The Greene County Board of Supervisors met on Monday in regular session.
During open forum, Home State Bank President and CEO Bob Allen addressed the Board. He spoke about the importance of the new building project with the Paton-Churdan Early Learning Center. He said Home State Bank is also going to be financially contributing to the project to build pod structures to the west of the school parking lot in Churdan as it serves rural areas of the county. Allen also thanked the Supervisors for their consideration of financial support as well.
County Attorney Thomas Laehn then gave an update. He thought that the jury trial that went five days was a success to bring a guilty verdict against Conner Groves who has a sentence hearing scheduled for August. He said the next jury trial date is July 22nd and there were 52 pending criminal cases in his office.
County Engineer Wade Weiss also gave several updates. He reported that after several days of rainfall, crews are back to paving the eight mile stretch between County Roads E-18 and P-46. He mentioned that when crews are done there, they will move to paving the 1.5 miles of County Road P-29 to the Greene and Webster County line, as the concrete crushing process for that project is finished.
Next, Weiss also spoke about the leaking underground storage tank project near the Secondary Roads Department shop in Jefferson. He said for over 30 years, about $300,000 of work has been done to remedy the situation, while using Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) funds from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR). He said the DNR has since sold the LUST funds to a private company that is interested in excavating the tank that is 15 feet deep.
The Board then decided to move forward with financial support for the PCELC building project. Due to a protocol step, the Board is expected to approve a 28E agreement for its intention to provide $180,000 over five years from its Local Option Sales and Services Tax (LOSST) funds at next week’s meeting. County Auditor Billie Jo Hoskins stated currently the county makes $35,000 per month from LOSST and is able to afford that figure along with its other commitments of two vehicles for the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and funding for the Secondary Roads Department in order for them to access additional state and federal funding.
The Board also appointed Karla Janning to the Region XII Council of Governments Regional Housing Authority Board from October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026 and they renewed the county’s insurance with the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool (ICAP) as presented. The meeting then ended in a closed session to discuss Greene County Courthouse security measures with the security committee.