Ice Out Day?

In my limited (26 year) experience, the ice leaves our local lakes on or about April 15.  It's the 19th today, and Wapogasset is still pretty iced-up, though the ice is getting darker.  Maybe with a little rain and a warm day today, we could see the ice go within the next day or so.  I'm ready.  Our daughter Margaret called from Minneapolis on Friday to ask whether we were going to have  the boat in the lake this weekend, so she's ready, too.  It's been a long winter.

The Governor's Fishing Opener is coming to Wapogasset on May 3.  Let's hope Governor Doyle won't have to bring his ice auger.

Update:  Ice out day this year, at least on the southerly part of Lake Wapogasset, was April 24th.  Some of our neighbors to the north of our place said they still had ice on the 24th, but I think most, if not all, had disappeared by the morning of April 25.  Pretty late this year.  

Reducing the Size of the County Board

This idea has been suggested before, but Fred Grimm's letter in the April 16 edition of the Inter-County Leader, along with Gary King's editorial response, raises the question again: Should we reduce the size of the Polk County Board of Supervisors?
I explored the idea of reducing the size of the Board with several of my constituents during my first election campaign, and received mostly positive comments. Supervisors, on the other hand, were cool toward the idea, pointing out that a supervisor on a smaller board would have to serve on more committees. Mr. King speculates that fewer County Board seats would create more competition for those seats. That may be true, but maybe not, if the workload increases and the pay remains constant at present levels, which is to say "not much". If it's hard to find volunteers to serve now, increasing the workload hardly makes it likely that more qualified candidates will be interested in service on a smaller Board. It may turn out that we will need to pay Supervisors a modest salary and expect competence in return. Mr. King states that U. S. Senators can find the time to meet with constituents in all 72 Counties. The Senate is a full-time job. Senators are paid a handsome salary. It's hard to make meaningful comparisons between the two positions.
Let's face it, if we reduce the County Board from 23 Bozos to 9 Bozos, you still have a roomful of clowns, and you haven't accomplished a thing.
Obviously, we need to do something about the headaches created for our unfortunate department heads who have to deal with Supervisors who have no clue whatsoever what is going on until they serve for a couple of years. Then, just when they become fairly well-acquainted with how the department operates, there is another election, at which time they are defeated (often, ironically, by someone who thinks the Board can cut costs if only they are elected), and process starts over again. The truth is that the Highway Department Facility controversy was caused, at least in part, by lack of continuity in leadership, which resulted in a failure to properly maintain the facility.
If the Board continues to "micro-manage" the departments, we are doomed to repeat our recent history, over and over, without learning anything from our past experience.
I've concluded that Polk County needs a full-time professional administrator along with fewer inexperienced, well-meaning but uninformed, cooks in the County kitchen spoiling the broth. Let's reduce the size of the Board of Supervisors, as suggested by Mr. Grimm. A necessary element of this plan, though, would be to hire a professional administrator to take care of the day-to-day decision-making and bring some measure of continuity to our County government.
Reducing the size of the Board would be a mistake unless the day-to-day administration is also taken over by a professional administrator.
Anyone interested in exploring what has happened in other Wisconsin counties, let me know. We'll set up a meeting to look into the idea more closely.

A puff of white smoke...

The Polk County Board organizational meeting began this morning at 9:00 a.m. and concluded at about 6:30 this evening.  

Bryan Beseler was elected Chair by a 15-7 vote over outgoing Chair Larry Jepsen.  First Vice-Chair will be Keith Radiske with a 14-8 tally over Pat Schmidt.  Second Vice-Chair will be Pat Schmidt, with 12 votes to Gerald Newville's 8 votes.

Turning to committee assignments, five elected positions were filled on the Highway Committee,  which will consist of the following Supervisors, Jay Luke, Arthur Gamache, Marvin Caspersen, Herschel Brown and Dean Johansen.  

Several rounds of balloting were needed to elect five members for the Finance Committee.  Three Supervisors were elected to join Chairman Beseler and one appointed member, Gary Bergstrom.  Elected were Katherine Kienholz, Mick Larsen, and Brian Masters.  

Personnel membership includes First Vice-Chair Radiske, two appointed members, Russ Arcand and Pat Schmidt, and two elected members, Jerry Newville and Herschel Brown.

Chairman Beseler will also serve on the Property, Forestry and Recreation Committee.  In previous Boards, the County Board Chair appointed two members of the Property, Forestry and Recreation Committee, and two more were elected by the Board.  Because the committee faces important work over the next two years, the Board decided that Beseler should have a position on that committee.  Joining Beseler will be the two appointed members, Joan Peterson and Larry Jepsen.  Two more Supervisors were elected to serve on this committee, Mick Larsen and Russ Arcand. 

Land & Water/Land Quarry/Extension membership consist of two appointed members, Dean Johansen, and Katherine Kienholz, along with two elected members, Larry Jepsen and myself.

Public Protection will be overseen by appointed members Jay Luke and Brian Masters, along with elected members Kim O'Connell, Neil Johnson, and Joan Peterson.

Land Information Committee appointments were Kim O'Connell, Pat Messicci and Arthur Gamache.  Ken Sample and Keith Radiske were elected to this committee.

The Golden Age Manor Board was re-constituted although the previous Board voted to sell the care facility.  That sale has not yet closed, so the county must continue to operate the facility.  Pat Schmidt,  (a vocal supporter of the sale) will serve on the Golden Age Manor Board because she is the Second Vice-Chair.  Joining her are appointed member Jerry Newville.  Bob Dueholm was elected to serve.

Human Services Committee will have appointed members Ken Sample, Marvin Caspersen and myself.  Elected to the committee were Jim Edgell and Pat Messicci.

Jim Edgell and Bob Dueholm were appointed to the Health & Aging Committee, while Neil Johnson and Gary Bergstrom were elected to positions.

We spent a great deal of time going through proposed amendments to the Rules of Order in an effort to avoid some of the problems we had during the last County Board.  We made some changes that I think will help the Board run more smoothly.

We voted to continue the Ad-Hoc Renewable Energy Committee.   After some debate over whether the size of the committee should be reduced because members are paid a $40 per diem to attend meetings, the citizen membership was increased by one to allow former Supervisor Jeff Peterson to continue serving on the committee.  Losing Peterson's contributions to this committee would have been a setback, so I'm glad he will be allowed to continue his service.  Two Supervisors will join Jeff Petersen:  Larry Jepsen and Arthur Gamache.  Six additional citizen members round out the committee.

One of the last items on the agenda was consideration of a Resolution to increase compensation for elected County officials, including the County Clerk, County Treasurer, Register of Deeds, by 3% in 2009 and 2.5% in 2010, 2011, and 2012.  Supervisor Edgell moved to table the Resolution and his motion was seconded by Herschel Brown.  The vote on the motion to table, however, was 7-16, so the motion failed.  Arthur Gamache proposed an amendment to reduce the annual raises to 1.5%.  That amendment passed 14-9.  

Polk County Board of Supervisors

With the April 1, 2008, election, we have some new Polk County Board of Supervisors.  There are nine new members of the board joining 14 returning incumbent supervisors. The nine new members are: Dean Johansen, a Spanish teacher; Herschel Brown, who moved to Polk County recently, having retired from Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado; Katherine Kienholz, a Certified Public Accountant; Patricia Messicci, business consultant; Joan Peterson, a former Wisconsin State Trooper; Jim Edgell, retired businessman and truck driver; Ken Sample, retired from AT&T and a member of the Apple River Town Board; Brian Masters, accountant; and Bob Dueholm, an accountant and a former member of the Wisconsin Assembly.
Three new female Supervisors join Pat Schmidt and me on the Board, so now we have 21.39% female representation on the Polk County Board of Supervisors; but who's counting?
The Tuesday, April 15, Board meeting looks to be an interesting event. A new Board Chair will be selected. (In a break from prior tradition, I'm suggesting that a puff of white smoke from the County Administration Building announce that we have chosen a new leader.) A new Vice-Chair will also be chosen to serve on the Personnel Committee. The second Vice-Chair would serve on the Golden Age Manor Board. Since the County continues to operate the Golden Age Manor, that committee will also be created by the new Board.
We are wondering who will be appointed to serve on the Finance Committee. The new Board Chair will be a member of the Finance Committee, along with one member appointed by the new Chair. Three additional members will be elected by the Board of Supervisors. We have some talent available among the new members, with business people and a handful of accountants joining the Board. The new Finance Committee would be well-advised to break out the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law and read it for comprehension. The former Committee skipped apparently skipped that part of orientation.
Public Protection is a popular committee assignment. Two Supervisors will be appointed by the Chair and three more are elected by the Board.
The remaining committees are Highways; Land & Water/Lime Quarry/Extension; Property/Forestry/Recreation/Solid Waste/Recycling; Board of Health and Aging; Human Services Governing Board; and Land Information. Members of these committees are appointed by the Chair and the remainder are elected by the Board.