Alert system receives improvements

By BRYCE KELLY

Mt. Pleasant News

A myriad of topics filled the Henry County Supervisors? agenda during their regular board meeting on Thursday with the first item up for discussion being reports from various Henry County department heads.

Walt Jackson, Henry County Emergency Management coordinator, took time during his report to update the board on some of the improvements being made to the county?s new emergency alert system. Recently, the system was experiencing some technical difficulties with its messaging components that resulted in notifications being sent out unnecessarily during early morning hours recently, sometimes more than once to the same individuals.

After troubleshooting with the program and the National Weather Service, Jackson is confident the kinks in the system have been corrected.

?We have now put a filter on the system so weather warnings will not go out after 9 p.m. and before 7 a.m.,? said Jackson. ?Tornado warnings will still go out whenever the National Weather Service issues them because that is something that the public needs to be aware of whenever they are issued, day or night.?

Despite the recent issues with the system, Jackson says it is important that residents of Henry County do not cancel their subscription to the messaging service as it does provide residents with meaningful safety information that can be used in the event of a weather-related emergency.

Besides Jackson?s update, the board also heard from county treasurer, Ana Lair, who had some recently issued information to present regarding organ donation.

As part of the driver?s license issuing that the county treasurer?s office does on a daily basis, the choice to be an organ donor is one of the many questions that a driver is asked. According to a recent state report received by Lair, an average of roughly 53 percent of Iowa drivers are currently registered as organ donors. Lair says this is good news for the state of Iowa.

?In Henry County, I am proud of the fact that we are in about sixth place out of about 107 sites in terms of the number of registered organ donors. About 62 percent of licensed Henry County drivers are organ donors, so that is really great to see,? Lair said.

Lair was not the only one with some encouraging information to share. Roger Pittsenbarger, director of the Henry County Veteran?s Affairs office, was also proud to say that March is looking to be another busy month with an already steady flow of clients entering the V.A. office to obtain services.

?Last month, we had 32 office visits and 45 phone calls to our offices, which is really good for the month of February and the cold weather that we had,? said Pittsenbarger. ?Starting off this month, we are up considerably in the amount of business that we have had with 17 visits already.?

Looking ahead, Pittsenbarger announced the county V.A. is looking into putting together a transportation guide for veterans to inform them about the various transportation services provided for them by the county.

?It?s not well known that the county has vehicles that go to the medical center Monday through Friday for veterans that need rides to appointments. We are putting together a pamphlet on that so that what we have to offer in that area is a little bit more well known,? he said.

In other board news, various members of the community were present after the conclusion of the department head reports to openly express their views regarding the upcoming local option sales tax (LOST) vote and how they believe LOST impacts the community.

According to county auditor, Shelly Barber, about 96 percent of the state of Iowa has a local option sales tax in effect. The roughly four percent that do not, ultimately have a larger tax base than many of the smaller, rural areas of Iowa.

Mt. Pleasant mayor Steve Brimhall and community member Brian Roth were both in attendance during the LOST discussion and gave their thoughts regarding the issue.

?I commend the mayor and the rest of the city council for what they have done in Mt. Pleasant with those (LOST) dollars and how they have been able to leverage that money to do a lot of projects over the last 20 years,? Roth said in regard to projects such as the Mt. Pleasant pool, the upkeep of the city?s streets and the Mt. Pleasant Police Department. ?Although those dollars didn?t entirely fund these various projects, they did help tremendously.?

Mayor Brimhall also voiced his opinion saying that securing a local option sales tax assists significantly in securing plans for future projects and needs throughout the city.

?Knowing that you have committed dollars coming in allows you to plan into the future, which is extremely valuable,? Brimhall explained. ?If those dollars aren?t there, then matching money has to come out of the general fund or has to be borrowed in order to do a project. I know there are other tax dollars, such as your federal tax dollars, but we want to get as much money as we can back into the community. Having a local option sales tax just allows us to do that.?

Troy Eichelberger was also included on the meeting?s agenda to speak about the local option sales tax, but according to the board of supervisors, was unable to attend Thursday morning?s meeting.

The next Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 10, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse. All members of the public are invited to attend.