OTTUMWA — The Wapello County Board of Supervisors accepted the resignation of county attorney Reuben Neff, and indicated it would replace him by appointing first assistant attorney Steviee Grove.
Neff, a Republican who won elections for attorney in 2018 and 2022, is taking a job with a private firm in Des Moines. Last year he appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court a disciplinary board's recommendation for a 60-day suspension for what that board believed was a hostile work environment in Neff's office, including various comments he said about judges.
Neff, however, did not cite the appeal — which hasn't been resolved — as a reason for leaving the county. He did recommend to the supervisors appoint Grove to the post; Grove has served in Neff's office since 2020.
"From my perspective, one of the biggest things I've struggled with is administration. I can do trials pretty much in my sleep," he said during Tuesday's meeting at the courthouse. "That's why we haven't needed the Iowa Attorney General's area prosecution team to come down here for more recent murders. We've done those fairly well in-house.
"Steviee took over a lot of the administrative duties probably about a year ago, and she's also essentially been in a supervisory role since 2020 when she was approved as the misdemeanor attorney supervisor."
Neff also pointed out Grove's responsibilities in handling larger caseloads, and that the county has about 4,000 "indictables" every year.
"She's probably one of the toughest when it comes to handling caseloads, and I think that's an incredible benefit."
Just in the last year, Neff secured various higher profile convictions for Leon Leroy Stewart, Cory Lee Thompson, Gregory Showalter and Douglas Spurgeon.
"I appreciate everything you've done for Wapello County and your service," supervisor Brian Morgan said. "I've enjoyed working with you the last (few) years."
When he was an officer with the Ottumwa Police Department, supervisor Darren Batterson worked closely with Neff on a range of issues, and was appreciative of that time as well.
"I will tell you from a law enforcement side, it was a pleasure to work with him," he said. "If we had questions we could call him anytime. He hated us having his cell phone number, but it was good to know where you were going with something before wasting time on paperwork."
Neff's last day is Friday, while Grove will be will appointed at Tuesday's meeting.
Once the board appoints Grove, by law residents have 14 days to file a petition to request a special election, which would be costly, Neff said. Grove's appointment would last through the next election in November, and whoever wins that election, will fill out the two years left on Neff's term.
Citizens would need to gather 1,051 signatures to trigger a special election.
In other business:
— Supervisor Bryan Ziegler said he has removed all his cattle from his property in the wake of a disagreement two weeks ago when Green Township landowners chastised the supervisor for repeated cattle escapes onto their property.
At the beginning of the meeting, he asked that the minutes from two weeks ago be eliminated because of incorrect information landowner Chad Black offered about there being "three or four miles of fence line" involved.
"It certainly wasn't true that day and it's certainly not true today," Ziegler said.
Ziegler said he had about 65 cattle at one time, and they were removed in a phased approach.
"The Sunday after our last meeting we moved the last 12," he said. "And I had a pretty good neighbor help me on that. It's amazing what good neighbors can help accomplish."
— The county approved a five-year secondary roads program starting with next fiscal year. County engineer Jeff Skalberg said the county will receive a $1.3 million grant from the Iowa Department of Transportation to pave shoulders on 87th Street, which is the big project for next year, as all 9 1/2 miles from U.S. Highway 34 to Monroe-Wapello Road will be redone.
