WEDG $30,000 investment has $3 million return

Posted 12/20/22

For its approximate $30,000 annual investment in the Washington Economic Development Group (WEDG), Washington County gets a $3 million return, supervisors were told Tuesday by Executive Director Mary …

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WEDG $30,000 investment has $3 million return

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For its approximate $30,000 annual investment in the Washington Economic Development Group (WEDG), Washington County gets a $3 million return, supervisors were told Tuesday by Executive Director Mary Audia.

In the annual request for a county allocation, she provided a summary of WEDG’s work for the year that ranged from major road improvements (especially with the help of state and federal funds), the Workforce jobs program that received $1.1 million to aid in creating jobs, assistance with residential and commercial developments (especially Kalona’s Southtown) and involvement with housing projects in Riverside and Ainsworth and with childcare in the county.  The latter includes a $27,000 grant for the service housed in the former Ainsworth Elementary School and a $300,000 grant in a pilot program to help residents rehabilitate their homes.

“And we are also ‘working on the railroad’,” she said, referring to arrangements for installing rail crossings in county rural areas with payment to landowners for the easements from the county and the railroad.  

There also was noting of some new businesses in the City of Washington and the county, and appreciation was extended to the county’s emergency services, especially in the wake of the fire in the downtown Greiner Building facility that displaced several tenants, induing WEDG.  

The downtown Federation Bank building, whose first-floor offices had been vacated, offered space “which could accommodate all of us,” she noted.  Other agencies, including the county Public Health Department, housed in the bank’s upper floors, also had offered space.

Currently, the future of the Greiner Building (the former city library) is uncertain.

In other business, the board:

•Saw the oath of office administered by Judge Kitchen to elected officials (supervisors, treasurer, recorder, county attorney and deputy treasurers.  Of the latter, one was unable to attend and will be sworn in next month. 

•Approved hiring Trevor Viol as a Level I EMT for the county ambulance services, effective December 21, at $21,96 hourly.

•Accepted three Ambulance Services resignations (terminations) from Angela Ballard, billing coder; Bret Carlson, field supervisor; and Roan See, ambulance EMT, effective December 22 for Ballard and Carlson and December 28 for See.

In the public comment segment that regularly opens a board meeting, a county resident offered appreciation “for a fantastic job” to the ambulance services, including the original director, and urged the board to keep the current review/investigation of its operations “ongoing.”