Tama County Administration Building, 104 W State St., Toledo, Iowa. -- File photo

As the small faction of present locals chatted among themselves before this week’s supervisor’s meeting, others joined to watch the event via the public livestream for the first time. This week’s meeting had a miniature agenda compared to previous weeks, which kept things short and sweet. Also, this week, Supervisor Heather Knebel had control of the ship as Chairman Mark Doland was absent.

The meeting kicked off like usual with the Tama County Engineer, Ben Daleske, who reported having the plows out due to weather last week. Some rock was hauled onto a few roads, and some sand was hauled to Traer. Brush cutting was also done in some areas. The Dysart motor grader that broke down needs to be rebuilt, a and 18,000 tons of contract rock will start to be hauled over roughly 60 miles.

The supervisors approved the Treasurer’s office to be closed on 4/3/25 for District 1 training. It was said that those who will be attending the one-day training will carpool.

Also approved was a temporary liquor license for Laurel’s Pour House LLC.

The supervisors went on to approve an exemption to the county hiring freeze for a Conservation Naturalist.

Supervisor Heather Knebel talked about this decision.

“It’s for a naturalist, I know that’s been, um, they already posted it, they already interviewed they had a recommendation, you know the conservation was one that we’re cutting their budget some for next year and we pretty much left it with Curtis [Behrens, Conservation Director]. Does he want a naturalist or does he want to take some budget cuts?” she asked. “So, my assumption is, him and the board would like a naturalist. So, I would say we let them, you know we kinda manage how much funds they get and they can manage what they want to do with their conservation board and areas there.”

Supervisor Curt Kupka also commented on the need for a naturalist.

“The naturalist is there, that’s their public face of their conservation so it’s kind of a, I believe it’s kind of a must-have for them so they get that person out there,” he said.

The claims for this week were a little bit more complicated than usual. The original total for the claims were $515,940.11, but $400,000 was nullified.

“So, in that total, there is a claim for landfill for $400,000 for they would like to transfer that total into another account that they have. It’s their landfill gate fees, I believe. We’ve talked to David Sherwood out at landfill and he’s willing to not do that claim so that we can keep that in there and keep getting the interest for the county,” said Auditor Karen Rohrs, who went on to state a problem with the canceled claim and how it will be rectified. “I could not cancel that claim out of that total because of our software. I contacted Tyler, they’re unable to do it because of an upgrade they did. They have their developers working on it, to get that fixed in our software. So, if you guys could approve that total amount today and then I will void the check so the check will not get cashed so the money will still be sitting where it’s at.”