County engineer briefs supervisors on Gardeners Lane vacation, Thunder Hills/Highway 20 safety and draft road improvement policy

County Engineer Todd presented multiple secondary-roads matters at the Board of Supervisors’ March 16 work session, including a proposed right-of-way vacation, short-term intersection safety improvements, and a draft Road Improvement Policy.

Todd said the Gardeners Lane section under consideration is unused, undeveloped right-of-way tied to the Oakland Farms project; a triangular adjacent piece had been vacated previously in 2021. Supervisors discussed whether to delay setting the public hearing until more information was available, but the board ultimately approved a notice of public hearing for April 6 at 09:30 and instructed staff to provide more background information to supervisors ahead of that hearing.

On a Highway 20 safety project, Todd said the Iowa Department of Transportation and local partners will first pursue short-term improvements — improved signage, thermoplastic pavement markings, and painting — before considering a county-led C-STEP acceleration-lane project that would require shared funding.

Todd also described a draft Road Improvement Policy intended to standardize how the county evaluates and prioritizes requests to upgrade gravel or undeveloped roads, including a points-based scoring matrix (modeled on DOT guidance), stabilization methods (mechanical/chemical), and cost estimates per mile for two different improvement cross-sections. Supervisors asked that any resolution adopting the policy explicitly preserve the board’s final discretion on project selection and note that cost estimates should carry a date because prices change.

What happens next: staff will circulate meeting minutes and project details, refine the road policy wording to emphasize board discretion and dated cost estimates, and return a final draft and resolution for future consideration; the public hearing on the Gardeners Lane vacation remains set for April 6 at 09:30.