A grain elevator and former freight station in Boone, Iowa, the kind of agribusiness ground the Wright County park was built to attract. Photo: Carl Wycoff from Nevada, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Wright County supervisors have set a public hearing for 9:15 a.m. Monday, Nov. 23, on a proposal to sell 2 acres of county-owned land in the Wright County Agribusiness Park near Eagle Grove.
The county posted the hearing notice on Nov. 10. A week earlier, the Nov. 2 agenda had the board in a closed session, allowed under Iowa Code 21.5(1)(j), to talk about strategy and terms for a possible purchase or sale of park property, and then considering a purchase offer for commercial property there. KQ Radio later reported that the Nov. 9 meeting would set the Nov. 23 hearing on the 2-acre disposal and sale.
County land cannot be sold on a handshake. Iowa law requires a public hearing before the supervisors dispose of real estate like this, and the notice is the official invitation for anyone to object, bid or simply ask what is being sold. The posted notice is the place to look for the legal description and the terms; the board has not, in the materials released so far, advertised a sale price in the headline of the announcement.
The Agribusiness Park is one of the county’s main tools for recruiting and expanding businesses outside the older town squares. A 2-acre sale would be a small piece of that ground, but it is the kind of lot that can hold a shop, a warehouse or an office, and it comes as the county is also looking at the park’s water rates.
The hearing is at the courthouse in Clarion, 115 North Main Street. A separate hearing on proposed water-rate amendments for the park is also scheduled for Nov. 23. Meeting materials are posted on the supervisors’ agenda page.
Dale Brekke writes for Clarion News Online.