The Iowa County Board on October 20th, 2009 voted to approve a new
County Social Service Building for 6.4 million dollars. The vote was 11 in favor and 10 opposed.

The current building where social service is located is approximately 10, 000 square feet; the new building is approximately 30, 000 square feet. We are not  opposed  to a new facility or a different building. We feel that the people of Iowa County should vote to decide; based on cost, size, and status of the economy.

The County Board met on November 10th, attended by over 100 people expressing clarification of the details regarding the new building. People were allowed to make two minute comments about the building. The board listened to the comments without responding to them. One of the board members made the comment that it is a done deal.

Findoff the general contractor had already moved into the building site; job trailers, Lull lift, forms, and fenced the complete site for security reasons. This was prior to the November 10th Board meeting.

Two points of interest; the building permit from the City of Dodgeville was issued on November 9th; ( after the general contractor had mobilize to site) as of this date the bonding to finance the project has not been
approved by Iowa County Board, it was deleted from the agenda on November 10th because of legal reasons.

On November 12th a group from Iowa County met to discuss if there was any way, stop the project or get it to referendum for the people of Iowa County to vote on. A person from the group contacted the County and Municipalities Associations of Wisconsin to determine if there was any recourse. We were informed if we got a petition together referring to the statue provided we could force it to referendum by the county voters. We had a local law firm review the wording of the petition for accuracy. We had thirty day suspense from the October 20th date to complete the petition.

Based on the 2006 governor’s election with 9,047 votes, we had to get 10% or 950 valid signatures from Iowa County residents.

We started the petition drive late Friday night. The people who signed the petitions were from all areas of the county. We had people call, email, and drive to sites to sign. On Thursday November 19th we turned
in to the Iowa County, County Clerks Office petitions with 2151 signatures.

The Law Firm for Iowa County reviewed the petition and stated it was not valid because of the state statues we referenced was not the correct one.

We feel if 2151 valid voters signed a petition in a county of 22,000 people to go forward with the building is complete disregarded for the citizens.

The building is currently on hold per the county chairman.