Vernon County committee recommends naming Brandon as highway safety coordinator

The Vernon County Highway Safety Committee voted April 2, 2025 to recommend that the county board designate a highway safety coordinator — identified in the meeting only by the first name Brandon — to satisfy state statutory guidance.

Committee members said the role is largely a formal designation required by state statute and would centralize responsibility for maintaining crash data and producing recommendations. "If you look at state statute, it's one sentence. It says the county board may designate said person. Doesn't say who, so just trying to get in line with things and make sure we're compliant with everything," said the committee chair during the discussion.

The committee cited Wisconsin Stat. 83.013(1)(a) in its discussion, which the group summarized as permitting the county board to appoint members to a traffic safety commission and directing the commission to designate a person to prepare and maintain a crash/spot map. A committee member read aloud the statute during the meeting and noted the coordinator would likely be responsible for collecting and maintaining crash location data and recommending corrective actions to the county board and other local agencies.

Committee members said the designation is primarily a title and record-keeping assignment rather than new paid staff; they noted the county board chair or county administrator historically makes formal appointments. The committee voted "aye" to forward the recommendation to the county board (recorded in the meeting as unanimous; the count of votes was not specified in the transcript).

Committee members also discussed statutory membership for a traffic safety commission and the need to identify a law representative; they agreed to table the specific naming of a law representative and to ask local municipalities and potential candidates to return names at the next quarterly meeting.

Next steps: the committee will forward its recommendation that the county board appoint Brandon as highway safety coordinator and will return to the committee's next quarterly meeting with candidate names for the law representative role.