County zoning director looks at the future zoning of Mt. Union

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

At least one county official is preparing for the day when Mt. Union will no longer be a city but join the county?s unincorporated ranks like Swedesburg, Trenton and Lowell.

During Thursday?s Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting, Joe Buffington, county director of planning and zoning, said he has begun looking at zoning when Mt. Union ceases as a city. ?I want to be proactive,? Buffington began. ?The entire City of Mt. Union will come in (be zoned) as A-1 or agricultural. I am working on the rezoning of the Mt. Union area and hope to have it finished by March 1.?

County Auditor Shelly Barber said it is likely that the unincorporation process of Mt. Union won?t even begin until mid-March at the earliest. ?Things will have to be all worked out for them to be approved (by the Iowa City Development Board) to unincorporate,? she noted. ?I?ve been told (by Matt Rasmussen, administrator of the city development board) that the board likely won?t act on the request until mid-March. They have to follow all the guidelines before they are unincorporated. They are still going to have to do a city budget for (fiscal) 2017-18, and a lot depends on what they have to pay their debt.?

?I just don?t want residents to be in limbo about doing anything,? Buffington said. ?I am working on the assumption that it is going to happen.?

?I?m not going to do anything until it happens,? Barber stated. ?The city development board is going to make sure everything is in order.?

Buffington also told supervisors that the county has issued the most building permits this year since 2008.

County Assessor Gary Dustman said his office soon would begin working on assessments. ?It is a real-estate year so we will be making real-estate assessments.?

Dustman said that despite the adjustment in real-estate valuation, most county taxpayers wouldn?t notice much of a difference in taxation costs ?because the rollback usually counteracts the adjustment in real estate.?

The state will be coming out with a new license plate, County Treasurer Ana Lair said. She said the ?decal? plate would feature decals from non-profit organizations. The decals, naturally, have to be approved by the Iowa Department of Education (IDOT) and organizations interested in applying to have their decal on the plate can receive information after Jan.1, 2017, on the IDOT website.

?There is also a push by the state to have more people become organ donors,? Lair continued. ?Henry County currently is about in the middle. We are at 59 percent while the state average varies between 24 percent and 73 percent.?

Over at the recorder?s office, Shirley Wandling, county recorder, said that state records (births, deaths and marriages) are now becoming county records. ?When we asked for guidance (on what procedures to follow), they said talk to your county attorney.?

Supervisor Greg Moeller said the Iowa Community Assurance Pool (ICAP), the organization which handles the county?s insurance, is conducting IT audits in counties throughout the state. Henry County is the first county to have the audit, which is being done this week, Moeller said.

?What the scope of it (audit) is, I don?t know,? remarked Moeller. ?I don?t have a written proposal from ICAP and it is brand new to them as well.? There is no charge to the counties for the audit, he said.

Rich McNamee, county sheriff, said his office is working on its compliance audit, which will occur in April 2017. ?I think we are pretty close to being 100 percent compliant.?

The sheriff said he is also working on replacing a county deputy who recently resigned. The jail population was at 21 inmates Thursday morning and as of 8:50 a.m. Thursday; the sheriff?s office had received 21,474 phone calls this year.

Finally, the supervisors passed the first reading, waived the second and third readings and adopted an ordinance rezoning a lot in Lowell. The lot, located on the 300 block of First Street, was rezoned from C-1 commercial to C-2 community commercial.

Supervisors will meet again in regular session Tuesday, Dec. 13, at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.