The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.
During open forum, Jamie Daubendiek gave an update on the Bike Ride Around Greene County (BRAG) that happened on May 24th. He said there were about 120 cyclists that participated, and represented several states including Missouri, New Jersey and Texas among others. He noted that while a majority of the cyclists were from Greene County, about 30 percent were from the Des Moines area. Daubendiek expressed his gratitude to the Secondary Roads Department and County Engineer Wade Weiss, for their help in purchasing “biking event” signs to place at various locations along the route, as well as the Greene County Sheriff’s Office for monitoring some of the intersections.
County Attorney Thomas Laehn went over several areas of a bill that the Iowa Legislature passed and is waiting to see if the governor will sign it into law about eminent domain usage for underground pipeline projects. He outlined the most important part of the bill was that a company could not be granted a permit unless it is considered to be a “common carrier.” He noted that the definition is that if the company is transporting other individuals’ hazardous liquid via an underground pipeline and not just for its own private purpose, than the company can be a common carrier.
Laehn highlighted other parts of the bill including requiring at least one Iowa Utilities Board member to be at each informational meeting that is held in the counties that are a part of the project, and requiring the company to acquire insurance to pay for all of the losses to all landowners for the entire project. The Board did not take formal action following the update.
Weiss then gave an update. He told the Board that crushing operations are continuing on the County Road E-18 project, east of the city of Paton to the Greene and Boone County line. He said there have been issues with vehicles, including heavy load semis, driving through the area and onto the sub-base. He noted that crews will soon start prepping and crushing the next project on County Road P-29, 1.5 miles north to the Greene and Webster County line soon, with closures to happen either late this week or early next week.
As far as the South Grimmell Road bridge in Jefferson, Weiss explained that the grinder equipment is delayed from doing part of the project, but once that is done, then only painting the pavement markings is left before the bridge can be fully opened again.
The Board then approved the only agenda item, which was to make Tyler Gathercoal a Mahanay Maestro.