A conceptual drawing of the proposed Washington County Public Health building.

A week ago voters in Washington County did not support a $2 million bond measure for Washington County Public Health to construct their own building. Across the county, only 35.6% of voters said yes to the project. Monday afternoon the building and finance committee met to discuss the next steps for the project.

Supervisor Jack Seward said he feels the next step is to ask local contractors for input on what they feel the construction costs would be for such a building in Washington County.

Steve Olson, chair of the building and finance committee, said many bond votes across Iowa do not pass their first time on the ballot, adding he feels they need to have a more definitive cost for construction before bringing it to voters again.

Currently, the department has conceptual drawings which were created by hired architect Brad Lang. Moving forward, the committee is going to ask Lang for the cost to create construction drawings from the conceptual drawings, as well as his experience with other buildings on bond votes. No formal action was taken, but a consensus at the meeting was to not bring the measure to a vote again before next fall.