County to move on well head protection

A meeting with Spencer Municipal Utilities reps, Leon Rodas, Steve Pick and Don Baxter during Monday's Clay County Board of Supervisors meeting prompted the county's governing officials to address well head protection for common water sources currently outside the city's protection guidelines.

"We're asking you to encompass well head protection for areas in our zoning," Rodas said. "We want to protect that water supply to the best of our ability."

County Attorney Mike Houchins advised the supervisors, "If the board wants to go ahead and adopt this, I don't see any problem with it."

The board agreed and unanimously approved the well head protection. Houchins indicated that he would base what he draws up on what the city has already set in place. "We're not going to reinvent the wheel."

According to Rodas, the state of Iowa made a big push for protection of the water supplies in the 1990s, but what was adopted by the city only protects what's within city limits. Last year a new well was added out at the airport, but a portion of the land is outside of the city limits.

"I don't think any of us are against this...This is our water," said Supervisor Chairman, Burlin Matthews.

Rodas also note that the Stolley PIt is a back up to the water supply should it be needed, and 2,000 gallons a minute can be pumped out of it.

In other business, Houchins discussed potential renovations to the courtroom at the Clay County Courthouse. The work will result in a handicap access jury box.

Supervisor Ken Chalstrom said he wanted to see the proposed carpet replacement to wait until the work on the jury stand is complete.

County Auditor, Marjorie Pitts stressed a need to get the plan in place. "Some of our push is the fact that the court is closed every other Friday until June 30. We'd like to get it done.

It was noted that the court room is only used for jury trials, which means the court room itself is only in use for a half dozen to a dozen cases a year. It was recommended that the Court Administration Office be contacted to find our which three week window might be the best opportunity to complete the project.

* Supervisors rejected a request from Spencer Psychiatric and Counseling Services LLC, to become part of the Clay County Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Managed Care plan's service provider network.

Though there was little discussion during the meeting regarding the rejection, the decision was explained in a prepared letter.

"...As you are aware, Clay County has and continues to be officially affiliated with the Seasons Center for Community Mental Health...Clay County's continued long-term affiliation and investment in these not-for-profit services at Seasons Center requires us to look at the many ways we can encourage Seasons' financial and operational success while meeting the needs of indigent, county-funded clients receiving services there. With scarce revenues available to provide funding and historically higher expenditures in the past few years within our county's total MH/DD budget, we are working intently with Seasons Center and other current county-contracted MH/DD service providers to meet the need with the dollars we have available.

"In light of these circumstances, we do not believe we can accept your application to be included in Clay County MH/DD service provider network at this time."

Supervisor Del Brockshus said he encouraged Spencer Psychiatric and Counseling Services LLC to work with Seasons Center.

* Jeff Swift, with Swift Air, met with the board to discuss the status of the County Administration Building's chiller. Swift, sharing what he called "HVAC concerns" noted that the last few summers, Swift Air has been responding to increasing numbers of service calls on the unit.

"When equipment reaches a certain maturity, things start to happen," Swift explained, noting that most mechanical equipment has a 25-year rule of thumb, especially on refrigeration equipment.

"This is something we've been coasting towards for some time," said Pitts.

"We've been talking about the chiller since I joined the board 16 years ago," Supervisor, Del Brockshus said.

The chiller is the original that has served the building since 1980.

Swift estimated that chiller replacement somewhere in the area of a $40,000 to $70,000 expenditure depending on what the county wanted to do, adding that a complete system replacement could cost close six figures.

Brockshus asked, "If we wait until the system absolutely dies -- which will be in the middle of July of course -- what is the turnaround time?"

Swift said four weeks in a best case scenario.

The supervisors agreed to explore the matter to see what course the state of the building's system dictated they take.

* The supervisors will be discussing the transfer of the county's fireworks permit process from the county engineer's office, where it is currently handled, to the Clay County Sheriff's Office with the two involved agencies.

The permit, which allows private parties the right to purchase fireworks and transport them back to Iowa, and grants the permit holder the right to set the fireworks off during an established period of time, is granted at the discretion of the issuing agency.

Last year, the engineer's office had seven requests. Prior to that, it received two or three requests a year.