Sibley, Iowa — Osceola County has been without a road engineer for twenty months — since June 2020. But it looks like there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Osceola County Auditor Rochelle Van Tilburg tells us that after conducting their third interview in the last few weeks, the Osceola County Board of Supervisors has offered the position to one of the three candidates. Van Tilburg tells us she is not yet at liberty to release the candidate’s name or any other information about them. She says if they accept the position, she can then release their information.
The first six months after previous Osceola County Engineer Aaron Holmbeck resigned on June 10th, 2020, the Dickinson County Engineer helped out in Osceola County. After that, O’Brien County Engineer Scott Rinehart helped out for a year — between December 2020 and December 2021. Since then, Clay County Engineer William Rabenberg has been helping them out, and the board is in the process of renewing that agreement just in case for some reason they don’t have an engineer by the time it runs out.
Van Tilburg says on February 1st, 2022, the Osceola County Board decided to remove the residency requirement. That is, the position used to require the engineer to live in, or move to Osceola County. She says the new requirement is that they live within 45 minutes of Osceola County.
