At Monday’s supervisor meeting, Wright County landowner Bob Ritter spoke briefly about the Summit Carbon Solutions Pipeline. He is still concerned with low payment being offered from Summit for easements as well as the company “harassing” people when they come to talk to them. Ritter noted that Summit is still not adequately considering issues like drainage and soil fertility. Mitch Baum of Summit Ag Group was also at the meeting. He admitted that some areas, including drainage, were not sufficiently understood by their out of state land agents but claimed that issue has been addressed. He added, that as the ag branch of Summit, “We have a passion for drainage and reclamation of the land.” He also feels that their prices offered for easements and crop damages are competitive and added they will continue to update those as land prices change. Ritter told Baum that he is going to keep researching the matter and isn’t interested in talking to anyone from Summit for a while.
During the open forum section of the meeting Jason Wessels of Belmond addressed the board about the county employee raises. He read off the list of who will be getting raises and noted how much those salaries will now be above other Iowa county’s averages for those same positions. These included sizable raises for the sheriff, deputies and elected officials such as the treasurer, assessor and auditor. (These raises were discussed in an article in the paper two weeks ago). “Everyone does a great job but there is no reason to be that far above average among all counties,” said Wessels. “We should be right in the middle. You’re never going to get industry in this county because you’ll have to keep raising taxes.”
Supervisor Karl Helgevold repeated information shared in several meetings previously, including that the county needs good people with longevity to keep running efficiently. “You need to look at the bigger picture,” said Helgevold. “We don’t want to be a training ground with people always turning over. We want our top people to make decent money as well as their deputies, so we have longevity and not the turmoil of constant turnover.” He noted that state salary averages will likely look a lot different next year because of raises initiated by the “Back the Blue” law that affects law enforcement. He also added that the county tax levy is going down in some cases rather than up.
Jarika Eisentrager, Wright County Emergency Management Coordinator, gave an update on the Presidential Disaster Declaration stemming from the December 15th storm. The declaration will open up federal assistance for the county. Eisentrager noted that Wright County had the second highest per capita damage as far as money spent by a county in response to the storm. She added that County Engineer Adam Clemons has already put in claims and she is working with the communications department who had a tower damaged. She will keep the board updated on the funding throughout the process.
Auditor Betty Ellis noted that she received a letter from the Secretary of State’s office about the county’s voting precincts. The proposed voting precincts (which are the same as the county has used in the past) were rejected because the ‘big 6’ and rural Eagle Grove precincts would be crossing the new state legislative lines since the southeast corner of the county is now in a separate house district. The secretary of state’s office suggested changes that would require Woolstock residents to vote in Dows. Ellis said her office will be researching this issue and talking to the SoS’s office.
In other board matters, Clarion City Administrator Clint Middleton asked the supervisors to consider a resolution that would add county property to the Clarion Urban Renewal Area. This would add the county right-of-way out to the new Gold-Eagle Coop facility north of town to the Clarion Urban Renewal Area so the city is able to capture TIF dollars to be used for the new Early Learning Center in town. The board approved the resolution.
