Oskaloosa’s mayor is unhappy with the Mahaska County Board.  At Monday’s Oskaloosa City Council meeting, Mayor David Krutzfeldt released an affidavit that would be filed in court asking Mahaska County to collect tax revenue to pay for the County’s emergency management.  Krutzfeldt says the County has levied that money in the past.

” Just recently, within a very short time, they’ve asked a court to say ‘No, what we’re going to do is push that back and make the cities do it.’  Well, the timing is such that what they’re asking the cities to do is to come up with the money to pay for it, In the case of Oskaloosa, $460,000, that wasn’t budgeted for, we don’t have the tax money to do it.  And so it would force us to make a number of cuts to the kinds of services and personnel that we have for the city. And we’re not in a good position to do that and so we are resisting their attempt to do that.”

Krutzfeldt went on to list some cuts the City would have to make if the City has to come up with the money for emergency management.

“The way we treat Edmundson Pool for example. Close it immediately.  That would save us $50,000.  Would we reopen it again?  Probably not.  Because, again, we would have to come up with the money the year after and the year after.  And what about Police officers?  What about the Fire Department? What about the operations of the library?  It goes on and on.”

The Mayor added that emergency management is a priority.  The matter now goes to the courts.