Sibley, Iowa — Osceola County has been without a road engineer for twenty months — since June 2020. This month, the County Board of Supervisors will interview three candidates for the job.
O’Brien County Engineer Scott Rinehart had been helping Osceola County for a year — between December 2020 and December 2021. 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.
According to Osceola County Auditor Rochelle Van Tilburg, on Tuesday, 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.
And either it’s a coincidence, or that appears to have done the trick. After several months with no candidates, the board will interview three of them this month. Two are scheduled to be interviewed in closed session this Friday (March 4th), and Van Tilburg tells us another is scheduled to be interviewed on Tuesday, March 15th.
