Jon Green, a former Lone Tree mayor and former editor of the Lone Tree Reporter, won the vacant position on the Johnson County Board of Supervisors in a special election on June 8.

A graduate of Lone Tree High School who received an endorsement from U.S. presidential candidate and senator Bernie Sanders, Green, a Democrat, was one of three candidates for the supervisor position and walked away with the election, more than doubling the votes of Republican candidate Phil Hemingway.

Following a certification process on Tuesday, June 15, Green will become a county supervisor this week. His first formal meeting, along with chairman Pat Heiden, and supervisors Rod Sullivan, Lisa Green-Douglass and Royceann Porter will be Thursday.

According to the Johnson County Auditor’s Office, Green had 9,718 votes, or 66% of the vote. Hemingway totaled 31%, with 4,504 votes. Independent candidate Brian Campbell totaled 3%, with 471 votes.

Green will serve through December 31, 2022. He replaces Janelle Rettig, who resigned in April.

Green, a 2001 graduate of Lone Tree High School, served as the city’s mayor in 2018 and 2019.

Green is a native of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and has been working recently in information technology, including at a firm in Fairfield.

At its regularly scheduled meeting held June 10, the Johnson County Supervisors agreed to an economic development consulting contract with the Bill Menner Group, looking at such areas as Lone Tree and Frytown. The contracts are being separated into two separate deals with $22,000 with the Menner Group being compensated at a rate of $100 per hour.

“My consulting business is focused on local communities,” Menner told the supervisors at its working meeting on June 9. “The big thing is it’s going to happen in a logical way. We’re not going to drop something in a place where it simply doesn’t belong or even propose to do that.”

A report is due to be made by October.

The supervisors also passed the first reading of a resolution that would recognize Dr. Lulu Merle Johnson, the first African American women to a doctorate degree from the State University of Iowa, as its official eponym for Johnson County.

Johnson, a native of Gravity, Iowa, entered the State University of Iowa as one of just 14 African American women enrolled at the time, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees by 1930. She earned her Degree of Philosophy in 1941.

She was the daughter of parents born into slavery.

The county was originally named after Richard Mentor Johnson, a slave owner and lifelong resident of Kentucky.

The resolution states, in part: “The people of Johnson County believe that the institution of slavery was and is a grave injustice against humanity.”