Community Development: May 4th

The first Community Development Committee meeting was on May 4th at 9 am. Both the Chair and Vice-Chair positions had 2 people nominated -- Steve Hermsen was elected as the Chair and Sharon Norton-Bauman was elected as the vice-Chair. I was the only nominee for Secretary. A department secretary takes the actual notes, which is good because I am bad about taking detailed notes.

There was a lot of discussion about the meeting schedule. Some of the issues involved include:

• Half of the departments that report to this committee are stationed in Baldwin and the rest are stationed in Hudson.
• One of the committee members has has reduced vision and has more difficultly driving a distance at night (Hudson is ok but Baldwin is far).
• Evening meetings are better for working committee members and, more importantly, most residents.
• Alternating meeting locations could be more confusing (both for committee members and the public)
• Meetings in Baldwin are more convenient for some residents
• There are sometimes public hearings that are generally held at the location (Hudson or Baldwin) that is closest to land in question.
• The county board bylaws dictate that the payment to the committee members (per diam) is more if the meeting starts before 6pm and ends after 6pm.

We couldn't find a perfect way to address all of those issues so we decided that the best way was to have meetings starting at 6:05 PM and alternate between Baldwin and Hudson on the 4th Wednesday of the month. Any public hearing would be scheduled right at the beginning of the meeting for the convenience of those involved. If the next scheduled meeting location isn't the closest for the public meeting, the people involved can decide to wait to have it closer or to have it sooner and farther. I hope the per-diam rule can be changed to we can have the meetings starting a little earlier without paying the committee members more. The next meeting will be in Baldwin on May 26th.

As a new member, I received 5 different books. I hope in the future an online reference can be provided instead of using all of that paper.