T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshall County Weed Commissioner Tyler Kelley addresses the board of supervisors during Wednesday morning’s board of supervisors meeting.

It was another relatively quick meeting for the Marshall County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday morning as they heard a program update from David Hicks with YSS of Marshall County and also approved filing the 2024 weed commissioner certification form and the weed commissioner report.

Hicks, who is a familiar face to both city and county officials, noted that Marshall County was the first government entity to provide funding for YSS (formerly known as Youth and Shelter Services). Currently, the organization receives $11,000 annually from the county. During the third quarter of 2024 (July, August and September), YSS was involved in 45 crisis intervention situations along with an ongoing case and some short-term cases.

One of the biggest “challenge issues,” according to Hicks, is homelessness for both Marshalltown and Marshall County residents. Supervisor Carol Hibbs asked him which school districts in the county YSS is in, to which he responded Marshalltown as well as East Marshall and West Marshall as needed.

Hibbs also asked if Hicks had been able to make a connection with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) to replicate the Marshalltown Police and Community Team (MPACT), which embeds two social workers within the Marshalltown Police Department for non-emergent, non-criminal calls.

“These dollars really don’t have anything to do with MPACT, but yes, we have had several conversations of the need in the county using MPACT resources to go out in the county,” Hicks said.

He recounted a recent situation where a person leaving the Marshall County Jail needed services and said a protocol exists for helping people out in the county. Supervisor Steve Salasek wondered what he would like to see the city and county do to make things “easier to work with.”

“It is a matter of dollars. We have a good relationship with the sheriff’s department. Like I said, the needs are still out there in the county. It’d be great to have three (or) four full-time (MPACT) advocates that can cover (the) city and county,” Hicks said. “We see that we can replicate what we do here in Marshalltown on a county level. We already have good relationships established. I think that’s really the key.”

The current MPACT budget with the city, Hicks said, is between $150,000 and $160,000, but there could be additional transportation costs and the purchase of another vehicle if they went countywide. The opioid settlement dollars are being explored as an option to be put toward programs like MPACT. He also noted that the program is being researched by a professional with the state’s juvenile justice system to assess its effectiveness and see where it can be used elsewhere.

After the YSS report concluded, County Weed Commissioner Tyler Kelley stepped forward to present his 2024 report and recap the noxious weeds and invasive plants that have been found locally. Kelley told the board there were 19 unreported noxious weed species found during the survey that hadn’t been reported in the past.

According to Kelley, teasel and poison hemlock have been located in about every township in the county.

“It’s prevalent. It’s becoming a problem — not near the problem as it is in other counties, but we are seeing a lot more and more of it,” he said.

He suggested further outreach with producers and cooperatives in the county to help identify said noxious and invasive plants, whether they take the form of “lunch and learns” at city halls or some other method. As a lifelong resident of Marshall County, Kelley said he was surprised to learn about the problems on roads he hadn’t traveled in the past.

“I know teasel and poison hemlock are a problem countywide. All the weed commissioner conferences I go to, it’s a problem there. It’s a problem in most of the Midwest states from some of the national conferences I’ve been to. It’s a problem that we’re dealing with. It’s easier to control, but I think it’s just getting out there, getting the outreach and the word out to different organizations, I guess, to cooperatively manage some of these issues.”

The board then voted unanimously to accept and file the report.

In other business, the board:

• Approved an exemption to the personnel policy 4.3 regarding compensatory time for the Marshall County Conservation Department.

• Approved the purchase of a Kubota BR560 Concrete Breaker from Central Iowa Farm Store of Marshalltown for $15,500 with the funds coming from the FY2025 equipment budget.

• During the public comment period, Mark Wyant reiterated his concerns about the 260th Street/Ridge Road area and the condition of the gravel there.

• Also during the public comment period, Board Chairman Jarret Heil expressed disappointment with the failure of the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) reauthorization and felt that the wording of the measure on the ballot made it seem like a new tax. Nonetheless, he added, it could still be put back on the ballot in March before the current tax is set to expire in July of 2025.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255

or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.