Supervisors approve last week's school election

Three more people cast votes in last week's school board election than originally reported.

The Plymouth County Supervisors learned the actual number of voters was 1,219 and gave their official stamp of approval last Friday during a canvass of the election.

The election cost $5,705, according to Cherie Nitzschke, deputy auditor.

Half of that will be paid for by Western Iowa Tech Community College because it had candidates in the Remsen, Akron, Le Mars and Kingsley school board elections, Nitzschke said.

The next school board election will be in 2011.

Of the 2,300 registered voters in the Hinton School District, 819 visited the polls last Tuesday.

Sixty-five percent voted in favor of the $5.9 million bond issue to help build a new elementary school and 35 percent were against.

The district needed a 60 percent majority to pass the measure.

Along with canvassing the school board election, the supervisors also signed a letter of support to keep the Cherokee Mental Health Institute open.

Currently a Mental Health Task Force is studying Iowa's four mental health institutes to gather information to help determine if one will close and which facility it would be.

In other business, the supervisors also held a conference call with Jack Geiger, part-owner of Karr Tuckpointing, in Vinton.

Geiger submitted a $63,463 bid to do tuckpointing repairs at the Plymouth Life residential care facility on Highway 3.

Some of the questions the supervisors asked included how long the bid is good, why there is only a two-year guarantee on the work, what hours the company will be working on-site, when the repairs would begin and if construction meetings could be held over phone.

Geiger explained the bid is good until workers arrive on site.

He also believes the two-year guarantee is sufficient because generally work that is going to erode happens within six months to a year.

Geiger advised the supervisors to have the tuckpointing work inspected a year and a half after it's done to make sure there are no problems.

Because the care facility houses residents, Geiger said, any loud work like grinding would be done during daytime hours to avoid as much intrusion as possible.

He said a work day will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and the work will start next spring rather than this fall.

"I'm going to run out of weather," Geiger said.

He also said conference calls involving construction updates were fine with him.

"It can be done any way you want," Geiger said.

The supervisors will consider approving a contract with Karr to do the tuckpointing work at a future meeting.