Will they allow us to speak on budget night? They should. They might, if you tell them that is what you want! Your help is needed to make Dane County Government more open, accessible and transparent! Email you county board supervisors today!
The county board has rules they operate by and they encourage them to only be changed once every two years – otherwise they need a super-majority vote. The time to change the rules is Tuesday night! There have been several changes suggested by the Executive Committee, but the more important and necessary and effective amendments are being proposed by Supervisor Heidi Wegleitner.
Heidi’s email will explain better than I can!
Dear engaged Dane County residents,Tuesday the newly elected Dane County Board will convene for the first time. I am humbled by and grateful for the opportunity to represent District 2 for a fourth term. At this first meeting on Tuesday, called our Organizational Meeting, we elect our leadership and vote on County Board Rules. It takes place at 7 PM in room 201 of the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.Below is an email I just sent to county supervisors asking for their support of my amendments to: (1) prohibit scheduling of meetings on countywide and statewide election dates; (2) require video recording standing committee meetings in their regular locations; and (3) permit public comment at one County Board meeting at the end of the budget process (after Personnel & Finance votes).If you support these amendments, please let the board know before Tuesday’s meeting. You can email all supervisors at county_board_recipients@co.dane.wi.us You can also find individual contact info for supervisors and email all supervisors from the county board webpage. https://board.countyofdane.com /Supervisors It is helpful to include your address on your email, especially if you are outside District 2. 🙂 Thanks!Heidi——-
Via bcc to county_board_recipients@co.dane.wi.us (Intended as one-way communication; please do not reply.)Dear Supervisors:
I appreciate the Executive Committee’s work on proposed changes to Chapter 7 that will be before us on Tuesday. I strongly support their proposed rule change to require public comment at all meetings where a new amendment is posted to the agenda. I write, though, to respectfully request your support for three (3) amendments to the County Board rules that I intend to move at our organizational meeting on Tuesday. They are all contained in a substitute amendment that is posted with the agenda in legistar. Here is a direct link to the sub, though I plan to move them as separate amendments.
1. My first amendment is to prohibit the scheduling of meetings of the county board and committees on the date of any countywide or statewide election. We currently prohibit scheduling meetings only on dates of general elections and allow scheduling of meetings on primary election dates. This past February we had a primary for supreme court and this coming August we will have a partisan primary for governor. These are very important elections impacting every municipality and ward in Dane County. Accordingly, I think it is important to do what we can to encourage strong voter participation and support poll workers and others working to protect the right to vote. In the last 5 years, there have been 7 primaries that have been either statewide or countywide. Based on those figures, this amendment would remove an average of 1.4 dates from the annual calendar for meeting scheduling. I know it can sometimes be challenging to schedule meetings, but this is a small sacrifice. I think it is well worth adopting this amendment to demonstrate our continued commitment to encouraging voter participation and removing barriers to voting.2.. The second amendment requires video recording of most of the standing committee meetings starting next year. I have considered feedback regarding the challenge of video-recording meetings that occur at various locations and created an exception for those meetings. I have also postponed the effective date to January 1, 2019 to allow us to cover the associated costs in the 2019 budgets. (I attempted to get this in the 2018 budget, but was unsuccessful.) The capital cost of outfitting all the regular standing committee meeting rooms is $244,000 and the operating cost to record is approximately $42,840. I know the budget process is competitive, but I think we’d all benefit from being able to watch many of the standing committee meetings, particularly those that we aren’t on and have difficulty attending. I also think this would be an excellent way to increase the transparency of our work and provide access to folks who might want to attend our meetings, but face barriers including, but not limited to geography, transportation, work schedules, child care, and disabilities.Let me be really clear about my intentions with this amendment. The primary goal is to provide transparency, it is not intended as a primary strategy for community engagement.. I fully support efforts to enhance community engagement by holding meetings in the community, supporting funding for more constituent mailings, using social media, and removing barriers to committee and public hearing participation. While this language only requires recording of standing committees, outfitting the meeting rooms with cameras provides an opportunity for other committee meetings to also be recorded, at least on occasion, in the future. I have pasted the amendment language below and attached the 2018 budget amendments for your review.Effective January 1, 2019, all standing committee meetings shall be video recorded and made available with the minutes in Dane County’s legislative tracking system, t except as otherwise provided in this section. (a) A meeting taking place at a special location that is not the regular meeting venue based on an agenda item specific to that location shall be exempt from the video recording requirement. (b) No meeting shall be scheduled at a special location with the intention to avoid the video recording requirement. (c) All meetings where the annual budget resolutions are considered shall be held at the committee’s regular location and shall be video recorded.During the 2018 Budget Process, the League of Women Voters supported the video recording amendments and communicated the following:The League of Women Voters of Dane County strongly supports this amendment. We note that, given the proliferation of local government meetings and issues, providing citizens’ access to important discussions without requiring them to be present at the meeting is an important step toward government transparency. The League of Women Voters of Dane County believes that wider access to new technologies that can preserve and disseminate the discussions at the Dane County standing committees would reinforce citizens’ rightful opportunities to learn about the choices and actions of County government.3. The third amendment requires public comment at one (1) county board meeting on the budget resolutions after the Personnel & Finance Committee votes on the budget. As you know, there are many budget amendments recommended by standing committees that do not make it into the final budget package that the Personnel & Finance Committee votes on and recommends to the County Board. In my three terms on the County Board there have been very few, if any, changes to the budget amendment package that is proposed and voted on in P&F and then approved by the County Board. I appreciate that we have added an October public hearing on the budget to our process, but there is a lot up in the air in mid-October and most of the standing committees have not even voted on their amendments.. In other words, there is a lot of change that occurs between that mid-October hearing and our mid-November budget vote. I think we should have at least one meeting where the public can speak to the full County Board after Personnel & Finance acts and before we vote.Thank you for your attention to this email and I look forward to discussing these further at Tuesday’s meeting.HeidiHeidi M. WegleitnerDane County Board, District 2608-333-3676
