Recap of the 8 a.m. Special Meeting of the Board of Commissioners on January 14, 2025
HIGHLIGHTS
Positives
*There was great discussion and collaborative work done last week at our 9.5 hour meeting.
*Due to the public’s outcry and a few of us adamantly speaking up for retaining the voice of the people, public comment was left intact.
*Prayer together before our meetings is also still valued.
*The new majority of the Board wanted to move down from 7 to 2 standing committees—keeping Finance and Administration and Planning and Policy. I am ok with letting a new idea be tried out to see if it works well. I made a motion to add Broadband (previously a standing committee) under the Planning Committee and that motion passed.
Main Reasons I voted No on the final set of Rules
*The new set of rules places ALL power to the Chair of the BOC for determining which commissioners sit on all standing AND non-standing committees, boards and commissions of the county. This has not been the rule, policy or practice over time at the county – this is a change. In the past, the Chair of the Board gathered input from all commissioners on what committees/commissions/boards they would like to serve on, created a chart of assignments and then presented it to the full BOC for a vote. I made a motion to add “pending approval of the Board of Commissioners”. My motion failed with a 6-5 vote (Moss, Rhodea, Wenzel, Zylstra and myself voted in favor).
*Prayer is now limited to only commissioners leading the invocation at the start of our meeting. Leaders in our faith community made it known last year that they valued being able to come and lead the invocation at the start of of our meetings. I believe this was also a way for those in the faith community to get involved in the public square and interact in tangible ways with our community.
