LYON COUNTY BOARD MEETING

Tensions were high at Tuesday’s Lyon County Board meeting as Vice President of Economic Development Authority, Chet Lockwood, spoke before the Board about the "perceived culture that the board is anti-Marshall toward economic development and growth."
"I’m here because of passion and not politics,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the whole board, I think it’s one or two commissioners who are trying to pick politics, stroke their own ego, and hang on to every seed of power that they have. True leadership isn’t about getting or retaining power it’s about empowering people and giving away power."
The passion of Lockwood stemmed from the Board’s lack of spending and attention toward the EDA for the past two years. The tipping point for Lockwood was a result of an EDA meeting that took place on Sept. 8 that Commissioner Rick Anderson attended.
"Mr. Anderson, your actions on September 8 were arrogant, rude, and disrespectful. I hope you have the character and capacity to apologize. I would like to make a formal request to see all commissioners’ compensation for the last five years. I’d like complete details, meetings, miles, everything. And finally, if we move this meeting until after 5 o’clock, maybe we’ll get some more participation and maybe we won’t have just a Board of retired white guys up here," Lockwood said.
The EDA meeting discussed development options for Lyon County. Some of the options that were presented were contracting with individuals or entities for specific projects such as grant writing; collaboration with the City of Marshall’s EDA department; funding-only, such as a revolving loan fund; and hiring an EDA director to run a county program. Lockwood felt that Anderson was only thinking about Balaton.
One of the few things that Lockwood and Anderson were in agreement on was that the conversation went south at the Sept. 8 meeting. To Lockwood, what’s good for Lyon County is good for Marshall and vice-versa, especially since 60% of Lyon County residents “live in a 56258 zip code.” He reiterated that the county cannot do better by each city going its own direction and not doing a joint agreement with the city of Marshall.
"My heart is in this county," Anderson said. "So to be lambasted like that, that this is political, hell no it’s not political, but I have to account for all the dollars that people pay in and make sure that we get the best bang for our buck."
Lockwood quickly fired back at Anderson: "How’s that going the last two years?"
The tone of the conversation started to change when apologies were made by Anderson and a decision was made by the Board to dedicate $75,000 for the EDA for 2021-2023. The Board also agreed to meet with other communities in Lyon County to get their buy-in and then make a decision on who they will hire.

In other news, the Board:
Approved the agreement with Lois Novostad and James Novostad to handle rental space at the Lyon County Fairgrounds for stored vehicles for the winter, with a compensation of 10% of the total rental fees received from Nov. 1, 2020-May 1, 2020.
• Approved an escrow amount of $25,000 for Novel Energy Solutions in cash.
• Approved a county request of $4,980 to assist in the project for the Keith Reginier dam repair.
• Approved the replacement of a server from Computer Man for $9,852.
• Set ditch determination hearings for County Ditch 9, 51, 64, and 70.
• Approved the purchase of two new office workstations for the County Attorney’s Office in the amount of $12,251.36.
• Approved the purchase of 500 carts for a purchase price of $29,355 from McQueen equipment.
• Approved the changing of language under Article IV Work Schedule, sect. 4.3 Work Week to “beginning on Monday and ending on Sunday.”
• Set the 2021 property tax levy at $15,246,415, a 1.1% increase from 2020.