Excluded workers turned away from public comment

Roughly a dozen people attending a Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning were denied public comments when their topic of discussion — a proposal to spend county ARPA funds on relief checks to vulnerable workforce members — was not on the meeting agenda.

“We can only speak on agenda items, our agendas are always posted … and it says that on the agenda,” Board Chair Richard Young said. “It’s always been that way.”

While the supervisor meeting was immediately followed by a public work session on ARPA funds, Young said the matter was separate from the regular meeting and did not qualify for public comments.

“The work session is a meeting among us five individuals, the supervisors, so we can discuss ARPA funds,” he said. “And then once we have that meeting, we will have the ARPA funds on an agenda at a later date, but it’s not on our meeting agenda for today, it’s only a work session at 10 o’clock.”

Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. encouraged members of the public to send written comments to the board.

“I would encourage you to submit what you have to say in writing, that way we can all hear it and study it and think about it,” he said.

While public-submitted items can be added to the agenda, board members said doing so required a notice to the county auditor by the Thursday before a given meeting.

The group that organized the speakers, called Escucha Mi Voz, had sent emails outlining their proposal to board members at around 3 p.m. the day before.

“The final U.S. Treasury rules give local governments broad discretion to create and implement direct aid programs that target disproportionately impacted populations such as excluded workers and low-wage essential workers who faced negative economic impacts due to COVID-19,” the email said. “Based on U.S. Census Bureau data, we estimate $4.26 million is sufficient to distribute $1,400 stimulus checks to 3,000 essential and excluded workers in Washington County who make less than $45k per year and suffered one or more negative economic impacts, roughly 20% of the county's adult workforce.”

The proposal casts a wider net than the group pitched to the Washington City Council last month, where they requested relief checks for around 250 workers excluded from federal stimulus payments. Group member Luke Hertzler, of Wellman, said they wanted to help as many people as possible.

“We definitely want our excluded workers funded and have that money allocated to them, but there are also other essential workers that are still … making minimal amounts,” he said. “If we can get that money for them, who still needed but aren’t excluded, that would be awesome as well.”

Supervisors have tentatively scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 22 to comply with laws for such hearings that require publication 10 days in advance. While that time is not set in stone until published, Auditor Dan Widmer said it was the “likely date.”

Seward said he hoped a hearing would draw a diversity of opinions.

“(By) setting a public hearing, people on both sides of the issue can speak,” he said.

Escucha Mi Voz member David Goodner said the delay was frustrating.

“I think (for) the other 98 counties in Iowa, public comment is public comment, it doesn’t have to be an agenda item because most governments want to hear what the people are thinking,” he said. “I know it has to be posted ahead of time for you all to talk about it, but this is contrary to our experience virtually everywhere else across the state.”

Hertzler agreed, but said getting a public hearing on the calendar was still a win.

“The county should have open comments for every meeting,” he said. “We weren’t able to speak, but I think we were still able to deliver our message and won a hearing out of it, so that’s good news. They didn’t want us to speak, but we delivered our message loud and clear.”

The issue was briefly discussed during the work session later that morning, where Supervisor Marcus Fedler said relief checks were out of step with department head recommendations from the county’s internal surveys.

“There is one comment on here that says … ‘Overtime bonuses for those that worked essential jobs during the pandemic,’” he said. “That’s item 21 on this list of rank order … I would say that we have theoretically addressed that concept, or at least that theory, and we rank it 21 out of 23. I think we’re pretty clear where we, as a group, determine that to be.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com