Feick: I won’t, Mr. Lehman purposefully intend to trip over the cord with your OSHA violations as the County Engineer did. I wouldn’t want you to get into a lawsuit.

Lehman: OK.

Feick: Could you pass those around.

Lehman: We do offer an alternative route, but…

Feick: I’ll make a brief comment on the garbage truck and the garbage. I believe you absolutely do have an unconstitutional, unequal treatment under the law for the propane trucks versus the garbage industry. Being allowed or not being allowed the constitutional freedom of movement on those roads. In addition, it is in fact on the face of it, a public health and safety and welfare issue of the garbage accumulating. I think the facts will show and the history will show on the face of it that your County has purposefully and willfully discriminated against the garbage industry by failure to issue them permits.

Lehman: OK, thank you.

Feick: You might want to have your legal counsel review that and read the constitution a little bit. Another brief item, and I’ll get into the Iowa Property Tax Credit Claim fraud of which I mentioned earlier, or attempted to mention with the Treasurer and was I will state, wrongfully denied through Mr. Lehman inappropriately using the agenda. I’ll review that with the State Ombudsman’s Office, Mr. Lehman.

Lehman: OK.

Feick: The brief item with the property tax fraud is that I will today give you notice of a lawsuit that will be filed against the County and the County Attorney for their obstruction of a complaint filed by me previously of a citizen in this County by the name of Ardath Jagnow, who did in fact put drain cleaner in my drinking glass, admitted to attempted murder and this County Attorney's Office did everything they could to cover up any prosecution or review at all. The papers have been drafted, they are in the process of being processed/served as I speak. Now for the property tax fraud. Over the last several months it came to my knowledge that particular citizens were in fact using what I hold up as the Iowa Property Tax Credit Claim form and all of you have one in front of you. Any citizen within the State of Iowa can get this form by going to their local Treasurer’s Office. On the face of it they have to disclose various items of household income. This also comes through the Iowa Revenue Department because when the citizen cheats, the county that the citizen resides in does not have to pay for the reduction in taxes. I’ll give you a simple formula. The numbers might not be correct, but it’s a mathematical formula. You’ve got a $100,000 house, the taxes are $1,000, the citizen lies and cheats, pays $200 on taxes. The $800 is not made up to that county by that counties taxpayers. It in fact comes out of the general fund of the Iowa Revenue Department. So every taxpayer that pays into the State of Iowa pays for that fraud. That’s significant and that’s something that I think the citizens of Johnson County and Iowa it will resonate with them, that they’re paying for this fraud. On the back of this form, this Iowa Property Tax Credit Claim form, conveniently, the Iowa Revenue Department and the 1999 Treasurers Office actually print a schedule to inform the public as to what dollar amounts they should lie about to commit the fraud. That’s intriguing in itself. That they would print the schedule where it goes, if you have $16,863 in household income or less, you can get a certain percentage down to zero of property tax that you’ll have to pay. That’s convenient that the Revenue Department and the Treasurer’s Offices would show them how to cheat. Then on page 3, you will see the property tax credit claim general instructions and on page 4. In particular, today, I want to talk to you, and this is not where all the fraud is, this is where an immense amount of fraud is. I want to talk to you about line 9 on page 1, and it’s worded "in kind assistance for housing expense." To explain to you, if you don’t know, legally, and the general public that’s listening, what in kind assistance is, we’ll read the definition on line 9, you can read it for yourselves, "in kind assistance enter any portion of your household housing expenses, including utilities, that were paid for you, do not enter federal energy assistance." This Board of Supervisors is not unaware of my constant complaint since 1993 of the other tax fraud going on at the Senior Citizen’s Center Elderly Services Agency of Johnson County, Inc. In fact, your Board, and previous members of previous Board of Supervisors since 1993 have done everything to cover up this tax fraud, and have nothing be done about it. Now we’re talking about higher numbers. This time, we’re not talking about a few dollars on taxes of $5.50 or $5.60 an hour of chore service workers. That doesn’t resonate too well with the public. But when we’re talking about, and I know of one instance, because I live in the house, where this person gets a free roof, chimney repair, siding, insulation, electrical, plumbing, kitchen counter, kitchen sink, furnace, and hot water heater. They inherited a third of $630,000 to $640,000 in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s; you can look at the state records at the Johnson County Courthouse. The Meardon, Sueppel, Downer, and Hayes law firm has purposely hid this money so this person and their family could basically commit taxation fraud rape of the county for years. This isn’t the only incidence. Recently, when they filed their 2001 claim, County employees helped them commit the fraud, and the County employees at the Treasurer’s office admitted to me over the phone, and there are tape recordings to prove the conversation that they did it. I asked this Treasurer’s Office employee to go to Elderly Services, get all of the records of this in-kind services sometimes referred to as repair services, and if they’re unwilling to give it up, because they’ve been totally always unwilling to give up any of their paperwork, even though your contract with them requires that they act as an administrative agency and all of their records are public records. They won’t give them up. You have repeatedly given them license to commit fraud repeatedly, by failure to act. But you can also go to the Johnson County Council of Governments. Elderly Services Agency of Johnson County, Inc. files a budget and a budget request, excuse me, in the reverse order, a budget request and a budget. Every year, there is a line for repair services. I asked this employee at the Johnson County Treasurer’s Office who heads this property tax claim credit paperwork to go there, compare the figures, find the fraud, give the public that have committed the fraud an opportunity to fess up to their fraud, pay the County, and if they didn’t, then you sue them civilly and criminally. They weren’t going to. I said fine, see you in Federal Court. I then raised the phone, because on this form as you can see on page one of the property tax credit claim, it says Iowa Revenue and Finance. I called their 800 number, spoke with, and I’m going to use a phrase that you may not like, but it fits, the buck’s bottom bitch that runs that department. I asked her to do the same, to go to all 99 counties and pull these records, to go to the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs and the state library and get all their fiscal year end reports that has these numbers of what was done on repair service. It has to be put on line 9. Compare the data, do an audit, where there was fraud, tell these citizens that they’re going to fess up to fraud and pay it, or else they will be sued civilly and criminally. She refused. You know my standard response. Want to quote it? See you in federal court. Citizen’s Aid is reviewing that. Now what I want you folks to do is get back to me, and tell me what you’re going to do about this fraud. Are you just going to silently sit there this time, like the record shows that you did since 1993, or are you going to make it so the rest of the taxpayers of Johnson County and the State of Iowa has to pay for this fraud, because you’re just too lazy to get off your duffers? And your County Attorney has willfully covered up this fraud since 1993. The proof is in your Auditor’s Office.

Lehman: OK.

Feick: Your Auditor has kept a good measure of keeping records.

Lehman: OK.

Feick: See you in Federal Court.

Lehman: Well, thank you for the information.

Lehman: Anyone else from the members of the public? Come up and identify themselves for the Auditor?

Dan Brock: Good morning, gentlemen.

Lehman: Good morning.

Brock: I’m Dan Brock. I live at Iowa City. I wrote a letter to the editor concerning Mr. Neuzil and KCJJ. I have a tape for each of you of the DJ’s and Mr. Neuzil’s response, on-air response to the letter, and hope that you would be able to take the time to listen to it, and discuss this with Mr. Neuzil.

Lehman: OK. Thank you very much.

Brock: Can I leave these for Sally and…

Lehman: Carol? Yes. Watch your step.

Harney: Watch your…

Brock: Whoa, thank you.

Lehman: Jerry will represent you.

Neuzil: Nice to meet you, finally.

Feick: I’ll find you a good attorney (inaudible).

Neuzil: I think most of us have seen the transcription of these, so…

Lehman: OK. All right.

Feick: I want to make a brief public comment, only because he opened the window, OK, about this radio station. Your legal staff needs to, and I, you have a conflict of interest with Mr. Neuzil.

Neuzil: I disagree with you, sir.

Feick: Are you not an employee of that station?

Neuzil: Yes.

Feick: Do you know what the definition of a conflict of interest is…

Neuzil: I do. Do you, sir?

Feick: …or do I have to inform you? Consult your legal counsel. This radio station is nothing but a public nuisance under the Iowa Code. They verbally assault and insult a different victim every morning.

Lehman: OK. Thank you for your viewpoint.

Feick: How they get by with it with the FCC, I don’t know. I’m talking about the difference between free speech and common sense, and massive slander, libel, and assault, verbal assault, even threatening to physically harm people over the air. Now, they’ve lied to me repeatedly in the past, claimed that they don’t have any tapes. This is an absolute lie. Any insurance company, and I’ve checked with the head people at the FCC and Washington, D.C. Any insurance company that insures a radio station requires them to tape everything that goes out on over mike, open mike. No insurance company would be dumb enough to not require that, because of the potential of a lawsuit.

Lehman: OK.

Feick: Consult your legal counsel, read the public nuisance law. You might also check with the Iowa City City Council meeting last Tuesday, and my suggestion, instead of if you just keep licensing liquor establishments and then whine to the public that you need $20 million for a jail. Start closing down some of these bars as a public nuisance. Read the Iowa code under public nuisance, paren 4. I think you can read the English language. I don’t think you’ll need legal counsel to understand it.

Lehman: Thank you. Anyone else from the public wish to address the Board? OK. If not, we’ll go back to Reports from the Board. Anyone like to…

Neuzil: I’d like to start. Since Mr. Brock wasn’t willing to stick around to hear comments. Again, I just appreciate him taping the radio station. I work at KCJJ, and I’m proud to work at KCJJ, and don’t plan on leaving it. I work an hour a day, each weekday, and I work on Sunday mornings, and I encourage you to listen to the tape. You’ll find out that I do the newscast, that at times I have an opinion, a comment, if someone asks for one, but other than that, it’s pretty obvious that this radio station that I do work at is an open format, as well, for people to make comments, and for people to have opinions. We freely allow expression to take place at the radio station. So, I don’t plan on leaving, and I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest, either, and so I’m sorry if people think differently. Besides that, lots of things going on throughout the last couple of weeks, as far as our daily lives. We’ve been real busy attending small-town meetings. I also attended the department head meeting, MH/DD Planning Council. Some of us went up to Des Moines to go up to the ISAC Meetings, the Iowa Association of Counties, so that was very, very informative to continue to learn about what other counties are doing and to kind of give it an update of the kind of power that the Board of Supervisors have when they all get together and do the kind of things that we’re trying to do, lobbying the legislature and learning from each other. So, again, very informative. I attended the HACAP Board of Directors meeting up in Hiawatha, and also sit on the Decategorization Executive Council now, some of the things that I’ve worked on over the last couple of weeks. Thank you.

Lehman: OK. Thank you, Terrence. Pat?

Harney: I’ve got a whole list of things. It’s been a busy last couple of weeks; we didn’t have our meeting last time. On the 16th, I met with the Department of Human Services, Cheryl Whitney and her staff, up there. We covered some of the areas, their space needs, the overcrowding they have up there, and what the alternatives may be, and what we may or may not be able to do. Some other problems they are having up there is air quality, and they’re working on that. That should be cleared up up there for them. On the 19th, Mike Lehman and I met with County Roads; we attended one of their meetings out there in the morning, before they went on duty. It was very informative; they’re all given their equal tasks, and it seemed like an awful lot of good employees out there doing a good job. We also discussed some of the maintenance issues that go on, and things that are upcoming out there. Also on the 19th, the Board met with the small-town mayors here in the boardroom. They reviewed it with us, and updated all the past year’s progress that they’ve made, and things that are upcoming in the future that may be of concern to the County as well. The Counties, as we all know, are growing fast out there, and they’re looking at parks and water and sewer problems as the time goes one. Also, on the 20th, I met with Elaine Sweet. She gave a presentation up here at the Boardroom on a computer system which is designed for tracking cases and case management, and their budgets and so forth, which looks like a very good program, if they can work all the things through on that. At least it was a good presentation; whether we get it or not is another issue. On the 21st, the Iowa State Association of Counties in Des Moines. I attended sessions on zoning, land use, economic development, protecting ag land. Most counties are experiencing the same growth as Johnson County, and they’re having the same problems that we are. It was a very good opportunity to meet with legislators, and discuss issues of importance to all of us. Taxation, development, and water quality was also some of the areas that we covered. Another upcoming issue is the re-districting and re-precincting in this area, which is going to be done this year. That’s the setting of boundaries for the polling places, and so forth. Iowa State Association of Counties, at the business meeting, there was a Dr. Kristen Kirkendahl, who, she spoke, she’s from the Washington, D.C. area. She’s a very dynamic speaker, if you ever have the opportunity to hear her, she has a very good presentation. She spoke on education opportunities, getting involved, and getting other people involved, and reaching out to others, encouraging education and community involvement. County employees from all over the state were acknowledged for their years of service, and the people of Johnson County, let’s take a minute to acknowledge them for the service they have given their counties. Harry Graves has come recently to Johnson County, but he has over 30 years of service. Most of that was in the Buchanan County area. Mary Hall at Community Services, she has 30 years of service. Duane Lewis with the Sheriff’s Department has 30 years. Keith Slaughter has 25 years. Hillary Maurer at Public Health has 20 years. 20 years also is Dan Quails at the Sheriff’s Office, Lyle Smith at the Sheriff’s Office, Dave Stanton at the Sheriff’s Office, Dave Wagner at the Sheriff’s Office, they all had 15, as did Jim Waldschmidt and Scott Grabbe, all those with the Sheriff’s Department. And last night I attended the Conservation Board meeting here. They had some issues. They were talking about conservation things up in the area of Sutliff, the Cedar County River, and they had a very good program there, Felton Rocksite, the Indian Crossings, a lot of the history up there. And they’re going to be doing more in that area. Also last night, I had the Emergency Management Commission Meeting. Next week is Severe Awareness Week, for severe weathers, and they’ve all, they just recently had a training for spotter’s training for bad weather. They’ve trained over 600 persons in that area. They’re also going out and conducting training at nursing homes, and what they can do to protect the elderly in this nursing home areas. So that’s the last couple of weeks.

Lehman: OK. Thank you. It was interesting, some of the meetings I attended along with Terrence and Pat, (inaudible) tell you at the small towns meeting, we had a representative of the US Geological Survey spoke on water issues, and interesting about water quality and quantities and stuff in the Johnson County, and how it comes into play with municipalities and stuff, and how they’re always searching for larger and better qualities of water. I thought it was very informative. You kind of take for granted what you have here, and sometimes you’re not aware of what you do have, and appreciate it (inaudible). Along with what’s Pat’s mentioned, being out at Secondary Roads, it’s like farming, the weather can make you look pretty smart or pretty dumb, and we got caught here, with the change in the seasons, where the County Secondary Roads has put rock on some of the roads, and then we got a snow. We have to be real careful about letting that rock off; they have to maintain a pretty level high level of speed to actually push the snow. Since this last snow was very wet and heavy, it takes momentum to push that, and you got to be careful not to lose a lot of rock, and in some cases they didn’t blade some of the roads. They were hoping that it would melt off soon enough. And now they’re getting out on some of the calcium chloride roads, they had to wait for it to thaw, and now with some moisture here, with the past light rains, they’re able to rework those. They were getting pretty poor conditions, with potholes and stuff, that they weren’t able to get out there and grade those roads, so I think the rural travelers will see a change there. I had a Financial Work Group met yesterday morning, and we’re looking at a financial package to do software for payroll as well as other items for the county. That has a rather large price tag, but we feel that it might offer some advantages when we’re looking at having some presentations done, so we can get some ideas and recommendations and see if this might be something that we can use, and if it fits into our budget, if it will be a cost savings for us. But it’s something we would look at in the future. I attended, a week ago Tuesday, the Johnson County Democrats put on a Crime and Justice Forum at the library. That will be rebroadcast; it was taped that night. It was very interesting viewpoints of the panel, with the attorneys, members of the State Criminal Incarceration, some of the viewpoints they had, they didn’t always agree. Members of the public had interesting viewpoints, but it was very interesting to hear, and it all comes into play with our jail population stuff. Some things that we do have control over, and many things that we don’t, maybe some changes will have to be made on the state level. But I thought it was a very informative evening. Let’s see, here. Department Heads, we met with them, we had a representative whose name was Paula Kelly from Synchrony, that did a presentation on management in the workplace and dealing with different personalities and stuff. That kind of comes into play even today, kind of brings things home, the people you deal with and how you need to deal with them. There’s people of all types, as we’re people of all types, and different personalities and challenges to work with. I might remind the public that on April 4th, I believe, in the afternoon, about 1:30, we’re going to schedule a mock zoning. Our zoning department is going to bring us some little brainteasers, I guess, of the different situations that we…some that we have had challenged with, and some of the different wrinkles that we’ll be faced with in the future. It might be interesting for the public to attend that, and see how we justify our approvals and denials of zoning applications. I think that’ll be well worthwhile. Planning and Zoning has been working on that for some time, here, to make the presentation (inaudible). I believe that’s all I have to report.

Neuzil: I was just going to add that I’m going to be at the Senior Center on Friday, March 30, for Hawkeye Friday Listening Post. Hope you have a chance to come on down and enjoy lunch over at Senior Dining, and hopefully pick up a chair, and we’ll talk County Government. And the next one after that will be Friday, April 6, and that will be here at the County Administration Building. So, if you have a chance, come on down. Thanks.

The Board of Supervisors decided to postpone their discussion of the Strategic Planning Document until a later date.

Welsh: I think your statement about there are legal means to remedy, I think people need to realize, although you have the capacity to make a lot of decisions, you cannot make decisions for the State of Iowa, for example, and the Elderly Tax Credit has been a program in existence for a number of years. I know I’ve dealt with people who fill that out, and the statement about, well they even give you a guideline to tell you how to cheat. Well, I think that’s to tell you whether or not you’re eligible, (inaudible). The good side of that is to help you determine eligibility. What I’m saying, I think on the embargo, you made, from one citizen’s standpoint, opened a Pandora’s box, at this point. I can’t think of a… I was amazed at how many different hauling companies we have. So here’s a subdivision, and we don’t have one truck going into that subdivision hauling. You evidently might have 5 or 6 trucks going in there, and it seems to me that it’s something to be worked out, other than getting all of them paid going in. Then they’re talking about how many pounds (inaudible) 40,000 pounds. That’s a heck of a lot.

Harney: And I agree that we need to pick up their trash, but at the same time, I think that we need to, as you said, put a limit on. We can’t have them coming in with a great big box, saying, OK, fill it up, we’re going to come in and pick that up in particular areas. We need to keep it the smaller units to come in and out and take care of their trash, but not go overboard.

Welsh: (Inaudible). If I would (inaudible), and there was an embargo, I realized you don’t (inaudible), but if you would (inaudible), if I was in that business, I know what I would do. I would get a small truck that would fit the embargo (inaudible) and I would go and I would pick up contracts with every one of those people.

Harney: And it has to be limited to household waste. We can’t be taking other things out, either. So I think that’s things that we need to talk about, so…

Welsh: (Inaudible). If I did that, well I bet you all the other (inaudible) do that too, and you’d be able to protect the roads and…

Lehman: It’s a good valid point. I guess my argument was, here we are in the middle of an embargo, I’d like to give them some warning. For the future, I don’t see where they’d need to go out and try to contract for a small truck, but your point is well taken. We could open something up here; I don’t want to make it difficult for Secondary Roads to try to moderate this, but…

Welsh: I think Terrence said, this is something you all need to discuss between now and the next embargo (inaudible), and far enough in advance to let the haulers know that hey, this isn’t something we really want to continue year after year after year, and the fact that (inaudible) last time…I know the fact that I have gone over the speed limit doesn’t mean that I’m exempt…Hey, I’ve done that before, so what’s wrong with that? I’d still get a ticket (inaudible). But, overall, I do appreciate all you do.

Lehman: I appreciate your input. Sometimes, we’re sitting here in the trenches, we get a little mired down, and sometimes you…People from the public, I know you’re limited discussion-wise from the formal sessions and stuff, but I appreciate input, it helps clarify things for us from a different perspective, sometimes. I would like to compliment the group that was in on the waste haulers, that they were organized and they had, basically, spoken their piece, they didn’t get redundant and stuff. I thought it was very well-organized on their part, kind of a unified front, and hopefully we’ve accomplished short-term for them what they wanted to accomplish. OK. Anything else? If not, we’ll adjourn.

Adjourned at 11:25 a.m.

Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor

By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary