Tama County Administration Building, 104 W State St., Toledo, Iowa. TELEGRAPH FILE PHOTO

TOLEDO – The Tuesday, Sept. 3 Tama County Board of Supervisors’ meeting had only one agenda item – a request to use the Tama County Courthouse lawn for a “Bible reading on September 16-17 Paradise Lost – Reading Marathon.” Assistant County Auditor Karen Rorhrs stated that she did not take the phone call for the request and didn’t know what group was making the request.

With little more discussion, the agenda item was approved.

During last Monday’s meeting (Sept. 9) before the meeting even officially began, local citizen Carolyn Adolphs of rural Buckingham entered the meeting raising alarm and asking questions of the supervisors because, as it turns out, The Satanic Temple of Iowa was the group approved for the Paradise Lost reading.

As part of the meeting’s public comments (meant to be reserved only for items on the agenda), The Satanic Temple of Iowa and their previously approved reading of “Paradise Lost” by John Milton were discussed.

“It sounds like the thing we passed was a misrepresentation,” Supervisor Bill Faircloth said via phone.

After some discussion about possibly contacting the county attorney to see if any action could be taken, Supervisor Dan Anderson weighed in.

“If we let other folks do it, then our hands are probably pretty tied,” he said.

Citizen Laura Wilson brought up the separation of church and state and possibly not allowing any group to hold readings on the courthouse lawn in the future.

Many stated that they thought that The Satanic Temple misrepresented themselves when they described the event as a Bible reading.

“The problem is what do they consider their bible? So, they could tell you guys, ‘We’re gonna read the bible all day,'” Sheriff’s Deputy Casey Schmidt said. “They could take any document to be their Bible.”

In the end, no action was taken at the meeting on this subject.

Other business

New Century FS started out the regular part of the meeting with a request for approval for bulk fuel and fleet setups. The representative for New Century explained the agenda item and took questions, as well as handed out a map that showed where things would be set up. The supervisors approved this item.

Tama County Engineer Ben Daleske started off his report talking about Iowa Bridge and Culvert, who should be done with F Avenue soon. Improvements to K Avenue are finished, and the concrete has been poured for the parking lot of the Engineers office. Shoulders will be treated in the next week and the possibility to lease or replace a broken down motor grader is being looked into.

Dan Backen agreed to pay part of a tax certificate for a Tama property.

Claims totaling $228,893.13 were approved.