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May Regular County Board Meeting
[May 15, 2026]
On Thursday, May 14th, the Logan
County Board held their regular monthly meeting in the rotunda of
the Logan County Courthouse starting at 6:00 p.m. and was attended
by all eleven current board members; Chairman JR Glenn, Vice
Chairman Dale Nelson, Lance Conahan, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Joseph
Kuhlman, Keenan Leesman, Gil Turner, Bob Sanders, Kevin Knauer,
Kathy Schmidt, and Jim Wessbecher.
The meeting was called to order and Glenn invited Turner to give the
invocation. Turner spoke and prayed for peace, as well as praying
for several family members of board members and department heads.
After the invocation was the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by
voting on the consent agenda. Conahan and Wessbecher made amendments
to the agenda, both regarding the minutes from April’s meeting.
Conahan stated that the minutes stated he was there when he was not,
and Wessbecher made a change on a use of grounds request date. After
these changes, the consent agenda was passed and Glenn moved the
board on to public comments.
There were two brief public comments. The first was to inquire about
the status of a raffle application that had been submitted. Glenn
stated that they would look into it after the meeting and get back
to her. The second commenter stated she had emailed Glenn about her
interest in filling the District 5 position left open in the absence
of Michael DeRoss’s resignation from the board. Glenn stated that he
had received the email and was waiting to hear back from any more
interested candidates, but that he would be reaching out soon to her
and any other interested individuals.
Conahan and the Building and Grounds Committee were up first, having
only a single item to bring before the board. This item was to
approve posting a job for a full-time facilities maintenance
employee at a yearly salary of $40,000. There was much discussion
over whether a full-time employee in this role would have enough
work, with Nelson saying that they definitely would in the summer
months. Conahan stated that he would be for the position whether it
was full or part time, but that the committee decided full time
might be a better option for what needed to be done.
After some lengthy discussion, Conahan made an amendment to the
motion to make the position part time, and the amendment was passed
unanimously. This was followed by a vote on the amended motion,
which passed with the same vote.
Conahan then gave an update on the elevators, sharing that the
exterior elevator had passed an inspection by the fire marshal. He
also informed everyone that the interior elevator was working again,
but on an emergency only basis. He cautioned people from using it
due to its high likelihood of failure until it is repaired.
Next was Nelson with the Executive and Personnel Committee. The
first item was a motion to allow E3i Ventures to set up a fireworks
stand outside of Atlanta from June to July. There was no discussion
on this motion and it was passed unanimously. The second motion from
this committee was over posting a position for a Logan County
Administrative Assistant at the current annual salary of $41,000.
Conahan quickly proposed an amendment to this motion, stating that
he would like to see the amount be taken out and replaced with
wording that would allow it to be negotiated.
Nelson pushed back on this amendment, stating that the budget is
currently for $41,000, not a potentially higher amount. Glenn added
that, should Conahan’s amendment pass and they were to negotiate
with someone for a salary higher than the current amount, there
would be a long process they would have to go through. The Finance
Committee would have to make an amendment to change the budget. If
that passed, it would have to be voted on by the whole board. If it
passed there, they would then be able to offer the position to the
interested party. According to Glenn, any interested person might
not “hang on that long.” This caused Conahan to rescind his motion.
The motion was voted on and passed unanimously.
Next up was Kuhlman and the Finance
Committee. The first motion was to approve a fund number for “vital
statistics automation fund.” In short, this would allow the Clerk
and Recorders Office a line item for money they were supposed to be
collecting for their office from fees charged to people for printing
copies of birth certificates, marriage licenses, etc. This was
passed by a vote of 10-0, with Schmidt abstaining.
The second Finance action item was to set the salaries for Treasurer
and County Clerk and Recorder at $75,774.70 for the next four-year
term. This was voted on without any discussion and passed by a vote
of 10-1, with Conahan being the only ‘no’ vote.
Glenn asked Knauer about the Safety Committee, but Knauer informed
him that they did not have anything to vote on. Glenn then moved on
to Wessbecher and the Transportation Committee. Wessbecher had four
motions, almost all of which were passed unanimously. The first was
the approval of the highway department bills. This was followed by a
motion to approve the road use agreement with Pike Creek wind farm.
Conahan asked County Engineer Bret Aukamp if he was happy with the
road use agreement. Aukamp informed him that he and all the other
parties were, and that this agreement was similar to what was used
with previous wind farms. This motion passed with a vote of 10-0,
with Glenn abstaining to vote.
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The final two items were an engineering agreement with Veenstra
& Kim for repair work to a box culvert near Cornland, and an
approval of the airport insurance for $4,510 per year. These two
passed unanimously.
Nelson with the Zoning and Economic Development Committee were
last. Nelson presented three action items, all relating to Pike
Creek wind farm plans. The first two were quickly passed without
any discussion, but not unanimously. These items were a project
site plan and a final drainage tile remediation plan. The votes
for these two mirrored each other, with eight members voting
yes, Turner voting no, and Conahan and Glenn abstaining.
The final motion proved to be the most contentious issue of the
night, that being the decommissioning plan for the wind farm.
Zoning and Economic Development Officer Al Green spoke first,
stating that he and Aukamp had some concerns with the plan that
they suggested be addressed before the board approved it. Nelson
asked Green if he would let them know when the issues were
figured out and he stated that he would.
Glenn stated that this was something that the board had done in
the past, placing conditions on passing a motion that would have
to be met before the motion could move forward. Turner then
spoke, stating that Pike Creek was not “proactive” or “upfront”
with their project, and that he does not think he can trust
them. He called their decommissioning plan a “bad plan,” stating
that he felt the county needed to get things in line before they
approved it.
Nelson made an amendment to the
motion, stating that Pike Creek would have to figure out the
concerns of their plan with Green and Aukamp first. He stated that
the intention for his amendment would be that, if the groups could
not come to an agreement, there would be no decommissioning plan.
Turner responded to this by calling their plan “a hollow promise,”
and suggesting that Pike Creek giving the county half a million
dollars would be better.
Turner continued, stating that Pike Creek was trying to rush the
process because they did not do this work earlier. Glenn stated that
it seemed like there was desire to keep the project moving, and that
if they delayed it, part of the county could lose income from the
project. A vote was taken on Nelson’s amendment, and it passed 8-1.
Turner voted no while Conahan and Glenn abstained.
Leesman then spoke on the salvage value of the decommissioning plan,
saying that the board had removed wording about salvage value from
the previous wind farm decommissioning plan, and could do so with
this one. Salvage value in a decommissioning plan refers to the
amount of money a company expects a county would receive from
salvaging the parts of the project after the end of the project’s
life. This estimated amount, which is re-evaluated periodically, is
subtracted from the amount of money the company puts up for the cost
of decommissioning. In a previous wind farm decommissioning plan,
the board decided to remove this language entirely, stating that the
company could keep the salvage money in favor of paying for the
entirety of the decommissioning plan. The fear was that the
estimated salvage amount in the plan would be less than what the
county would receive from the salvage, making the county have to pay
for a portion of the decommission.
Leesman made a motion to remove the salvage value verbiage from the
decommissioning plan. That motion was passed 9-0. Conahan and Glenn
again abstained. Finally, a vote was taken on the amended motion.
After the two amendments, the motion was to approve the Pike Creek
decommissioning plan once all parties had figured out the issues
brought forth by Green and Aukamp and without the verbiage about
salvage value. This motion was passed with all board members voting
the same way they did with the previous amendment.
Nelson gave a brief update on the special zoning meeting from the
previous night. He informed the board that, at that meeting, a
90-day moratorium was passed, meaning that it would need to go
before the full board for a final vote. A date for that special
meeting was discussed, and it was decided on Tuesday, May 19th at
6:00 p.m., with the likely location being the courthouse rotunda.
Shortly after this, the meeting was adjourned.
[Matt Boutcher]
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