Douglas County Personnel, Legal, and Management Committee report

By Jim Allen
Subcommittee report
The Douglas County Personnel, Legal, and Management Committee was called to order at 9:02 a.m. on December 3, 2019 with Tom Glenn (chair), Jim Mikeworth, and Don Munson present.  Committee member Phil Morris was absent. The first order of business was to recommend reappointment of Judy Pollock as the Health Insurance Administrative Liaison at a stipend of $7,500 for the period of 1-1-20 to 12-31-20. 

A contract with Janine Garrett to act as the Public Defender for the coming year was discussed.  The budget for the proposed contract is $66,100.00.  The committee decided to defer a recommendation to the full board until Judge Broch is contacted to approve the contract.

The committee made a motion to recommend to the full board that the county would opt out of marijuana sales in incorporated areas of the county.  Incorporated cities and villages may choose to allow marijuana sales and the county will consider a county tax on any sales within corporate limits.

Most of the meeting concerned appointments to the Douglas County Health Board.   Amanda Minor asked that Nancy Simpson and Jeremy Leonard be reappointed as directors and that Ada Gingrich be appointed to replace Carol Miller. At this time Don Munson was concerned that he had not received replies from the proposed directors answering questions that he had.  He was expecting to interview the candidates since an email inquiry was not answered.  Amanda Minor stated that her understanding of the email did not require such an interview.  Amanda apologized and stated that never in 15 years had the county board questioned the qualifications of proposed Health Board directors.  At this time, Nancy Simpson has served on the Health Board for since 1995 and Jeremy Leonard has served for the last year.  Further, Amanda stated that she was very familiar with Ada Gingrich since she has worked at the Health Center for many years. Amanda also feels Ada’s close relationship with the Amish community is a great benefit. In further discussion, it was noted that Carol Miller, who had resigned in January of this year thought that Ada would be a very good fit for the Health Department.  It was also mentioned that Ada would be representing the same constituents that had been represented by Carol Miller. Don Munson stressed that he was not comfortable accepting the appointments until he could speak to them about their views.  

A good amount of time was spent discussing the workings of the County Health Department and their mission before returning to the matter of new directors.  Without new directors, the Health Board does not have a quorum and will not be able to pay bills that are due.  Don Munson insisted on a face-to-face meeting with the proposed directors and Amanda Minor will coordinate a meeting to meet that request.  After some further discussion, the PLM committee felt that Nancy Simpson could be recommended to the County Board as a director, however, the other two approvals will be depending on the meeting with the PLM committee.  This meeting will not be able to be held at the regular time of all County Board meetings of 9:00 a.m. Both proposed Directors work and early morning meetings are difficult for interested parties to attend. The time and place of the special PLM committee will be announced at a later date.