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Leelanau County board elects Mark Walter as vice-chair, adopts conflict-of-interest agenda item and public-comment limits
Summary
At its Jan. 6 organizational session the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners elected Commissioner Mark Walter as vice-chair and approved several amendments to its 2026 Rules of Order, including adding a required agenda item for conflict-of-interest declarations and tightening public-comment timeframes.
The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners elected Commissioner Mark Walter as vice-chair and adopted multiple changes to its 2026 Rules of Order at the board’s organizational session on Jan. 6.
Chairman Steve Yoder called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. After nominations, a roll-call vote elected Walter as vice-chair (Walter 4 votes; Wessell 3 votes). "Nominations are closed," Yoder said before the roll call; the tally declared Walter vice-chair.
The board then considered a package of procedural amendments proposed by Commissioner William Bunek. The measures included changing a committee time window to 9:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m., clarifying that members of the public may address committees for up to three minutes (longer at the chairperson’s discretion), and reaffirming that motions must be seconded before debate. Each of those motions passed on recorded votes.
A separate effort to add a declaration of conflict of interest to all agendas failed on a 2–5 vote when moved by Commissioner Alan Campbell. Later, Commissioner Mark Walter moved to add a "declaration of conflict of interest" to regular, executive and committee meeting agendas; that motion passed and was incorporated into the Rules as adopted. "I think this is such an important topic that we should handle it by itself," Campbell said when explaining his initial request for separate handling of a health-care presentation on the agenda.
The board also approved removing consent-agenda items from the executive agenda and set a one-minute public-comment period for general county business in addition to three-minute comments on agenda items.
The rules, as amended, were accepted by unanimous vote. The board then approved the 2026 meeting schedule and related committee assignments.
The changes take effect for the board’s 2026 meetings; the board asked staff to reflect the amendments in published agenda templates and the county’s rules documentation.
