IOWA CITY

Jon Green, a rural Lone Tree resident and former mayor of Lone Tree, began a one-year term as Chair of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors with the Board’s organizational meeting January 2. Green is in the midst of a four-year Supervisor term on the Board.

The News sat down with Green to review his plans for the coming year as the Board Chair.

The News: Happy New Year, Supervisor Green. As you begin a year as Johnson County Chair for the Board of Supervisors, what are your hopes and expectations for the coming year?

Jon Green: The chairman has a few special duties and responsibilities, and in case of disaster is the face of the county. I don’t care for any of that. I want to be the chairman for the mundane role: Ensuring we conduct good meetings where everyone is able to bring their ideas to the table and we can come to the best outcome. My hope is we’re never in The News for how we conduct ourselves, but for the good things we do. It is my expectation that those who participate in our meetings govern themselves accordingly.

The News: Since coming onto the Board in a special election in 2021, what have been your biggest lessons?

Green: I knew the County, as a government, was big, like I know the oceans are deep. To actually put your toe in it is awesome. Terrifying. I joke that my job is to be the dumbest person in the room because there are only a few things I can really be expert at; the rest, I need the advice of specialists. I hope I’m humble enough to listen to those experts, but willful enough to exercise the good judgment I’ve been entrusted with by the voters.

The News: And accomplishments?

Green: The County purchased a 15-unit housing complex to be converted into affordable housing. Counties doing affordable housing is something of a novel concept in Iowa; usually it falls to the bigger cities to do that. But we saw the need and had the ability to make a difference, and so we did. I was vice chairman when the deal closed, and the chairman (Rod Sullivan) was traveling, so my first signature representing the County was on the closing document for that property. A framed copy is in my office.

We brought a stabilization check to 2,238 people, many of whom missed out on the (U.S. Federal Government) stimulus checks so many of us received because their papers may not have been in order. I was driving back from Des Moines and a volunteer at the Catholic Worker House called. He told me he’d just heard from a woman in the hospital with her husband, who’d just had a heart attack. She might have had one, too, but the $1,400 the County had delivered to her had kept her from worrying about how to pay for their immediate troubles.

We also do the unglamorous work. In 2024 Johnson County hauled about 6,800 tandem truck loads of gravel, a little over 100,000 tons. Maybe that’s enough to fill Kinnick; it’s barely enough for our roads. We renovated our main office building. The original cost was $33 million. I got it to $9.2 million.

We’ve done a hell of a lot with the investment from the American Rescue Plan Act. I’m particularly proud of a series of childcare programs. We managed to not only reduce the cost of childcare, we did so while increasing the wages those care providers earn while increasing the quality of care. We’ve given out hundreds of thousands of dollars to local farmers and adjacent folks to ensure the depth, breadth and resiliency of our food system.

Small town mayors have lots of good ideas but damn few precious resources. I’ve worked to help bring County attention to the smaller towns for economic development and technical assistance. There’s a lot of grant money in the world, but somebody has to have the chops to fill out the application. We can help with that.

I’ve also led the charge to bring passenger rail back to the CRANDIC Road. Imagine: you have a flight out of Cedar Rapids. Hitch a ride to Hills, have a cup of coffee at a nice little shop while you wait for the train that will deliver you to the Eastern Iowa Airport. It’s nuts to me that somehow air travel has become more ubiquitous than hopping a train in this country.

The News: With the addition of Mandi Remington, this will be a bit of a new Board. What challenges does that present for the coming year?

Green: I’m not worried. Mandi brings a different experience to the Board, especially being a single mom and so deeply involved in community organizing. While (former Supervisor) Royceann Porter and I sometimes clashed, I will miss her perspective, but Mandi brings her own.

The News: You have already suggested some changes to the Board's formal sessions. What other changes would you like to see?

Green: To serve as a good chairman is to set aside some ambition for the good of the order. The changes I’m implementing are designed to ensure we have meetings that run smoothly and where everyone can participate for the best outcome, even if it isn’t necessarily my preferred one. While it’s invisible for the public, many of the tweaks I’m introducing are intended to make life easier for county staff. Those are the folks who enable us to do our work and we should minimize their hurdles.

The News: In addition to being the Board Chair this year, you are the Board's liaison to the City of Lone Tree. You live there. You went to school there. Tell us about Lone Tree.

Green: When Dutch Elm finally felled the Lone Tree, my grandfather picked some of it up and had it run through an Amish sawmill. When fire took the old schoolhouse, my grandfather scavenged some of the old gym floor for the floorboards in his house. My grandmother was from Nichols and remembered why they’re called muskmelons. We’ve been here a spell.

Grandpa Ferd ran for city council, unsuccessfully, in 1983, the year I was born. I sure would like to know what the burr under his saddle was because that was unlike him. After being a war hero, he pretty much kept to himself, so something must’ve bothered him greatly, but that is a controversy lost to time.

Lone Tree is a city that risks being lost to time, like so many of the great little towns that are Iowa. I’m too young to remember a Nichols Day, or to have gone to school there. I hope I’m not so old as to someday be one of the few who remembers going to school in Lone Tree.

I have a duty to my late grandparents, but the lesson I have taken from them is that my duty is really to those who will come after. I pray I do well. That is the spirit of Lone Tree.

The News: What are the biggest issues facing the County this year?

Green: There are a few we know about. Legislative changes to property taxes are significant, although they seem to be hurting just about every other county and city worse than us. However you feel about him, president-elect Trump certainly introduces uncertainty. Queer and especially trans kids and adults are under attack here in a way that is not becoming to Iowa. I do worry. And then I remind myself of the Code of Iowa, 331.301(1):

“A county may, except as expressly limited by the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and if not inconsistent with the laws of the general assembly, exercise any power and perform any function it deems appropriate to protect and preserve the rights, privileges, and property of the county or of its residents, and to preserve and improve the peace, safety, health, welfare, comfort, and convenience of its residents. This grant of home rule powers…”

Your rights, privileges, peace, safety, health, welfare, comfort and convenience are my charge.

The News: Hawkeyes or Cowboys?

Green: Ride for the brand.