Iowa’s unique 99-counties-100-seats arrangement will be put to the test in November, when Lee County votes on a bond issue to build one new courthouse.<\/p>\n
The Fort Madison Daily Democrat<\/em> says<\/a> the county supervisors approved the ballot on a 3-2 vote, but the bond issue does not say where the new courthouse would be. One supervisor supports having the courthouse by the Lee County Jail. While an AP article says<\/a> this would be “adjacent to the sheriff’s office in Montrose”, this is a red herring. The sheriff’s office is at the intersection of US 61 and J62, just across the railroad tracks from land that Fort Madison has annexed southwestward<\/a>. The area could easily go from officially unincorporated to part of what is now the North Lee County seat. (If the courthouse would actually be placed in<\/em> Montrose, or even Donnellson, that would make for a fascinating split-the-baby\/third-party-wins scenario.)<\/p>\n The courthouse in Fort Madison claims to be the oldest in continuous use in Iowa<\/a>, 1911 fire notwithstanding\u00a0(Van Buren County’s was started earlier but finished later). There hasn’t been a change in Iowa’s county seats since Cedar Rapids wrested the designation from Marion in 1919.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iowa’s unique 99-counties-100-seats arrangement will be put to the test in November, when Lee County votes on a bond issue to build one new courthouse. The Fort Madison Daily Democrat says the county supervisors approved the ballot on a 3-2 … Continue reading