The Cass County Board of Supervisors today (Tuesday) held a hearing on the disposal of County-owned real property on the west side of Cumberland (Lot 3, Bakers Addition). Following the hearing, the Board approved disposal of the Lot and held an auction to sell the land. There was only one bid: Darrin Hardisty purchased the property for the sum of $100. The bid was accepted unanimously. In other business, the Board approved a Resolution to enter into a 28-E (Cost sharing) agreement for the Iowa Precinct Atlas Consortium (use of Precinct Atlas computer software programs, related software and hardware components). The County’s share of the agreement is an annual fee of $3,500, plus 3-cents per voter in the county, or $3,791.18.

County Auditor Dale Sunderman explained the State of Iowa decided to do away with their version of “Poll Book,” which they switched to in 2018 because it was free. The County had previously used Precinct Atlas. The new system will be in place as of January 1st. The School/City Elections on Nov. 5th will still use Poll Books as the system software. The Board of Supervisors also approved the assignment of a Tax Sale Certificate to the City of Atlantic, for that part of Lot 1 Block 120, north and east of Bull Creek, an area Sunderman said was a “bad area.” The City intends to clean it up.

The Supervisors heard from Cass County Attorney Vanessa Strazdas, who reported on recent a sexual abuse sentence involving Kelly Simonton, that was successfully prosecuted for Sexual Abuse in the 3rd degree, with the sentences running consecutively. She said also, Tyler Mills was sentenced to 5-years probation for his criminal activities, a term she said was much longer than normal, and would “hopefully put an end to his little reign of terror,” and if not, they’re holding prison time over his head. Two other sexual abuses cases are on the docket. One for September 29th, the other expected to come to the courtroom in December. There were also charges filed in connection with an accidental shooting that took place last July, in Lyman.

In his report to the Board, Cass County Conservation Director Micah Lee said they have keptg busy mowing, especially with the loss of their college student helpers, who have returned to school. He said also, with regard to Cold Springs State Park, camping sites 1 through 8, which are tightly grouped and not used as much, were split-up. Three sites were pulled out and moved to the northwest corner of the campground in preparation for use next year.

County Assistant Engineer Rich Hansen discussed changes that will be coming to some of the wind turbines located in the County. He said Mid-American Energy will be swapping out of the internal nacell components and installing longer, more energy efficient blades. A process called “re-powering.” The new blades will be 48-feet longer than the current blades. The new “nucleus” components in the turbine nacells, will still put out the same amount of power, but more days per year when they will generate maximum power on the days when winds are lighter. The changes affect some of the turbines in the northeast and southeast parts of Cass County. Hansen said it will take about three-weeks per turbine for the switch-out to take place.