The Wright County Board of Supervisors met for a special session last Thursday. This first meeting of the year was mostly organizational in purpose and functioned as the yearly re-set of county and board duties.
First, the board voted on the new Chairman for the year, Dean Kluss. 2019 Chairman Rick Rasmussen will serve as Chairmen pro tem. County reimbursable mileage and drainage warrant interest were set at the same rates as last year – 48 cents a mile and 6 percent, respectively. The board discussed county employee holidays, and voted to give employees a half-day off Christmas Eve and a full day off President’s Day in 2020 in addition to the regular holidays observed as was the case last year.
Petty cash funds for various courthouse departments were authorized at the same amounts as previous years. The treasurer’s end-of-year count of cash was also approved.
Various new appointments to the eminent domain compensation commission were discussed since some members had passed away. The board made plans to contact new people to occupy the spots, taking into consideration gender equality on the boards. The supervisor’s appointments to regional committees stayed mostly the same.
Dave Johnson was re-appointed county drainage attorney. Adam Clemons was re-appointed county engineer, and will still be in a shared engineer position with Hancock County. The Wright County Monitor, Eagle Grove Eagle, and Belmond Independent were re-appointed as official county newspapers. Board members were appointed for the Board of Adjustments and Wright County Economic Development Commission.
The board approved Resolutions 2020-01 through 2020-06 to put in place regular policies for the year: attendance at meetings, payment of claims, treasurer naming depositories, the construction evaluation master matrix, sheriff naming depositories, and recorder naming depositories.
Engineer Adam Clemons asked the board to consider two additional resolutions. The first was for the establishment of a 5-ton embargo that would allow the county to put a 90-day embargo on roads to let them improve and prevent large trucks from driving on them. A similar resolution was used last year to during the spring. The other resolution was to adopt a procurement policy. Clemons explained that such a policy is now required by the state in order to receive federal monies, including from FEMA. The policy will apply to the whole county. The board passed both resolutions.
Clemons also went through a summary of maintenance work that the secondary road department completed in 2019. This included hauling 77,360 tons of rock and 24,308 tons of gravel. They also completed 570 work orders last year, including 137 FEMA work orders.
