MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
AUGUST 20, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Board of Supervisors Scheduling of Joint Township Trustee Training Session Meeting....... 1
Board of Supervisors Update on Johnson County Strategic Plan.......................................... 1
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:00 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
R. Sullivan said they will be discussing the scheduling of the Joint Township Trustee meeting. He said it came up a couple days ago when someone called into the office and noted it was the same day and time as the Farm Bureau annual meeting. Stutsman said she wondered if they could have the meeting later and start at 8:00 p.m. so people could go to the Farm Bureau dinner because it will be a nightmare to reschedule. Executive Assistant Mike Sullivan said it is the sixth reschedule since they've started. Things are being done differently now and it is a new program. M. Sullivan said Johnson County is the second county in Iowa to go through the new training program. The Board discussed various scheduling options. R. Sullivan summarized the Board's discussion saying the first choice is to dovetail the Trustee's meeting with the Farm Bureau meeting and the second option is to schedule the Trustee's meeting on September 10, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. at Montgomery Hall.
M. Sullivan said the action plan is a tool to document where they are at. Right now, they are ready to go into their specific assigned areas and go through goals and performance activities. The performance project plan form lists the tasks someone is working on for the month and who is responsible. The whole idea is to simplify the project update process at the monthly meetings. M. Sullivan this is all subject to change because once people get into their assigned areas they might have additional things to add or delete from the plan. He said one example he explored was the Secondary Roads infrastructure. With Secondary Roads, some of the objectives laid out are currently being addressed, like the goal to review and revise the Chip Seal Policy by spring of 2009. Whatever workgroup has that assignment can document this on forms or with their own notes. M. Sullivan said it’s important for meetings as it is instant recall for them and he can have Secretary II Jo Hogarty compile them into a master document. They are going to review the Secondary Roads Capital Improvement Plan and Road Use Policies. M. Sullivan said he will also talk about best practices.
M. Sullivan said the performance activities listed under Secondary Roads infrastructure are ways they decided they can achieve the goals of meeting regularly with the County Engineer or Planning and Zoning staff to discuss the Farmstead Split policy and the impact on road issues. He said they are well organized and just need to get the work done. The goals are set for the next one to two years. M. Sullivan said the timing is right because they are just starting to go into next year's budget which is where best practices will come in. He said some areas will take more time, like the Jail because the billing is at least two years out but the planning is ongoing. The Metropolitan Transit Plan has a lot to do with the Johnson County Council of Governments and informing them of the Board's interest to participate. M. Sullivan said he consistently hears that North Liberty is interested in getting a bus route so this is the time to talk with North Liberty about this option. This is a perfect opportunity for the Board to build services with nearby communities and counties, and the County can be a catalyst.
Neuzil said there are concepts at the legislative level in regards to smart government in exchange for taxing opportunities. For instance it allows for bonding authority beyond the limits without voter approval. R. Sullivan said he’d like clarification on what the topics are. M. Sullivan said it is rural economic development, green initiatives, multiyear strategic plan or the long range plan, jail/justice center, Secondary Roads infrastructure, and regional Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Neuzil said the Board needs to prioritize the initiatives. M. Sullivan said road infrastructure will be the biggest cost aside from the jail/justice center issue. R. Sullivan said for rural economic development, green initiatives, and strategic planning all carry little expenses but he is concerned about getting hamstringed and not being able to come up with $500 if needed. Neuzil said one goal he'd like to accomplish before the next meeting is to have the Board get together with their partners for discussions and goal two is to envision any budget impacts to incorporate in the upcoming budget. R. Sullivan said it would be good to have each of the six groups report on their needs just to get it on a line item, because if there is nothing budgeted they have to wait another year. Neuzil said the objective is to review the current budget and make additions and projections.
M. Sullivan said everyone has a different viewpoint of what best practices are. His focus is on the concept of why the Board exists which is the provision of services. Each department provides a specific service to the public and looking at streamlining or information technology use can be considered best practices. In the recording service for Iowa, County Recorder Kim Painter will follow guidelines and practices that are viewed as best practices. Some of best practices and service provision comes from entities that create them such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). JCAHO puts out a list of practices that need to be complied with in order to meet standards. In the transportation industry, it is route matching, route time, and development of routes. Ambulance Director Steve Spenler's best practices include response times, ambulance location, revenue, and utilization up to industry standards. County Treasurer Tom Kriz has best practices in financing knowing he needs to capture his investments for the County. M. Sullivan said he is willing to contact department heads and elected officials to inquire about their best practices. M. Sullivan said he will present the information to the Board at the next meeting. R. Sullivan said he is a stickler about this when they do evaluations. He said Spenler is very good at knowing best practices across the U.S. R. Sullivan said he thinks all department heads should be able to tell the Board about best practices within their department.
Neuzil said this comes under long term strategic planning since it is a measurement of what departments are doing. M. Sullivan said he wants to put best practices into the long term strategic plan and incorporate it into the budget. He said an online survey is a great tool to measure the effects of best practices. Neuzil said it is going to be harder to find best practices for the Jail or green initiatives. M. Sullivan said he can find best practices and help department heads understand the concept. R. Sullivan said he thinks everyone has some idea of what they talking about but not everyone takes it seriously. He said this morning he talked to Information Services Director Jean Schultz who told him that she is aware the Board wants them to pursue buying locally but said that will cost her department an extra $10,000. R. Sullivan said that Schultz asked him if that was too much. R. Sullivan said she is doing what the Board wants. She is weighing the issues and trying to decide what the best option is. R. Sullivan said he knows there are department heads who left the meeting where they discussed the Chamber of Commerce's Buy Here initiative, and never thought about it again. He asked how they can follow up with department heads for updates. Neuzil said they did assign Budget Coordinator Rich Claiborne to that process and maybe the Board can give more direction.
M. Sullivan said he likes the idea of incorporating best practices into department head evaluations because it is an accountability issue by asking department heads to provide a report about best practices utilization. R. Sullivan said having department heads be aware of best practices is a start. Stutsman said NACo might be a good webpage resource for best practices. M. Sullivan said he would be happy to work on it but in the meantime he will talk with department heads individually and let them know what the Board is doing and how they want best practices to be evaluated in their department. He said it is not that difficult to implement once everyone is aware of the expectation. Neuzil said another issue is how to get the word out about what they are doing. He said the public information part of County government is lacking. He said he would like to incorporate public information efforts into strategic planning. Stutsman said they did not include this in the strategic plan and one of the hardest things for the Board is to stay focused and follow through. She said she would rather put public information into next year's strategic plan but not the current plan. M. Sullivan said the County web page is the best way to inform the public about what's going on in the County.
Stutsman left at 9:26 a.m.
Neuzil said he does not want to lose sight of something that has been a big weakness within the whole County government structure which is how to get government employees to think about sharing with the public every single thing that is accomplished. R. Sullivan said they are the fourth most populous county and an unspoken goal is to have one of the four best departments in each area. He said that while in Des Moines at the ISAC meetings, people tell him Johnson County has the best Public Health Department in the State. He said they need some measurement criteria so they can share their successes with the public.
M. Sullivan said the private sector makes comparisons by giving awards and recognitions to highlight successes but in government it’s more difficult to get public recognition because there are no accreditation commissions like the ones that evaluate hospitals, for example. He said that county governments can get recognition from a finance/budget side from GFOA and local recognition from ISAC Innovation Awards. He said that they create these things to provide counties with the opportunity to be recognized. M. Sullivan said he wants to reiterate that mirroring other counties is not always a good idea. The way the County is being managed right now is very good. He said the County has the best Ambulance Service in the state of Iowa and the best Public Health Department and they don't want to get bogged down by what other people are doing. M. Sullivan said the Board should be informed about what other county governments do, but not emulate them.
R. Sullivan said their comparison is not always within the state of Iowa because it is possible there are not that many good health departments. He said that it is hard to find out what best practices are for the Board of Supervisors. Neuzil said they get bogged down because the Board of Supervisors has so many responsibilities and they are spread thin. Each Board member has their own strengths but they get spread out so much that they do not get the opportunity to build on their strengths. Neuzil said the County hires department heads to provide expertise in a particular field. He said each Board member has expertise and strengths they do not get to use because they are too busy with other things or they get jealous of each other for having a particular strength. Neuzil said he does not know how to get past that to build on strengths they have.
M. Sullivan said part of this process is for the Board to re-evaluate their function. He said the Board’s main job is policy setting. Neuzil said if their role is policy and public outreach, they are way off task. M. Sullivan said the fact that the Board members have different things to attend to is a testimonial to the fact that they all have different strengths. Neuzil said they are not doing much policy and they need to better define their roles and that might fall under strategic planning. M. Sullivan said the strategic plan is their vision and policy. Neuzil asked why this isn't as big a priority as other things. M. Sullivan said historically planning at this level is fairly new. He said the other elected officials have a defined set of responsibilities and can more easily focus. The Board has a lot of things to address that they are responsible for. He said the Board just needs to define its priorities.
Neuzil said they have laid out their top priorities and their top strategic initiatives but they only look at it once a month and spend a couple of hours discussing it. He said they should be addressing these things daily. Meyers said when Board members attend meetings they are there to network with the community and to fulfill the outreach function that the Board must do. M. Sullivan said it is a tough balancing act. He said he put this together because even if they don't use them at least the resources are there. It is a methodology and it helps to pick out the activities to focus on in order to reach goals. Neuzil said a key strategy is to get department heads to buy into some of these practices. They are going to have to do some leg work but he asked how to get department heads to buy in. Neuzil said he wants Facilities Director David Kempf to help them design the overview of the jail/justice center. He said he wonders if Kempf even considers this a priority. M. Sullivan said to tell Kempf it is something the Board needs him to focus on. Meyers said realistically it will be a year before Kempf can devote serious time to the project. M. Sullivan said they will know when they are at the point.
Neuzil asked how they will get staff to buy in to green initiatives and buying locally. He asked how they would go about getting department heads to realize this is now part of their job. M. Sullivan said he can get department heads to buy into the plan. R. Sullivan said as liaisons, they have to follow-up with department heads to ensure they are doing it and if they are not, it should be included in the performance evaluation as a goal for that department head. Neuzil said it really comes down to M. Sullivan as the Boards Executive Assistant. He should have the power to tell a department head what the Board is expecting. They have struggled with giving M. Sullivan this authority for a while and Neuzil said they must really consider this as his role. M. Sullivan said he does it anyway. He said he has a good working relationship with the department heads and if he sits down with them to explain what the Board wants, he is sure they will all cooperate. M. Sullivan said he can't say the same for the elected officials but he guesses most of them would be happy to cooperate.
Harney said it comes back to the Board of Supervisors and their liaison relationships with department heads. It is important to have policy laid out so people have direction to follow and do not do as they please. Neuzil said the liaison process is still in the experimental stage. He said it is very helpful as long as they are the liaisons. Neuzil said they have a poor system of communicating back to the Board the outcome of the liaison meetings. R. Sullivan said sometimes the content of the liaison meetings is not something to bring up at Board meetings. He said for example, if a department head is slacking off, they are not going to sit on camera and tell someone they are slacking, but somehow those things need to be communicated to the Board members who are not the liaisons.
M. Sullivan said there are a lot of things that prevent them from scheduling an extra meeting to discuss liaison meetings. Other than on Board meeting days, there is rarely a time when all members are available. R. Sullivan said everyone uses SEATS Director Tom Brase as the good example because he sends a monthly email to update everyone. If everyone did this monthly it would be helpful. Neuzil said Information Director Jean Schultz writes a report of the things her department has accomplished and gives it to her liaisons at the liaison meetings. He said it would be nice to have some mechanism in place that would help them with the liaison process.
M. Sullivan said it would be beneficial after a liaison meeting to ask the department heads to send all Board members an overview of what was discussed. Neuzil said they tried to do this but it did not work out well. He said Medical Examiner Administrator Mike Hensch rolled his eyes at the idea yet he does an incredible job when they meet with him. Harney said there are differences in preferences because he could care less about some things where he is very interested in other things. Neuzil said they need a better mechanism for sharing information. R. Sullivan said maybe they need to tell all department heads that the Board requires a status update report at the monthly liaison meetings. Neuzil asked how they will get department heads to comply. R. Sullivan said the update might not apply to all because Kempf comes to all Key Issues meetings and gives a verbal update. Meyers said if the information has already been relayed to all five members, it is not an issue. Harney said they should include it as a monthly expectation and make it part of the job description. M. Sullivan asked the Board if he should go ahead and talk to department heads individually to give them this idea. He said that he could present it as being part of the administrative responsibility of the department head. Neuzil said the update could easily be forwarded to all five Board members. R. Sullivan said Harney's point is important to emphasize. The Board is not looking to create additional work for anyone. R. Sullivan said this should be something very easy to put together in a short period of time. Neuzil said it is a list they can use to track accomplishments to better publicize the work the County does.
Harney said he has asked Secondary Roads three times for a financial report of where they are at and what impact the floods had on their department. He wants to know the financials so the Board can budget properly and adjust priorities accordingly. R. Sullivan said Secondary Roads is a good example. They need to make policy because they know there are policies in place that they know are not working. At some point they need to make the changes. M. Sullivan said it is hard to do but it is the Board's responsibility to implement necessary policies. He said that zoning issues and road issues are two of the biggest issues a board of supervisors in the State of Iowa deals with.
Neuzil said when they compare their Board to others in the State, it is amazing to see how much more work they do in Johnson County. He asked whether these boards are doing less or the right amount. Neuzil said it begs the question of whether the Board does too much micromanaging and other activities. Meyers asked if they are diluting their own efforts by spreading themselves so thin. Neuzil said they are spread so thin they can’t make policy.
Harney said he wants to refer back to Strategic Planning issues and use the Jail as an example. He said he is unclear about what is expected of him on the strategic planning portion and the reason is that everyone has different ideas. Harney said the question of whether to pursue a joint facility between Linn and Johnson Counties is a forefront issue. He said each county has different priorities and he wonders who should do the outreach to establish Johnson County's plans. Meyers said there are a lot of people who will want to weigh in on that. Neuzil said the justice center has its own committee structure, but after September 3, 2008 they need to lay out what they are going to do. He said people are aching to know what is going on. Neuzil said the Board is spread so thin that they have not been able to focus on the issues. Harney said they can't be as productive as possible because they are so spread out.
R. Sullivan said Linn County flooding has changed things for them a bit and the County would be foolish not to discuss this with them. It comes down to whose job it is to correspond and when to do this. R. Sullivan said they need to make sure that different issues make it to the Key Issues agenda or on a Board meeting agenda so everyone has a chance to express their concerns and opinions. The Linn County issue should be on the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee (CJCC) agenda. Harney said the media often skews the issues before they have time to discuss them. Neuzil said they need to focus on the Jail as it is viewed as a main priority, and take some of the other things off the list. They are not supposed to work 60 to 70 hours a week when the taxpayers have said the Board is part time work.
R. Sullivan said a few County residents have told him that the Board has done more in the last 10 years than in the previous 60 to 70 years. The County has grown by leaps and bounds and the role of government has expanded and therefore the job of Supervisor has expanded also. He said while they are struggling with the workload, a lot has been accomplished. Neuzil said the reality is that the Supervisor's job is seven days a week. He said he is not advocating for the Board to be full time, he does not want the Board to be full time but wants it to focus on their strengths, engage in policy making and public outreach. Neuzil said he wants the department heads to do their job.
Harney said he sees it from a different perspective. He said he thinks they are accepting mediocrity from department heads and they need to encourage department heads to take more responsibility. R. Sullivan said if someone is doing a mediocre job they ought to get a mediocre performance appraisal. Neuzil asked if they should be using the evaluation process to hold department heads accountable. R. Sullivan said Linn County has one liaison who writes the evaluation. Neuzil said it seems like the Linn County Supervisors are more active with policy making than they are with other stuff they are full time. M. Sullivan said there are a lot of things the Johnson County Board of Supervisors takes on that Linn County does not.
Harney said he doesn't like to compare their Board to Linn County because they have not been very effective with a lot of their initiatives. M. Sullivan said the Board has been very effective and a lot of great things have happened in Johnson County. R. Sullivan said they are frustrated because they would like to accomplish more. Neuzil said their Strategic Plan ought to be the top priority for the Board. He does not know how to make it a priority without getting rid of something else. M. Sullivan said historically things run inherently slow in government. He said all the departments have developed systems unique to them to accomplish things in a timely manner. M. Sullivan said he gets very few calls with complaints about wait times from different departments. The calls the Board receives pertain to zoning issues and road issues. Harney said these are very time consuming issues and M. Sullivan agreed. M. Sullivan said if there is policy the Board wants put in place that is a priority to him. Harney said its time to update policies. Meyers said that many groups feel they need a Supervisor present at meetings in order to legitimize their operations. M. Sullivan said the Board is a professional body at the highest level of leadership in County government and it is critical that they prioritize their time. It is okay for Supervisors to say no to requests of their time. R. Sullivan said they easily get sidetracked by daily responsibilities. Neuzil said he wants to know if they are going to make this a major priority for the Board and if it is, the Board needs to determine how to stay on track. Harney said meeting once a month is enough if they have updates from department heads. M. Sullivan said he will try to keep them on task himself and ask for updates regularly.
Neuzil asked how to stay motivated. R. Sullivan said there will be peer pressure. Harney said their priorities are the Criminal Justice Center and roads and other things are less important. Neuzil said all the issues are great policy work but there are just too many. R. Sullivan said Rural Economic Development and Green Initiatives are things that have not had a home. The roads and justice center are just tough decisions that need to be made. He said transit is one that would be easy to drop. Meyers said the transit plan requires collaboration with the cities of North Liberty and Coralville. Neuzil said the Rural Economic Development plan ought to be under an economic development committee that has not met since former Assistant Planner Dan Swartzendruber left. R. Sullivan said one of their goals is to get the Economic Development Committee back together.
R. Sullivan said of the six items on the list, the strategic planning is just the mechanics of keeping this going. If transit is removed, there are four things to really focus on. Harney said transit is important. M. Sullivan said key issue is getting the word to JCCOG and let them know the County is interested in doing it. JCCOG's key role is to establish discussion from a regional perspective about transportation. R. Sullivan repeated that if transit is removed, there will be four important things left. Neuzil said for the Jail issue they have a structure in place and they need to dissect that further. M. Sullivan said many of the performance activities that have been identified with the Jail issue would be coming up soon, such as the tax bill to pay for the project. He went on to list the following: the Board understands the historical perspective of the courthouse, the CJCC coordinator, finding space for County inmates will be done today, August 20, 2008, developing what the coordinator will be doing, selling the cost of the project to the community, getting cities to understand this is a community problem, and this is aVernon Research Group project. M. Sullivan said a lot of these things could be knocked off the list in the next year.
Neuzil said he thinks that metropolitan transportation is something the liaisons should work with M. Sullivan on. R. Sullivan and M. Sullivan agreed. Neuzil asked who is assigned to the remaining tasks adding that they are all on the CJCC because they have the public information. M. Sullivan said Secondary Roads infrastructures is Meyers and Harney; Rural Economic Development is Stutsman and R. Sullivan; and Green Initiatives is Meyers and Neuzil. Neuzil said if they are all on the Jail issue it helps them concentrate better. Harney said he thinks there still needs to be two people taking the lead. R. Sullivan said the Board meetings will allow time for input and Board direction. R. Sullivan said as soon as they get the Vernon Group Report they should have meetings monthly. M. Sullivan said it is important to get the public perspective on where the Jail should be built. It may be an issue that is widely accepted. R. Sullivan said there are four Board members in agreement that strategic planning as an initiative is really M. Sullivan's liaisons work with him, and transit is something they are interested in and will remain so through JCCOG. He asked for Board agreement.
Neuzil said the green initiatives might be something that after six months they can drop off because they would have something in place like a Green Team. R. Sullivan said the same thing goes for rural economic development. Neuzil said he is curious as to whether each community would be willing to put in $10,000 to start a budget and hire somebody to be the coordinator of the green team. Harney said he thought the Board gave that lead to Assistant Planner Josh Busard. Neuzil said they did, but that he is talking about the creation of a community wide green team. R. Sullivan said when they had people from the Sierra Club here they wanted to serve on a committee and prefer there is only one committee, not four. Harney said he knows that ECICOG is looking for more to do and if they were in this leadership role, they could jump right in and do it. Meyers said if they had one person oversee the green initiatives for the entire County, like ECICOG, it would be beyond what Busard would have time to do. Neuzil said stuff does not get done unless people are hired to do it. M. Sullivan said Busard is the County's resource. R. Sullivan said some department has to dedicate a person, not necessarily hire someone new, to get the job done. Harney said they made the recommendation that JCCOG take the leadership role. R. Sullivan said they could get there by having an employee focus on the objectives. Harney said the advantages to hiring someone is that the person is removed from the political end and can bring everyone together.
Neuzil said it would be great if they could do the same thing with the Jail issue but they do not have community buy-in. Harney said he thinks they do have community buy-in and it comes down to showing the public they have a plan. Meyers said he detects a mixed bag in the community. R. Sullivan said they have not had enough public discussion and they need to narrow it down before the public can weigh in. M. Sullivan said they have had discussions with the Vernon Research Group and they know what approach to take and how to help. Neuzil said once again the County is paying for it and there is not community support. He said the County pays for everything associated with the Jail. R. Sullivan said the year they started moving prisoners, former County Sheriff Bob Carpenter suggested a booking fee. Neuzil said he has heard neat ideas from a booking fee to having an officer from another agency help at the Jail. He said there are different ways to save. The City of Iowa City and the University of Iowa wastes time waiting to get a person in jail, they could hire someone to help with intake so the officer can get on his way. Harney said that is because they do not have proper intake space. R. Sullivan said they need to talk with Linn County about a joint effort. He said Iowa City feels they are to cramped at City Hall and now might be an appropriate time to discuss the Police Department moving in with the Sheriff's Department.
Neuzil said when the Communications Center came about the idea took off and was instantly made a priority, but here they are struggling with the Jail for eight years. When the City of Iowa City makes something a priority it becomes a community-wide priority. Meyers said there were some very strong supporters of the Communication Center and they have not had that kind of response to the jail. R. Sullivan said the Board's next step is to narrow it down and then work with the public to find out what they think. Neuzil said they need to get back on task and see if the Jail Alternatives Committee is ready for a new task. M. Sullivan said they could have a lot of the research done by the end of the year. Harney said this is what has to happen because once they reach the plateau, people need to know that is all the further they can go. He said if they don't keep pushing the issue, it will go away.
M. Sullivan said the process works because Polk County recently added more staff to the Mobile Crisis Coordinating Team and it has had a clear impact on their Jail population which is probably six fold what they have in Johnson County. R. Sullivan said he was talking with a former Michigan County Manager and when their Jail was almost full, the state required that they build. This is a totally different approach than Iowa. R. Sullivan said if they could get eight to ten people to say they do not care how much they spend to ship inmates out of County, at least they have a public consensus. Harney said overall it is a priority for the community. Neuzil asked how to get the City of Iowa City, University of Iowa Police, and all the other folks to buy-in and fight for this just like they did for the Communications Center.
Meyers said that was something that was in their laps. He said they were using a system everyday that could not communicate with other systems. With the Jail all they need to do is drop prisoners at another door and it becomes someone else's problem. Neuzil said there was so much support for the Joint Communications Center and so little for the Jail. M. Sullivan said the scenario for the two is different. He said that when emergency radios, pagers, and other technologies are not working throughout the County, all the volunteer fire departments and police departments experience the problem. The Jail is different because other than law enforcement bringing people in for intake, they have no business with the Jail. M. Sullivan said if they forge good relationships with councilors, mayors, and chiefs, they are more likely to be on board when they have a serious discussion about issues.
Harney said there is quite a bit of difference between a communications center and a jail because there are more people involved with the former and the issues are apparent. The Jail requires more of a sell. R. Sullivan said start charging people and then they will care. Harney said that was part of the deal when Iowa City had their own Jail and the County built its jail. He said Iowa City and the other communities were allowed to bring their prisoners directly in. He said State law says that any arrest made by any law enforcement agency like State Patrol, is a State charge and the State pays for the incarceration. If it's a City charge then the City is responsible. Harney said for charges resulting in incarceration, the cities or their local authority will file the state charge even though the money goes to the state. R. Sullivan said the County is not receiving any payment for the Jail. Harney said they pay for the upkeep of the individual and associated fees. R. Sullivan said when a person goes to jail it becomes a County expense. Harney said the State Code mandates the County take the person. Neuzil said to him there has to be a Jail just like a Communications Center. They are both extremely important. He said he argued with County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek because the Sheriff's Department decided a Communications Center was more important than a jail and now it is costing $15 to $16 million and will take a few years to pay it off. Neuzil said they completely bypassed a more important issue, an inadequate Jail facility. R. Sullivan said maybe they felt the Communications Center was more important which is okay.
R. Sullivan asked if everyone was comfortable moving forward with four things on the strategic plan. Harney agreed. Neuzil agreed and is looking at the idea of making it even smaller. M. Sullivan said he will work on best practices for the four items and will keep everyone in their groups on task. Neuzil said the Economic Development Committee and rural economic development task should be one in the same. Meyers asked if they are keeping the strategic plan in place. R. Sullivan said it is more M. Sullivan's liaisons job to make sure M. Sullivan is doing what he is supposed to.
Neuzil asked how they can make the Jail a higher priority than other things. M. Sullivan said they need to start saying no on other things. Neuzil said a lot of little things bog them down and it is very frustrating. M. Sullivan said there are certain expectations because they are elected officials. Sometimes some of the constituents do not want to talk to anyone else but the Supervisors. Neuzil said there is no question in his mind that people are frustrated that the Jail issue is still ongoing. Harney said the priority was to do alternatives to the Jail, but now it these alternatives are too expensive. Neuzil said rural economic development could be a priority of the Planning and Zoning Department. Neuzil said they have a meeting with Planning and Zoning on August 26, 2008 where they could discuss these things.
Adjourned at 10:37 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2008
By Nancy Tomkovicz, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on March 20, 2008 at 10:30 a.m.