Successful Petition Drive Will Allow Voters To Decide Size Of County Board

Mills County residents will get to decide if they want to increase the size of the board of supervisors from 3 to 5 after all.

On Aug. 11, five weeks after the Mills County Board of Supervisors rejected a resolution that would have automatically put the issue on the November general election ballot, the supervisors were presented a petition signed by more than 1,200 residents that want the matter brought to a vote of the people. As a result of the petition, the board approved a resolution at its regular meeting Tuesday directing the county commissioner of elections to submit the proposition of increasing the number of county supervisors to registered voters in the Nov. 3 general election.

The petition campaign was required because in early July, the board of supervisors voted 2-1 against passage of a resolution to put a proposition for increasing the number of supervisors on the ballot. Supervisors Richard Crouch and Lonnie Mayberry voted against passage of the resolution and Jack Sayers cast the lone “Yes” vote. The failure of the resolution left petitioners around a month to gather at least 826 valid signatures. They surpassed the requirement by more than 400 signatures.

“Our group was really concerned that they (board of supervisors) kind of stalled around from the beginning of this thing. They put off drafting a resolution and then when they voted no, that left us just a little over three weeks,” said rural Glenwood resident Chris Weide, a spokesperson for the Mills County Matters working group that spearheaded the petition campaign.  “Our group was a little concerned that we’d be able to get over 800 and some, but we got over 1,200 signatures in three weeks. If we would have had six weeks, we probably would have had double that.”

Weide said the group turned in over 80 pages of signatures. The board dismissed eight of the signatures during a work session last Tuesday after the regular board of supervisors meeting. Weide attended the work session.

“Our group is excited,” Weide said. “Quite frankly, if we would have had three more weeks I think we would have kept going. I think we wanted to make a statement and the statement is, ‘Our supervisors are not representing to the will of the people.’ I think they’re out of tune and out of touch.”

If voters approve the proposition in November, the size of the board of supervisors would not increase from 3 to 5 members until January 2029.

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