District 3 Commissioner Doug Rexroat will continue serving as vice-chair of the county Board of Commissioners.
Commissioners held their yearly organizational meeting yesterday. District 4 commissioner Ty Wessell was not up for reelection this year, as his twoyear term as board chairman continues through the end of 2024. So, the meeting started with the election of a vice chairman.
Last year, Doug Rexroat was elected vice chair, replacing District 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner after at least 10 years in that position. He was reelected for another one-year term yesterday morning with unanimous support from his fellow commissioners.
According to the board’s rules, the vice chair presides over meetings and decides all question of order subject to appeal by the board members in the absence of the chair. Following Rexroat’s reelection, the board began a review of these rules of order and procedures.
When the board reviewed the section of the rules on committee procedures, some commissioners voiced discomfort in the board’s increased dependence on its new finance and personnel committees, which both consist of just several commissioners and do not give the others a chance to discuss issues before they make recommendations to the full board.
The board voted 6-1 to amend committee procedures to apply the following guidelines proposed by Rexroat: committees should be given “specific, well described tasks” at the direction of the whole board; any committee recommendation should go to the executive meeting before possible action at the regular meetings; and if a committee recommendation impacts another committee, the other committee is to be allowed to meet and review them prior to the executive session.
The sole “no” vote was commissioner Gwenne Allgaier, who wanted to replace committee meetings with special meetings of the full board of commissioners as needed. Wessell said that county administrator Deb Allen will review Rexroat’s guidelines and incorporate them into the 2024 rules and procedures.
The amended rules will be considered for approval at a future meeting.
The board agreed to push back the start of its executive session meetings, which usually take place on the second Tuesdays of the month, by half an hour from 9 to 9:30 a.m. According to Allgaier and Lautner, this will give elected officials and staff time “to get their feet on the ground” between the government center opening and the meetings’ start time.
The regular sessions will continue to be held at 7 p.m., generally on the third Tuesday of the month, according to 2024 meeting schedule approved at the organizational meeting. The board also approved the 2024 schedule of monthly department updates to the board of commissioners.
The board further approved commissioner appointments to boards, commissions, committees, and authorities with just two changes: Allgaier replacing commissioner Jamie Kramer as the board’s representative to the Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency; and Lautner replacing Allgaier on the Michigan Association of Counties Agriculture and Tourism Committee.
The board also reviewed its legal services contract with Cohl, Stoker, and Toskey, P.C. in the wake of concerns raised by commissioner Lautner at the end-of-year special session on Dec. 29 regarding non-vetted invoices for non-retainer employees. Interim finance director Cathy Hartesvelt explained that she did not vette them because that information is redacted.
Later in the day yesterday, but after this edition of the newspaper went to print, the newly organized county board of commissioners reconvened in the afternoon to hear the results of an organizational culture survey conducted by the Michigan Leadership Institute (MLI).
The board voted 6-1 on Nov. 9 to sign a $6,500 contract with the MLI to interview county employees and propose an action plan addressing the internal problems that contributed to a fast turnover of county employees, such as the resignation of the county’s last finance director, Sean Cowan, on Oct. 20 after less than five months in that position.
Since this was a committee of the whole session, the board of commissioners would not be able to take any action during this meeting and could only hear a report of the survey’s findings from MLI regional president and former Glen Lake Schools superintendent John Scholten and his proposed “action plan.”
