The Greene County Board of Supervisors met yesterday in regular session.
The Board approved several items including the county recorder’s report of fees of $3,347.16 for February, an extension to August 28, 2014 for the county’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and a $265,000 Community Development Block Grant application through the Iowa Economic Development Authority for Scranton Manufacturing’s building expansion project.
The Board also approved renewing it’s three-year agreement with Cost Advisory Services for $41,012 as reimbursement for direct cost to the mental health department.
The Board discussed the bell frame on the Mahanay Bell Tower. Tim Virden with the Virden Company who originally built the frame that is on top of the bell tower structure talked about proposing to build a new frame that could hold a full 48 carillon bell system that the bell tower community foundation wants as their ultimate goal.
It was talked about with the Supervisors and a representative from Structural Engineers from Marshalltown who originally did the engineer’s study of the structure and it was decided that those two companies would coordinate together to re-certify the study that shows that the current bell tower can withstand the 48,000 pounds of weight from a full 48-bells and then decide which parties are responsible for which part of the proposed project.
The Board also discussed a topic regarding an animal control ordinance for the county with the support of the cities. Sheriff Steve Haupert talked with the Board that right now, there’s only a 28E agreement with them to issue citations for dogs running at large in the rural parts of the county, but to help alleviate animal calls for the sheriff’s office to handle, Haupert suggested hiring an animal control person to oversee those issues and possibly creating an ordinance that allows them to go into each city and issue citations as well. No action was taken on the topic.
Jefferson City Administrator Mike Palmer gave an update on the City to the Supervisors. He said that they are in the process of hiring a building inspector to replace Mike Wright and are expected to have a recommendation for the City Council by March 25th’s meeting. He reported that the City will be hosting Market-to-Market Relay on May 10th with 300, seven-person teams coming to the City for the race to Des Moines and that they are on hold as far as developing a new animal shelter at the Jefferson Municipal Airport.