Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Governance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Pine County board adopts updated operating guidelines with clarified statutory citations
Summary
The Pine County Board approved revised operating guidelines that add a prohibition on slander in public forum language and replace vague wording with a requirement that amendments require a 'simple majority vote of the members'; county attorney recommended technical statutory citation updates which were incorporated.
The Pine County Board voted to adopt revised county board operating guidelines after staff incorporated Committee of the Whole comments and the county attorney suggested technical edits. The changes include a public forum provision stating it is unacceptable for speakers to slander or engage in character assassination, clarified mileage and expense-submit language, and updated Minnesota statutory citations where older references had been repealed.
Board members discussed whether "an affirmative vote of the members" meant a simple majority or a supermajority; the board agreed to replace the phrase with "a simple majority vote of the members" and clarified that expense forms must be submitted "no later than 60 days after the end of each month." The county attorney requested consistent statutory citation formatting ("Minnesota Statutes, section ...") and suggested adding additional permitted reasons references for closed-session citations.
A motion to approve the guidelines passed by roll call vote after a motion from Commissioner Ludwig and a second by Commissioner Waldheim. Commissioners directed staff to have the county attorney finalize the technical edits and to post the adopted guidelines on the county website and provide printed copies for commissioners and staff.
What happens next: staff will incorporate the attorney's technical edits, publish the guidelines on the county website, and make paper copies available to commissioners and interested members of the public.
