The Dallas County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday in regular session.

The meeting began with several people addressing the Board in open forum. A representative with CMC Pools of Iowa said they have been issuing pool permits since 2018 with the county. However, the representative complained about an unpleasant experience with Murray McConnell who the representative claimed was unprofessional to her and mocked her during a phone conversation. The Board accepted the representative’s information and will follow up with McConnell. 

Then the Board heard from a resident about an issue with Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate when the individual’s friend made a cast voter record report from the 2011 election. The resident asked the Board to push back against Pate to provide examples of how that request violates Iowa Code. The same individual asked the Board to put an ordinance in place about carbon capture pipelines. Dallas County currently has no proposals for those kinds of projects, but the resident was worried that the Iowa Utility Board wasn’t looking out for Iowans.

Finally, under open forum, Supervisor Chair Mark Hanson acknowledged Tuesday as Information Technology Day and made positive comments toward the county’s IT Director and Hanson also introduced the new executive director of the Greater Dallas County Economic Alliance Rachel Wacker. 

Next, the Board approved the billing reduction request from the EMS Department for a patient who qualified for the reduction payment of services to have $210 of a $280 bill be forgiven and an out of state travel request for the crew chief was also approved.

The Board also approved to start an opioid settlement fund. This was due to the national class action lawsuit against several pharmaceutical companies, and the state of Iowa was part of the lawsuit. Dallas County is receiving a portion of the payment for a total of $64,867 that can only be used on certain items related to opioids. 

Finally, the Board approved two purchase agreements with RBM Consulting for new voting tabulation equipment for a total of $329,900 and new voting equipment for $124,570. The tabulation equipment is a regular budgetary item, while the voting equipment will be funded by the American Rescue Plan Act.