O'Brien County Okay's Complicated DD #5 Repair Project Part II
By Loren G. Flaugh
“So, can you explain a little bit more about this annexation process? Is it voluntary or involuntary?” questioned county auditor Barb Rohwer after the supervisors had listened to Jacobson-Westergard engineer Richard Hopper’s detailed engineering review. Hopper studied the badly deteriorated condition of Drainage District (DD) #5 northwest of Hartley.
“It would be involuntary annexation,” Hopper answered.
The involuntary annexation of additional landowners into a much larger DD #5 is just one of many factors that entangle the DD #5 cleanout and repair project approved by the supervisors at their Oct. 4, 2016 meeting. Adjoining Osceola County landowners are likely to find themselves involuntarily annexed into DD #5. Even the City of Melvin will probably be drawn into this vexing issue.
Annexation authorizes an engineer to study this roughly 8,000-acre area and determine what else should be brought in for inclusion. The engineer prepares a report for submittal and then you’d set a separate hearing date on the annexation issue alone, Hopper explained.
“O’Brien County must give official notice to the landowners in the area to be annexed so that everybody gets a notice,” Hopper said. “The annexation notice must be post-marked at least 20 days before the first DD #5 hearing is held, which has been set for Nov. 29, 2016. This notice could be available as a draft copy so landowners understand why they are being brought into DD #5. As long as you give notice to everybody, including those in the roughly 8,000 acre annexation area, then you’ll have all your bases covered. The formal annexation won’t happen until we’ve moved further forward on this.”
“Annexation can be difficult,” Hopper continued. “The landowners are getting benefits, almost forever. So, you can actually go back and assess this for previous work. But, we hardly ever recommend this because it just opens up a big can of worms. This project is going to be interesting enough without that.
It’s a very straight-forward procedure once the landowners get the notice. They have the right to object, but they really wouldn’t have any grounds to object, because with all the maps that you look at, it shows that existing waterway coming down and tying into DD #5.”
Hopper than discussed an issue that could come up to convolute the complexity even further. Hopper said he’d be talking to Osceola County about this potential issue.
“I’ve been told by drainage attorneys that you can actually go in and annex land in an adjoining county. Now, this does not have to become a dual-county DD. If the Osceola County landowners do not petition for a joint DD, then you can be the one administering it and making decisions yourselves,” Hopper reported.
“I’m guessing they will want to petition and have dual control. I believe this will become a joint DD. This will be one of the points discussed at the annexation hearing. There are enough acres in Osceola County that I’d believe they’d want to have some say in making decisions.”
“How does that work with the City of Melvin?” questioned supervisor Jim DeBoom.
“They could be part of the annexation. We’ll check for boundaries again. We don’t use LIDAR information for designing plans, but it is good information to work out watershed boundaries,” Hopper explained.
“The existing waterway in this 7,119-acre area going west and north towards Melvin has not seen any improvements. But, the landowners in this 7,119-acre area could petition for an existing waterway improvement. But, to me, only the landowners in that area would pay for it. That’s how I’d set up the reclassification.
There’s a lot to deal with here. You’ve got a lot of different things going on with this DD #5 cleanout project,” said Hopper, while summing up the intricacy of this matter.
“You could have a DD repair going on down there in DD #5 and a waterway improvement going on in areas that could be annexed,” noted Rohwer, as she summed up the difficult situation.
“Now, to complicate this even further,” said Hopper. “Your DD #5 stops a mile south of the county line. I’ve been told that the ditch through that 922 acre area was privately cleaned out. Osceola County now has the right to come downstream from their DD #8 outlet and pay for right-of-way. They could clean it out, and technically, they could find a way to clean it out down to the north end of your DD #5. Now, are they going to do that? I don’t think so, at least not right away.”
However, O’Brien County would have the right to annex this 922-acre area north up to the county line, if you wanted to, and then initiate a DD improvement. An improvement complicates things in that you have to deal with the wetlands affected that also may be required, Hopper explained.
Rohwer asked why it wouldn’t be a good idea to annex that 922 acre area.
“That’s a good question. I think Osceola County might fight you because they may be able to charge an outlet fee, if you annex it and improve it. If you don’t improve it, then you are not helping them,” Hopper replied.
If that area were annexed and improved, then Hopper believes landowners in DD #8 could be charged for the cost of cleaning out the ditch between the two drainage districts.
“I know it doesn’t sound like it, but a DD #5 cleanout is pretty straight-forward. Accept this report and set the hearing date. There’s no remonstrance—the ability to protest and stop it—so the DD repair work will go forward,” Hopper cautiously advised.
Rohwer asked about when to levy DD #5 landowners for the cost of the cleanout and repair.
“I would not levy until no sooner than the fall of next year in 2017,” replied Hopper. Hopper foresees having the DD #5 hearing and bid letting this winter and the actual cleanout won’t begin until starting next spring.
“Do the landowners have any say?” asked DeBoom.
“Not a lot, in this case because this is to be a DD #5 repair project. If this were a DD improvement project, then landowners would have a lot of say. This is a repair and you would have to explain well enough to the landowners that the DD needs to be restored back to its original condition and capacity,” Hopper explained. “By Code, the Boards of Supervisors are pretty much obligated to take care of the DD which needs the repairs.”
“Cleaning out a DD would be a whole lot easier with $7.00 a bushel corn. With the prices for corn and beans right now, it might not be an easy task,” observed supervisor Tom Farnsworth. “Maybe we should have done the DD cleanout two years ago.”
Part III will discuss how the cost for the DD #5 cleanout will be levied and allocated among all landowners in the drainage district. The more landowners there are, then that means the per acre cost will be lower. Hopper argues the annexation of more land is of financial benefit to landowners.
The DD #5 cleanout could be paid for by selling bonds or issuing what are called stamp warrants, also discussed in Part III.