Mt. Union residents petition for vote on unincorporation

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

There will be a vote in Mt. Union on whether citizens want the community to unincorporate.

Henry County Auditor Shelly Barber told the Henry County Board of Supervisors during the board?s regular meeting Tuesday that she received a citizens? petition from Mt. Union on July 11, requesting a vote on unincorporation.

Barber said the election would be in conjunction with the Nov. 8 general election. The only other election date available is Aug. 2, and Barber said there is not a long enough notification period to have the election in August.

Mt. Union?s City Council passed a resolution to unincorporate at its June 21 meeting. Citizens had 30 days in which to file a petition, asking for a vote on the matter. A simple majority is needed for passage on the unincorporation question.

If Mt. Union citizens approve unincorporation, the matter will be forwarded to the State of Iowa City Development Board. Matt Rasmussen, administrator of the city development board, said once an unincorporation request is received, it is acted on at the board?s next meeting. The development board meets the second Wednesday of each month, meaning if Mt. Union votes to unincorporate, it likely wouldn?t be considered by the development board until its Dec. 14 meeting.

Rasmussen told The News earlier this month that the board has never denied a request (if proper guidelines were followed) in his four years as administrator of the board. Once the state board approves the request, unincorporation is immediate.

The city development board then governs the community for a six-month period until all financial matters are settled. Following that six-month period and during which time two notices to creditors are published in an area newspaper, the board then turns the unincorporated community over to the county. Henry County currently has three unincorporated communities ? Swedesburg, Trenton and Lowell.

County Engineer Jake Hotchkiss? weekly report was the lone matter of business for supervisors Tuesday.

Hotchkiss told the board, that due to mower breakdowns and other projects taking precedence, the county is behind schedule on its mowing of ditches and rights-of-way on county roads.

?Both of our mowers had to be repaired this year,? Hotchkiss began. ?We have been receiving some calls and are aware of it (tardiness of mowing). We have about three territories to go and it takes about two weeks per territory.

?Manpower is also an issue to keep everything going,? he continued. ?I don?t think it is anything dire.?

All the concrete has been poured for the 220th Street project, and Hotchkiss said about two to three weeks of finishing work remains. ?We hit a milestone by getting the pavement down,? he noted. ?The work is going well and the rest of it is clean-up work.? The road remains closed to public travel.

The supervisors also approved requests from landowners along James Avenue to mow and bale hay in the county right-of-way adjacent to their property. ?It is a benefit to us if they can get their equipment in (to mow and bale the hay),? the engineer said.

County regulations state that the hay bales must be placed in the rear of the right-of-way and removed within one week.

In addition to mowing, last week?s work by the secondary-roads crew included placing a concrete patch on Iowa Avenue; working on a Grand Avenue slide repair; and installing two entrances to county roads.

Supervisors meet again in regular session on Thursday at 9 a.m., in the Henry County Courthouse.