Dunn County supervisors review rewrite of board rules; no final vote taken

Dunn County supervisors spent a large portion of the March 12 executive committee meeting reviewing a proposed rewrite of the county's rules of the board, with members raising questions about special meetings, the vice chair's authority and enforcement of closed-session confidentiality.

The draft, prepared as a merge of Dunn County's existing rules and model language from county associations, was presented in sections. Supporters said the rewrite aims to modernize wording, reduce ambiguity and bring the ordinance into closer alignment with state statute. Opponents pressed for limits on expanding the chair's informal powers and sought clearer language on remote participation and quorum rules.

The rewrite matters because it would set formal procedures for how supervisors place items on the agenda, how special meetings are called and the authority available to chair and vice-chair when committee membership prevents a quorum. That affects how quickly the board can act on time-sensitive matters and how disputes over procedure are resolved.

Committee members and staff discussed several substantive changes in the draft. The proposal adds an explicit petition pathway for placing items on the county board agenda without following the traditional committee route; it clarifies notice and timing for petition-driven special meetings; it incorporates model-rule language on meeting scheduling and clerk responsibilities; and it relocates committee membership lists to appendices so those lists can be updated without reworking the rules text.

Supervisor Kinnear raised a specific procedural concern about the proposed language that would give the vice chair full authority to preside and vote in the chair's absence. Kinnear said, "It gives even more power to the position of the board chair'... I would just ask you to think about it, and just eliminating this completely." Several other supervisors noted they preferred keeping the option available to avoid cancelled meetings when quorum problems arise.

Members also flagged a drafting issue the presenter acknowledged: model rule text in one draft paragraph used language that could be read to make the county manager an executive rather than the current administrative coordinator-style role. The presenter said the language will be corrected to match Dunn County's current governance model before the next review.

On closed-session confidentiality, committee members asked for stronger enforcement language. One supervisor said local practice and the state's lack of an enforcement mechanism mean the county should include a mechanism in its own rules to protect sensitive deliberations.

The committee did not vote on the rewrite. The presenter said sections 3 and 4 and the appendices will be brought back in a future meeting, and that staff will supply clarified wording and additional options for members to consider. Committee members asked staff to circulate revised language and to highlight any passages that would change current practice rather than simply restate it.

The rules-rewrite review will continue at a future executive committee meeting; no ordinance amendments were adopted on March 12.