 special election to change the way county supervisors are elected had thought that the temporary redistricting commission would draw the three new supervisor districts in the county.

Dividing the county into districts was mandated by the results of that election.

The Iowa Code refers to the special election to determine the way in which supervisors are elected under a couple of different — and seemingly contradictory — sections.

But an opinion by Iowa Assistant Attorney General Michael Bennett, arrived at after he also consulted with the Iowa Secretary of State Office, confirmed that a change in Iowa law means the state Legislative Services Agency will draw the new district boundaries.

That agency is the same organization that is in the process of drawing up the new legislative and congressional boundaries for the state, following the recent release of Census 2020 population information.

The county’s temporary redistricting commission will only draw the precinct lines within those district boundaries. And because precincts will likely again fall along township lines, the ways in which they will be able to be drawn will be fairly limited.

Republican supervisors Linda Tjaden and Doug Kamm will appoint two of the three commission members and Democrat Roy Schwickerath will appoint the third. The majority party and minority party appointment process is also outlined in the Iowa Code.

Responding to a question from the public at the start of the meeting whether the meetings of the temporary redistricting committee would be open to the public, Tjaden said they would be, and Auditor Gloria Carr said the commission will need to follow all the rules of the Iowa Open Meetings and Iowa Open Records laws, including publishing agendas and announcing the time and location of meetings.

A public hearing will also be held on the precinct recommendation the commission makes.

Later in the meeting, during the discussion on the commission, Scott Andrews asked why the board wasn’t considering a larger number of members for the commission so there would be more input from around the county.

The board had the option of going with three, five or seven members for the commission.

Supervisor Chair Tjaden said, “We really don’t believe that there’s going to be a lot of room for different ways that they can carve out by precincts within our county, because of just the population in itself. So we really don’t think that it’s going to take much time. We were also concerned that if you go for five then it’s maybe more of a scheduling issue because you’ve got to get five people together. We’ve got a deadline we got to meet.”

Schwickerath said that currently the county voting precincts follow township lines, except for the three precincts within Charles City, and the other communities in the counties can’t be their own precincts because their populations are too small.

“So this group, there’s really not a lot of variability they’re going to have. We want this to move as quickly as it can, and we think with three they can get that done. If you look at the law and you look at our county, they’re not going to have a lot of decisions to make,” he said.

Also at the meeting Tuesday afternoon, the board approved several change orders for the new county law enforcement center project, and again talked about the opportunity for the public to see the facility before detainees are transferred into the new county jail.

Tjaden said she would like to give county employees a chance to go through it perhaps as soon as next week, with a time for public tours soon after when the final state inspections are completed.

The supervisors also reviewed the Secondary Roads department annual report to the Iowa Department of Transportation.

County Engineer Dusten Rolando said the report is required by the state, in part to account for how state money including road use taxes is being spent and to make sure that enough locally generated funds are being used to go along with the state support.

The report shows a total of $6.2 million was spent by the county department in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, with almost $3.3 million of that for road maintenance.

Additional maintenance expenditures were almost $305,792 for bridges and culverts, $257,499 for snow and ice control, $183,183 for traffic controls and $247,027 for road clearing which includes brush cutting, spraying and mowing. More than $1.1 million was spent for other general roadway expenditures.

Almost $312,000 was spent for new construction, for a bridge.

The department received almost $6.5 million in revenue over the fiscal year, including $1.44 million in property taxes, $729,926 in local option sales taxes, $3.67 million in road use taxes (fuel taxes) from the state and $527,220 in TIME-21 funds which include a portion of annual vehicle registration fees, trailer and title fees.

Locally funded projects include a bridge on county road B47 for $161,743, a bridge on Quarry Road for $103,940, and a bridge on 150th Street for $83,816.