Energy task force defeated

By Kevin O’Brien

A newly created energy task force was unplugged Tuesday night after it failed to attain a two-thirds majority vote of approval from the Marathon County Board of Supervisors.

The task force, which was supposed to look at ways of cutting energy costs within county operations, was originally approved with a simple majority vote, 23-12, at the board’s March 18 meeting. However, corporation counsel Michael Puerner told supervisors last week that he was wrong when he initially advised them that a two-thirds vote was not required to create a task force.

Based on a closer look at the county’s code of ordinances and a review of past practices, Puerner said a simple majority was not enough to establish a new task force. He strongly recommended that a supervisor who had voted in favor of the original motion make a new motion to reconsider, which was done Tuesday night.

Supervisor Ann Lemmer, who helped write the task force proposal, made the motion to reconsider, and the board voted 30-3 to do so. After a few rounds of debate, the board voted again on whether to create the task force: 19 members voted in favor and 14 against, falling three votes short of the two-thirds threshold.

Before asking supervisors to reconsider the motion, Puerner noted that the board has previously required two-thirds support when creating other task forces in the past, creat- ing a precedent.

“That’s the best thing I have to lean on,” he said.

Puerner apologized for his apparent misinterpretation in March, but said the language of the ordinance is unclear.

For most ordinance chances, Puerner said a simple majority vote is needed, but the ordinance dealing with task forces is written in a way that is open to interpretation. Ultimately, after getting a written analysis from attorneys at an outside law firm, he decided that going with a two-thirds threshold was the best way to ensure the task force withstood any possible legal challenges.

“If this board relies on actions that the energy task force took, we could have some issues,” he said.

To prevent future mistakes, Puerner urged the board’s rules committees, which convenes in June, to rewrite the ordinance to make it less ambiguous.

“If we just change it to what we want it to say, it makes it easier for those of us who are trying to interpret it on the fly,” he said.

The task force idea originated in the Human Resources, Finance and Property Committee, which gave itself the goal of developing policies to make the county “more environmentally and fiscally sustainable.” Proponents of the idea said a special group was needed to help save the county money by reducing energy consumption and applying for federal subsidies, but critics said it was either unnecessary, poorly timed or part of a “green agenda” to promote the use of renewable energy countywide.