No action taken against county assessor

By KENT THOMPSON
Following 70 minutes of presentations, the Humboldt County Conference Board held a 40-minute closed session conference with Humboldt County Assessor Linda Fallesen, but took no action to reprimand or relieve the longtime county assessor of her duties.
The Conference Board meeting took place on Thursday, July 11 in the district courtroom at the Humboldt County Courthouse in Dakota City.
At issue is a 2017 assessment and subsequent ruling by the Iowa Property Assessment Appeal Board (PAAB). The property was a machine shed/storage unit constructed at 1006 1st Ave. N. in Humboldt. The storage structure was constructed at the direction of JD Myers of Humboldt. Myers asked that the Conference Board review Fallesen’s performance and relieve her of the duties of county assessor, claiming malfeasance, nonfeasance or misfeasance in office, dereliction of duty and not being forthright with members of the public.
Much of the case against Myers’ claims rest on the possession of the property date.
Myers signed a purchase agreement in October 2016, about the same time he contracted to have the storage building constructed.
Humboldt County in its contesting of Myers’ case said he did not have possession of the property on Jan. 1, 2017.
"Mr. Myers did not own the property on Jan. 1, 2017, and intended use is not good enough. There is no such thing as equitable ownership. We aren’t creating a new property classification just for Mr. Myers,” Brett Ryan, an attorney who was hired to represent the county in the PAAB hearing, said.
The Conference Board is made up of the members of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, the county mayors and a representative from each of the school boards in the county. The decision against action was unanimous.
Read the full story in this week's Humboldt Independent.