The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

The majority of the meeting was a continued discussion on the courthouse building and grounds policy. Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn said the existing policy prohibits smoking and any animals from being on the courthouse grounds or inside the building unless it is a “guide dog.” However, he noted that the policy has never been enforced. The Board chose to keep that part of the policy and update it to specifically allow for service animals, which would include service dogs and mini horses, according to federal law. 

The Board also decided that applications to rent the courthouse, surrounding grounds and the bell tower would go through the auditor’s office or a designee of the county auditor for approval or denial. The Board chose not to include in the new policy any rental fees or a deposit for the courthouse or the surrounding grounds. However, if there were damages or cleaning needed to be done after an entity rented an area, a fee may be assessed. The rental fee for the bell tower will also remain the same and included in the new policy. Laehn anticipated having a proposed policy for consideration by next week’s meeting.

The Board also approved the resolution for a $2,303,283 asphalt overlay project with Fort Dodge Asphalt Company for 4.5 miles on County Road E-57 from Highway 4 to County Road P-14 to be done next year. They approved to renew the 28E agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation for the county to continue to issue driver’s licenses, non-operator’s identification cards and persons with disabilities devices.  

County Engineer Wade Weiss mentioned that he has recommended to the City of Jefferson to accept its allotment of city bridge funds of up to 3.5 years toward the Grimmell Road bridge project, of which Weiss is hoping to provide some of the same kind of funding to replace that structure. 

County Conservation Director Tanner Scheuermann told the Board that he is working with Shive-Hattery on the county park replacement signage project and that the have removed over 30 ash trees from the county parks and planted over 40 trees through a grant with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and a donation from Krieger’s Nursery.