MacIver News Service –A $6.5 million building project in Iowa County has residents up in arms, but the County Board leaders say they arre too late to do anything about it.
The Board approved a new Health and Human Services building back in October. Board members who support the project say it’s been in the works for years.
“We had to discuss it back in July or August, full board meeting, to decide to go ahead and rebid it. No one came the following month to say we really shouldn’t, or knew that the bids would be reopened in September and that we were going to be voting on it in October. No one came until we passed it to go ahead and build it,” said Eric Anderson, County Board Supervisor.
One County Board Supervisor who opposes the project, John Meyers, says the board used illegal procedures to pass the project. He and others filed a lawsuit against the county.
While a judge dismissed the case, but has not yet filed a formal order. When the county told a bond company there was no pending litigation against the project, Meyers says it lied.
“The judge has not yet filed his final statement on that, and there’s still time for us to file an appeal. None of that’s been completed, and corporate counsel represented that everything was complete,” Meyers said.
Additionally, a petition collected two thousand signatures calling for a referendum. The county board said the petition was not done properly and the project has already been approved.
However, there will still be a referendum of sorts on the project next week, when voters go to the polls to vote for candidates for the Iowa County Board of Supervisors.
MacIver’s Bill Osmulski has more details and filed this report from Iowa County: