County Briefs: Logan County Board and committee discusses policy changes, public comment, audios

[January 02, 2015]  LINCOLN - The Logan County Board discussed during its December Workshop inviting the Development Partnership to host its website with the county website. The offer would be made in order for the Partnership to save some cost of a new website. The county provides some support for the economic development agency. It was also viewed as a practical measure for outside interests looking to know more about Logan County; as its information could be located next to Zoning Office information and GIS Internet mapping.

The board reorganized at the start of December and voted as its new chairman, David Hepler; Robert Farmer as its vice-chairman.

As chairman, Hepler will make a recommendation to appoint board members to various committees of five, appoint the chairman of each of those committees, and appoint board members to act as liaisons to various organizations. Those can be expected to be brought before the full board for approval in January.

While the board approved employment appointments for the Animal Control and an appointment to the Board of Health, after discussion it was decided that four other non-employment, non-board member appointments would be postponed. Chairman Hepler wanted to bring the nominees to the Regional Planning Commission - Blair Hoerbert, Gerald Lolling and Jim Vipond; to the Zoning Board of Appeals - Judy Graff before the board before voting their approval.
 

A special Regular Board meeting has been scheduled for January 6, 2015 at 6:45 p.m. in the Blue Room at the Public Safety Complex for the purpose of approving those appointments and to approve the purchase of audio equipment for Logan County Courthouse courtrooms.

Chairman Hepler did announce that he would like to divide the combined Executive / Economic Development Committee and make them stand alone committees. He anticipates the committees would have differing makeup of membership and may even meet different nights.

Currently, the new Executive Committee Caucus is set to meet its first time on January 13, 7 p.m. at the Safety Complex.

In its December Executive/ Economic Development Committee several matters of board policies and procedures continued to be reviewed. The state’s attorney has been working with the board for a time on several of the matters.

Topics discussed included eliminating taking a straw vote during the Workshop session; how to handle public comment opportunities, which included how and when guests might be allowed to speak during meetings. It was also discussed in the interest of full disclosure to the public, the possibility of posting the audio of every meeting on the county website. Kevin Bateman felt that this might also make right any misinterpretation or out of context comments in written committee or news reports if people could listen to the actual meeting.

Chuck Ruben said, “I joke around at the meetings, and that can always be taken out of context, made to look silly, or wrong, etc, etc. If they want to do that, they’re going to do that anyway, so.”

In practicality, Bateman said that it was uncertain that the audios could be posted on the county website and Ruben questioned if it would truly serve the purpose intended.

Ruben further pointed out that persons that do have an interest in what is said at any of the board's meetings have the option to go to the courthouse and ask for a copy of the audio.

If you want to hear the detailed discussion of potential changes to board policies on public comments, posting audios of board meetings, and straw voting from this meeting [click here].

[Jan Youngquist]