Supervisors address ongoing wind turbine issue

The wind turbines were back on the agenda for the May 5 Iowa County Supervisors meeting. Supervisor Abby Maas said she had looked into a special election county-wide vote but it would cost the county $20,000 to hold a special election. The next general election is 2024.

Sara Fricke, Deputy Auditor, told the supervisors there was no referendum and it wasn't an election, and there were no rules on how to run it.

Supervisor Jon Degen said he had researched other counties in Iowa and there were four that didn't allow wind turbine farms.

“I don't want a county telling me what I can and can't do with my property,” said Board Chair Kevin Heitshusen. He went on to explain it could set a precedent for other aspects of farming, such as livestock.

The discussion ended for another scheduled portion of the meeting and didn't pick up again. Maas had to leave early and so far the topic has not been placed on next week's agenda.

Public hearings

The supervisors held two public hearings during the meeting. The first, for the $1,300,000 General Obligation Capital Loan Notes for the new building construction was approved with three aye votes and Maas and Supervisor Alan Schumacher voting nay. The second was for the $6,400,000 General Obligation Capital Loan Notes on the next fiscal year's budget. The issuance of the notes got four aye votes with Maas being the only nay. She was also the only supervisor to vote nay on the resolution for proceedings to take additional action.

RAGBRAI

Sheriff Rob Rotter attended the meeting to discuss RAGBRAI. Court Avenue will be closed the day of the ride, and therefore the courthouse will be closed as well. All elected offices will be closed, therefore the employees of those offices will receive a paid day off because it was a county decision. It was unclear about the other offices.

Rotter told the board his only real concern on the day bikers will be in Iowa County was a street in Amana where people park on both sides. He said it was hard to get through. Heitshusen said they should change it to one way on that day. Marengo is an official stop, however Amana is not. Riders will take a path through Main Amana that day however.

In the Secondary Roads Department, contract rock is finished, and Engineer Nick Amelon said they would be releasing roads for dust control this week. He also opened bids for Amana sidewalks. There will be 16 repaired this year. Amelon sent out three bids and two came back with Garth VonAhsen as the lowest bid for $10,350. All board members approved the lowest bid.

April 28 meeting

Ambulance Director Adam Rabe returned for the April 28 Iowa County Board of Supervisors meeting to go over his previous request to let his assistant director move to an hourly wage and hire an administrative assistant to do the paperwork.

Rabe suggested to the board last week that he and his assistant director were spending more time on paperwork than “being in the field.” The board asked for more time to think about it, so this week he came back with a budgeted proposal.

This proposal puts the assistant director at 75 percent in the field and 25 percent on duties such as continuing education and quality assurance, and then changing the position to hourly for a proposed budget which equals the same as the previous salary at $73,453.

Two of the field paramedics positions have resigned, so Rabe proposes to change one of those positions to a “training captain/field paramedic” which would be effective as soon as filled, and then hiring an administrative assistant at approximately $45,000 a year at $20 per hour. He showed the board that the budgeted salaries would go down from the current total of $206,110 to $183,836.

Supervisor Alan Schumacher told Rabe he thought $45,000 was “a little steep” for an administrative assistant and asked, “Can't you get it down to $40,000?” Rabe explained that the person hired would start at $18 an hour and then be bumped up to $20/hour. The request was approved with all board members voting aye. They will review it again in six months.

Becky Fry, transportation director, attended the meeting for her monthly update. Iowa County Transportation cannot make a profit, and they are currently under budget by approximately $5,000 so Fry told the board she would try to stock up on tires for the buses and vans.

Previously tabled last week, this week the board approved the requested itemized change order for the kitchen project electricity and boring. They also approved removing a mobile home which had burned in a fire from the tax roll. Dylan Healy, building maintenance, came for an approval on a previously approved fencing project which will cost $540 more than he originally had requested. All board members voted aye.

The board also approved a request from Millstream Brewing to put cones on half of the roadway near their business for their list of 2023 events. This issue was discussed last year in depth, and the owners of Millstream agreed to the board's requests. It was approved, with Schumacher voting nay and the rest Aye.

Wind turbines

Many other items on the agenda were held over until next week's meeting, including a more in-depth discussion of a request by a company from Canada called “TransAlta” for the county's wind turbine ordinance.

For now, this was just a request for the ordinance, however there was discussion among the board about doing something to stop more companies from building additional wind farms, which started with Supervisor Abby Maas.

Board Chair Kevin Heitshusen responded with his long-held stance that the county can't dictate what farmers can and can't do with their land. Maas said she would like to see a moratorium until they can see how the current turbines and wind farm have fared. Schumacher suggested that the county vote to see how the people feel. At that, Heitshusen again stated that they couldn't tell someone how they can use their land, and added that he felt they also couldn't ask the town residents to decide what farmers can or can't do with their land.

In the end, they decided to discuss the matter again the following week.