Supervisors close to announcing new ambulance director

The Washington County Board of Supervisors came one step closer to naming a director for the new county ambulance service when it met in regular session on Tuesday.

Supervisor Richard Young, a member of the Washington County Ambulance Advisory Committee and the Director Interview Committee reported that four finalists from a field of 17 applicants were interviewed by the Interview Committee and then by Supervisors Jack Seward Jr., Stan Stoops and Washington County Human Resources Director Amber Day.

In a closed session, the supervisors ranked the four in preference order.

The board voted to have Seward and Day offer the finalists, in preference order, the position and to report back to the board.

In other ambulance service news, the National Provider Identifier (NPI) number the service had applied for has been received and the service is in the process of contacting companies it will be dealing with to alert them to the new number.

Communication Center Towers

The supervisors approved the low bid of $1,175,895 from Finish Excavating from East Dubuque, IL for the construction of two major and one smaller towers as part of the county's new Communications Center project. The highest of the six bids received was $1.75 million.

Construction of the towers will begin in March and is expected to be completed this fall after all testing is done.

Juvenile Court Space

The county now leases space from Federation Bank to house Juvenile Court office space. That lease is up at the end of April. The supervisors discussed whether to renew the lease and decided to have Supervisor Abe Miller explore other options in light of the fact that the county has some available space that might work for this purpose. Miller will work will the offices of the County Attorney and

the County Auditor and report back to the supervisors.

Other Business

In other business, the supervisors:

*Appointed Jerome Vittetoe as a member of the Eminent Domain Commission representing owneroperators of agricultural property;

*Reviewed a report on Eastern Iowa tourism submitted by Fred Stark and

*Approved a recommendation from Day to engage with the Ware Group to offer county employees

supplemental employee benefits on a voluntary basis.