The Greene County Board of Supervisors met yesterday in regular session.
The Board approved two Louis Dreyfus funding requests. The first was for a $15,000 over three year commitment to the Grand Junction Community Center project. Steering committee member Larry Pote said they are about 75% funded for their project and added that they recently received $25,000 from Home State Bank. During the discussion, Board vice-chair Guy Richardson said that there would be other sources of funding to ask for in the near future once Wild Rose Jefferson is operational.
The initial request was for $25,000 over five years and chair John Muir talks about why the Board didn’t approve the that request.
“The biggest reason is, we didn’t feel we wanted to make that precedent to a bigger number and longer period of time. And we explained that we could revisit this in three years. I understand their reasoning that it’s hard to budget their total project but we tried to strike in the middle and that’s where we ended up at.”
He explained that the Board has never granted a project higher than a 3-year, $15,000 commitment.
The other request that was granted by the Board was $5,000 to the Jefferson Police Department for an in-car computer. Last week, Police Chief Dave Morlan said they were able to purchase one in-car computer through being a beneficiary of an estate, a grant by the Greene County Community Foundation and the Jefferson Fire Department. When asked why the City wasn’t funding the police department’s needs for a second in-car computer, City Administrator Mike Palmer said it was because the request wasn’t put into their next fiscal year’s budget but that the City did match funds for the first computer when the Greene County Community Foundation grant was awarded.
Chief Morlan pointed out that with the rest of the money from the estate beneficiary, they can purchase the other $7,300 computer for their second patrol vehicle.
Palmer also gave an update about the City. He talked about the City is ready to release a building permit to Hy-Vee Incorporated pending fee payments. He also reported on the City wanting to demolish three more properties in town and rebuild on one of the lots following its first project of rebuilding on a property on South Locust. He said that all street furniture decisions would be reviewed by a sub-committee of the streets/sewer/water/sanitation before a business owner would be allowed to put any furniture in front of their store. Palmer added that there are now ten historical plaques established around the downtown square. And an ISU student is helping with design to redo the City Hall parking lot to match the decor of the downtown square.
County Engineer Wade Weiss asked the Supervisors if he could make a concrete base on County Road P-46 east of Grand Junction to commemorate a landmark in the County of the Round Barn that was established in 1911. The Supervisors didn’t take formal action on the topic.
The Board also approved the County Recorder’s report of fees for July of $7,605.94.