IOWA CITY

Disagreements on a Johnson County plan for Windham Village boiled down to one final emotional meeting March 8.

“We don’t want anything,” said Judd Lawler, who led a presentation of a group of Windham Village residents at the Board of Supervisors formal voting session. “We just want to be left alone.”

Those words began an hour-long discussion featuring comments from multiple Windham Village residents, Republican State Senator Dawn Driscoll, county staff and supervisors.

The meeting, during which county supervisors voted 4-0 to install an official village development plan and vision statement for Windham, concluded a process that began with meetings at Renee’s Roadhouse in Windham Village last summer.

Village plans help guide supervisors and members of the county’s Planning & Zoning Commission through any development requests that come before the boards, but village residents stood in opposition to a plan over those many months. More than 200 signed a petition opposing the plan and a Dec. 8 board meeting was so dramatic that a decision on the plan was delayed until last week’s meeting so that village residents and county staff could meet in an attempt to reach a compromise.

Windham was the last of nine villages targeted for a county plan, following other areas including Frytown, Joetown, Sharon Center and River Junction.

“There are evolving needs,” said village resident Pat Mougin. “We just fail to see why we are targeted for that, to have some evolvement there.”

“It’s clear in the beginning that we knew you weren’t going to change your mind,” Brenda Mougin said. “You get to speak after we are done. We have to sit in silence and listen to you twist our words.”

“I’m very proud of the community and how they’ve handled it,” said Sally Attwood, a property owner in Windham. “It has been a waste of time, and in my opinion, it has all been very shameful. Just shameful.”

Supervisor Royceann Porter had an issue with the verbal attacks on the board.

“I don’t like it when you say we don’t listen to you because we have to make decisions,” Porter said. “We do. We listen. It’s not easy.”

The issue attracted the attention of Driscoll, a first-term state senator from Williamsburg.

“We fight for rural representation all the time,” she said. “These residents have banded together and I feel have done a phenomenal job of showing their passion for preserving their historic Windham.”

Once the verbal jarring was over, the board opted for a village plan using a smaller version of the village boundary than proposed by county staff. The alternate boundary, covering about 93 acres and presented by the Windham Village group, was put into a motion by Supervisor Rod Sullivan along with a caveat that heavy manufacturing development not be allowed. The staff’s plan covered 196 acres.

A third plan, presented by Lawler, proposed the boundary follow Windham’s much smaller area of the village’s original plat.

Josh Busard, Director of Johnson County Planning, Development and Sustainability, said the village plan isn’t meant to produce development, but instead govern it.

“It doesn’t mean that growth is going to happen immediately,” Busard said. “The plan, I think, is an opportunity for residents to weigh in, to be able to direct any future development.”

Board Action

The Board approved a rezoning from agricultural to residential, and the preliminary and final plat for Barnes Second Subdivision, a two-lot subdivision located on Dane Road SW, northwest of Hills.

The Board set a public hearing for the proposed tax levy for FY24, at 5:30 p.m. March 29.

The Board approved nine American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Community Food and Farm Grant Program agreements, totaling $100,000.

The Board awarded a Cosgrove Road SW bridge replacement project to Taylor Construction of New Vienna, for a low bid of $1.2 million.

The Board issued a proclamation in honor of Kidney Health Month.

Supervisor Elections

Johnson County is one of five Iowa counties that will have its supervisors elected via districts beginning in 2024, according to pending state legislation that was passed March 6 and still needs to be signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The new law will affect counties of 125,000 population or more. Johnson County’s five supervisors have been elected via at-large positions in the past, including in the November 2022 election, but the law will divide Johnson County into five districts of equal population. Voters will select just one supervisor representing the district in which a voter resides.

“It’ll be interesting to see how that lays out,” Johnson County Chair Lisa Green-Douglass said. “Counties should be able to determine and the people within those counties should be able to determine how their board of supervisors is elected. This is now being dictated to us from above.”

The other counties falling under what is known as Plan 3 are Scott, Black Hawk, Linn and Polk.

Next board meeting: The board will hold its next formal meeting at 9 a.m. March 16.