Legal notices to appear in four papers following appeal
Last week, the Jasper County Board of Supervisors awarded the designation of official newspaper for the county, and with it the right to publish the county’s legal notices, to the Newton Daily News, Jasper County Tribune and Diamond Trail News. The official designation is based on circulation, and can mean as much as $10,000 in revenue for the newspapers selected.
Criste and Pete Scarnati, owners of the Prairie City News, had been designated an official newspaper for the past two years, and the Scarnatis have now filed an appeal against the supervisors’ ruling, alleging that the Diamond Trail News and Jasper County Tribune’s circulation numbers are skewed.
At the supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, attorney Steve Holwerda, on behalf of the Prairie City News, asked the supervisors to allow all four county newspapers to continue to publish the county’s legal notices until the appeal process is completed.
County Attorney Mike Jacobsen said he had no problem with that arrangement. He said the most recent similar case to the present one occurred in 1904. At that time, the paper selected to publish the legal notices was allowed to continue to publish until it lost its appeal. Jacobsen said the current appeal could take up to a year.
The Newton Daily News is not included in the appeal and it will continue to be paid by the county for its legal notices. The other newspapers will be allowed to publish but will not be paid until the appeal process is complete, then only the two papers designated as official county newspapers will receive compensation.
Code Red
Jasper County Emergency Management Coordinator Jim Sparks asked the supervisors for direction Tuesday concerning the county’s new Code Red emergency dialing system and public notification program. The software has the capability of dialing 14,500 phones in 17 minutes, a vast improvement over the current system.
Primary users of the Code Red system are government entities, Sparks said, such as county and city officials, schools and law enforcement, and would be used primarily for emergency situations, such as evacuations or other unforeseen events.
The Code Red system has an annual fee of $13,500, and up to 50,000 minutes of voice time. Additional minutes would cost the county extra. Sparks asked the supervisors for funding options during Tuesday’s meeting. The fee could come out of the county’s general fund, or a levy could be imposed based on population. Supervisor Rick Tiedje estimated the cost would be approximately 50 cents per household per year to fund the Code Red system.
The supervisors tabled the issue until next week, so more information could be obtained concerning how other counties handled the potential overages in minutes used by the system.
In other action Tuesday, the supervisors:
• Approved an agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation to reconfigure the roadway on Liberty Avenue one-quarter mile south of the Jasper County Animal Rescue League. The grant from the High Risk rural Roads Program, will provide 90 percent of the estimated $286,319 maximum, with the other 10 percent of the cost coming from the county’s farm-to-market funding. Bids will be let in April, with work to begin in the spring. The street will be closed to through traffic during the construction and a detour will be established.
• Set Jan. 19, 9:30 a.m. as the date and time for a public hearing to amend Board of Health regulations concerning on-site wastewater treatment systems.
• Appointed Robyn Friedman to the Jasper County Conservation Board, replacing Dennis Wilcox, who has served in that capacity for the past 29 years.
John Jennings can be contacted at 792-3121 ext. 425 or via e-mail at jjennings@newtondailynews.com.
