New members hit the ground running

County board opens new term with marathon session, committee shifts

New faces brought with them numerous changes to the county’s committee structure during a marathon five-hour session of the Taylor County Board on Tuesday.

Changes got underway early in the meeting with proposals to alter the county committee structure to expand some committees and merge others together.

The first major change was a proposal by Supervisor Lester Lewis to merge the county’s finance and personnel committees into one seven-person committee.

While on paper, each of those committees had five members, there has historically been significant overlap. Lewis noted that of the five members previously on finance there are three who served on both committees.

Lewis said the goal would be increased efficiency since the two committees would often have joint meetings to address issues.

Under his proposals the chairs of the board of health, law enforcement committee, highway committee and human services board would automatically be on the joint committee just as they were previously on the personnel committee. But there would also be three other board members appointed at large. By removing the overlap, this would increase the total number of board members serving on those committees.

Supervisor Scott Mildbrand supported the change noting that it would be all seven members reviewing vouchers and making decisions on personnel matters.

Board member Lynn Rosemeyer disagreed. “I think finance and personnel are very different,” she said, noting that if you have strength in finance you may not have strength in dealing with personnel issues. She cited recent issues with the county staffing as examples of this. Supervisor Sue Swiantek said she was concerned about giving the group too much say in decision making in the county.

Lewis said he felt it would spread out the decision making in the county because it would be seven different board members on the committee instead of the overlapping members previously.

The change passed on a 13-3 vote with Rosemeyer, Swiantek and supervisor Rod Adams opposed. Supervisor Lisa Carbaugh was absent from the meeting.

The second proposed rule change called for increasing land information, zoning and buildings and grounds to have five members rather than three.

“We need to get more members involved in more committees,” Lewis said, noting that increasing the committee size is a way to do this. This change passed unanimously.

Lewis also proposed changing the size of the veterans service committee from three members to seven total members with five county board representatives and two veteran lay members.

As lay members of the committee, Lewis noted the veteran appointees would have full voting rights.

The change was approved on a 15-1 vote with Adams opposed.

Change was also apparent in the process of electing board officers. This is done as part of the reorganization meeting with supervisors voting on the chairman, first vice chairman and second vice chairman. Voting is done by ballot.

In addition to the officers, supervisors nominate and vote by ballot for each of the members of the highway committee and Extension and Land Conservation committee.

For county board chairman incumbent Jim Metz was nominated as well as supervisor Mike Bub. Bub withdrew his nomination and Metz was approved on a unanimous ballot.

For first vice chairman, Mildbrand and supervisor Chuck Zenner were nominated with Mildbrand receiving nine votes and Zenner receiving seven. For the second vice chairman position, Zenner, Bub and supervisor Lorie Floyd were nominated. Floyd withdrew her name. The vote was tied at 8-8 on two ballots in a row leading to a lengthy discussion on if there is a tie breaking option.

A motion was made and voted on to table the vote until all the county board members could be present to vote. With an odd number of board members a tie would not be possible. However Bub objected strongly to this noting it would allow the nominees to campaign for the position. Supervisors voted to rescind the motion to table the election. Bub said he felt the solution would be to keep voting on it.

Mildbrand suggested leaving it up to the two candidates to decide how they wanted to break the tie, noting that he would support naming both of them to be co-vice chairs. The chairman and vice chairs make up the county executive committee and having co-vice chairs would make that a four person committee.

“I am in favor of more people on committees,” Mildbrand said.

Supervisor Greg Knight made the motion to amend the rules to allow for co-vice chairs but a second was not made until after a different motion was made and seconded to continue voting. On the final vote Bub received eight votes with Zenner receiving seven and one of the votes being cast for Supervisor Rollie Thums as a write-in. Bub was named second vice chairman.

On the highway committee, Supervisor Ray Soper got 15 votes to Zenner’s one to take the chairman position. Floyd and Jim Gebauer were nominated but did not receive votes. For the second highway committee seat, it took two ballots for Myron Brooks to get the required nine votes with Adams getting two, Gebauer, four and Thums one. It took two votes for Gebauer to get 12 votes for the third highway committee seat with Adams getting four. Adams got 12 votes to Thums one and Zenner’s three to take the fourth seat. The fifth spot on the committee took three votes with Zenner edging out Thums nine to seven.

For extension and land conservation, Soper got 11 votes to Carbaugh’s two and Lemke’s three to be chairman. It took two ballots for Lemke to get nine votes for the second seat ahead of Knight with five, Brooks with one and Carbaugh with one. The third seat came down to Knight and Brooks and took six ballots before the tie vote was decided nine to seven in favor of Knight.

Following the vote the county board recessed for about 40 minutes as the committee on committees and rules met to assign the standing committee memberships. County code gives the job of naming committee membership to the board chairman, but the committee on committees and rules makes recommendations which are then reviewed and ratified by the full board.

The finance and personnel committee will include Mildbrand as health board member, Soper as highway committee member, Lewis from law enforcement, Thums from human services, Lemke as an at-large member, Gebauer as an atlarge member, and Zenner as chairman and an at-large member.

Other major committee shake-ups include the Forestry committee which saw an almost complete turnover of members with Mildbrand as chairman, Gebauer, Brooks, Thums and Floyd.

In zoning Bub and Rosemeyer were added to the previous members.

On veterans service committee the five county board members are Lewis, Thums, Floyd and Swiantek. Committee members had discussion on the fifth member with the suggestion to appoint Bub, however it was noted that Lemke is a Marine Corps veteran and members felt strongly to have veteran representation on that committee. The veteran lay members will be Steve Voss and Larry Peterson. Lewis will continue as chairman although he did offer to pass it to Lemke. Lemke declined saying that she wanted to become more familiar with the committee before taking over as chair of it. “Down the road, I would be more than willing to make the switch,” Lewis said.

In voting to ratify the packet of board committee appointments, Bub objected that the city of Medford had the largest tax base but there is no city of Medford county board member on the finance committee. “It is not too balanced,” Bub said.

Lewis defended the proposed appointments saying that he felt they had it spread around the county well for representation. He also noted that the city is no longer that far ahead as having the largest tax base noting the town of Medford was only about 7% behind it.

“It is still the largest,” Bub said. “We did spread it around as much as we thought we could,” Lewis said.

In the end, it passed 14-2 with Bub and Swiantek opposed.

Ambulance agreement

After months of negotiations, Taylor County and Aspirus have a formal agreement for the operation of the ambulance service.

Not all members of county board are happy with what has been worked out however, especially among some of the newly elected board members.

Floyd questioned the clause that allows Aspirus to keep any profits it makes but if there is a loss the county will have to provide a subsidy.

Lewis explained the county owns the ambulance but it is operated and staffed by Aspirus personnel. He said even the volunteers are Aspirus employees and not county employees.

Lewis noted that the county’s payment to Aspirus last year was about $450,000 and while that is a lot of money, it is inexpensive when compared to what other counties are paying for ambulance services.

County finance director Larry Brandl noted that in his 40 years with the county the hospital has never reported making a profit on the ambulance service. “What we pay as a subsidy is a lot less than other places,” he said, noting that he feels they have gotten a pretty good deal.

Rosemeyer objected to the county not seeing complete financials from Aspirus questioning how they as a county make decisions if they don’t have all the information. “If they are your partner they should provide that information,” she said.

Lewis was not optimistic about the county’s ability to get that information no matter how much they may want it. Rosemeyer also raised concerns over Aspirus not employing ambulance drivers from the Gilman area because they were not vaccinated. She said this left that area without ambulance coverage at times this January. “Can’t we overrule the hospital on that?” she asked.

Lewis said his simple answer is “no” because they are Aspirus employees not the county’s. He also cautioned against pushing too hard because it could result in Aspirus backing away and telling the county to operate its own ambulance service which would result in far greater expenses and headaches.

Lewis noted Aspirus has been authorized to have up to 12 full time positions which will cover the county’s three stations for 24 hours a day for five days a week with volunteers taking up the additional hours.

In the end, the contract was approved unanimously.

In other business, supervisors:

_ Approved a power line impact fee grant of $10,000 to expand the pavilion at the Gilman village park.

_ Approved a power line impact fee grant of $10,000 to K Bar R Arena for the Horns and Hooves Challenge. The total cost of the event is $40,000. Gebauer questioned if this would be a yearly request. Arena owner Cody Rabska said this was the first time they had asked for funds like this and said he did not anticipate making it a yearly request. Gebauer and Brooks opposed the grant request, but it was approved 14-2.

_ Approved a power line impact fee grant of $15,800 to pave around the new pavilion at the Bob and Ruby Usack Memorial Park at Miller Dam. The Miller Dam Lake Association has spent more than $26,000 on the project so far to develop the .75 acres of land that was donated and made into a park. It is maintained by the lake association.

_ Approved a power line impact fee grant of $10,000 to the Taylor County Humane Society to help with the replacement of kennel fencing. The kennel fencing has been deemed unsafe due to areas that are broken and rusty. The cost of the project is $30,472. They had initially requested $24,377.60 for it.

_ Approved a resolution calling for the state to revise the current real estate transfer fees revenue sharing formula. The state currently takes 80% of the fees collected and the county is joining with other counties to ask that the fee go back to the pre-1981 level of 50 % split between the county and state.

_ Approved a resolution authorizing participation in the state municipal dam grant program. This is required for the county to receive dam grant funds. The county is currently in the review process for grants for Cheslea Lake dam and Camp 8 dam.

_ Approved an ordinance to repeal section 13.3 of the county code for the general relief program. The change was required because the state discontinued the general relief program at the state level and rolled those activities into other human services areas. The action to repeal this section carried that through to the local level.

_ Approved a resolution declaring the second Saturday in May as World Migratory Bird Day. This annual resolution helps qualify the county as a “Bird County.”

Lester Lewis cautioned that there is only so far the county can go in pushing Aspirus for financial information as part of the ambulance contract negotiations.BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS