Brookings County Commission approves agenda, enters executive session on personnel and legal counsel

The Brookings County Commission approved its meeting agenda and voted to enter an executive session to discuss personnel matters and legal counsel during its regular meeting Tuesday at 10 a.m., commission records show.

The move to approve the agenda was made, seconded and carried by voice vote. During the agenda review commissioners noted that item 5, the executive session, would include legal counsel in addition to personnel discussions. Following the agenda approval the commission opened the public-comment portion of the agenda and recorded that no members of the public had signed up to speak.

A motion to enter executive session was made and seconded under South Dakota Codified Laws §1-25-2(1) and (3) — the statute governing executive sessions for personnel and legal counsel — and carried by voice vote with commissioners answering "aye." The commission did not record roll-call vote totals or identify individual movers and seconders in the meeting minutes supplied in the transcript.

Executive sessions under SDCL 1-25-2 are closed to the public; the transcript does not disclose what, if any, actions or directions resulted from the closed session. The agenda and the record in the transcript do not specify a subsequent public report or next steps from the executive session, and no start-to-finish time for the closed session was listed in the supplied transcript.

The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and proceeded through the agenda items listed on the commission's agenda; no formal public-comment statements were made during the allotted five-minute per-person slot because no speakers had signed in.