The Anoka County Board opened the new year with the chair calling for unity and a new leadership model that would rotate the roles of chair and vice chair among commissioners.

The chair said the board is “present and accounted for” and urged colleagues to “tackle this and jump in with me” to pursue solutions “in a fashion that we probably haven't done for a really long time.” He acknowledged the board’s members have personal political proclivities but emphasized that county offices are nonpartisan and said he wants to work with the new leadership team to ‘‘put together a leadership model where we're gonna work together to solve a lot of problems.”

Vice Chair Commissioner Mandy Meisner, who spoke after the chair, said she and other commissioners have long advocated a rotating‑chair practice to remove politics from committee leadership. “It puts serving the public first,” Meisner said, calling the approach a way to reduce centralized power and make county government less partisan. She added that while commissioners have the right to political affiliation, “the problem is when we get our own personal politics in the way from serving the public.”

Meisner also referenced recent violent incidents involving local political figures to underline the need for civility, noting those events as part of her appeal for less personalization of politics. She said a rotating‑chair structure could help the board “work together to serve our communities” and described the change as a way to ‘‘break the status quo in Anoka County and usher in a new era.”

The board discussed procedural details for implementing the model, including possible rotation schedules and carrying forward committee reports from the 2025 chairs into early 2026 meetings so transitions remain transparent. Commissioners later thanked outgoing committee leads for past service and said the committees of the whole structure has increased participation across members.

The meeting record shows no formal vote on adopting a rotating‑chair policy at this session; the remarks were presented as leadership priorities and a proposal for future procedural changes.