IOWA CITY

At a time when talk of a new Johnson County jail is heating up, the County Board of Supervisors supported moving ahead with the re-establishment of a Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee.

A previous committee years ago consisted of all five Board members, community members and also included a judge. Board Chair Rod Sullivan sees the same makeup being used for this committee, per a discussion at the Board’s July 14 work session.

A tentative proposal in front of the Board called for an $80 million new jailhouse that would replace the current aging facility that is located in Iowa City and is being monitored constantly for growing structure cracks and water leaks.

“Review the current system, if you will, and figure out where we can make improvements,” Sullivan said. “If that leads to some kind of construction, then that’s where it leads.”

The committee’s scope may involve looking deeper into issues and problems the sheriff’s department currently faces.

“We’ve done a lot of things over 20 years beyond that have affected and brought us to where we’re at today,” Sheriff Brad Kunkel said. “Let’s take a look at what we have and look at where we’ve improved and are there still opportunities there and what is that going to look like?”

While Johnson County considers building a new jail, the City of Iowa City may also want to be included. The City Council has approved beginning discussions about a joint facility that would include both the county and city jails.

The topic is heating up. Of all the talk at the Johnson County Fair, jail talk is what supervisors heard the most.

“Yes, the talk is the jail,” Supervisor Royceann Porter said. “It is on the radar. The jail is out there. People are talking about it, knowing that we need a jail.”

“The public cares a lot about this,” Kunkel told The News. “I get asked about it all the time. It was really the only topic I heard about at the Fair. People coming up to me and just saying, when are you going to get that new jail or along those lines. The support is all I really hear. It’s a question of when, I always hear. I really think the public support is out there.”

Blue Screen Scare

The CrowdStrike cybersecurity global outage left sheriff deputies and healthcare workers without a computer system early on the morning of July 19.

An update by CrowdStrike took down Windows computer servers worldwide, causing a disruption that affected airports, financial institutions and healthcare systems. The outage created “blue screens of death,” including in Johnson County’s computer systems.

Bill Horning, Director of Information Technology, told the Board that 200 machines were affected. Many of the computers, including those in the sheriff’s department, were repaired immediately in the middle of the night through the manual deletion of files and forcing a reboot.

“Going around and touching 200 machines is not a good time,” Horning said.

Needed: Site Plan

An equipment storage building project at Johnson County Historic Poor Farm that was awarded to Kalona Post & Frame is being delayed due to a site plan that is being required by Iowa City.

In January, Kalona Post & Frame was awarded the project for construction of a 25-by-100-foot pole building at a cost of $94,480.

Now, six months later, the City of Iowa City determined that the additional building surpasses city code thresholds of 20,000 square feet at the Poor Farm. Johnson County is contracting with Iowa City-based Axiom Consultants to do the required surveying of the property and produce a site plan that must be approved by Iowa City.

The building, when completed, will be used for storage of equipment used by Land Access Program farm growers at the Poor Farm.

“Is it because of the amount of commercial capacity? Or is it the number of users in the building? What exactly kind of tripped this?” Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass asked.

Jason Grimm, Deputy Director of Iowa Valley Resource Conservation & Development, said Iowa City considers every structure on the property in terms of building regulation policies.

County Resignations

The county lost two officials last week: Auditor Travis Weipert resigned, effective July 25, and Veterans Affairs Officer Gary Boseneller announced his resignation the same day during the Board’s formal session.

Weipert resigned for reasons of personal health.

The Board will appoint an immediate replacement for Weipert. After that, the position will be determined through the general election Nov. 5, which the auditor’s office runs.

Old or Experienced?

Supervisor Royceann Porter had a few points to make about President Joe Biden, and his decision to pull out of the 2024 Presidential race, in her closing comments at the formal session.

“I have love in my heart for Joe Biden,” Porter said. “I feel like, Joe, to me, was forced out. A lot of people don’t realize it, but when you’re saying, ‘You’re old, you’re old, you’re old,’ it’s age discrimination to me. That’s what I see.

“As an older person, a Black leader in this community, I get it a lot when they say, ‘You’re old.’ But if you don’t know where you came from, you definitely won’t know where you’re going. With that old comes knowledge. We are able to give you what you need.”

Board Actions

The Board approved the Fiscal Year 2025 fall budget amendment following a public hearing with no public comment. The amendment includes $13.4 million in capital expenditures and another $1.2 million in spending at the Historic Poor Farm. The FY25 budget was approved in April, calling for expenditures of $169 million.

The Board approved putting a $30 million county conservation bond referendum on the November general election ballot. The money would be spent in a number of projects over 20 years and follows up a $20 million bond in 2008 that led to 9.2 miles of trails, more than 1,100 acquired acres of land for conservation use and 15 projects that improved parks, trails and water quality.

The Board approved more than $300,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Community Food and Farm Grant Program requests, including $25,000 each to Baladna Farm, Farmers Toolshed, Garden Oasis, Trowel & Error Farm, Wild Woods Farm and Yotopia Frozen Yogurt.

The Board approved the county treasurer’s depository list.

Next meeting:

The Board’s next formal session is at 9 a.m. August 1.