Washington County Supervisor Jack Seward expressed concern regarding RUSS, or Regional Utility Service Systems, at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. He explains the RUSS executive board met with representatives from Des Moines and Louisa counties. Seward added there are four counties that would like to revise RUSS’s binding 28E agreement and would like to leave the organization. Those counties include Washington, Mahaska, Wapello and Van Buren; and they will be meeting soon. Seward stated they will keep talking until something happens.
According to minutes from September’s RUSS meeting, Wapello County Supervisor Greg Kenning stated there are three options for RUSS – to begin as a new organization under a new name with the counties that want to participate, rewrite the 28E agreement, or continue to make counties stay on board. Regarding the third option the minutes dictate Kenning said “he guarantees Wapello County will make sure they will never allow Russ (sic) to move forward with any project ever.”