THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!!!! THE CAPTAIN WAS IN FULL REGALIA AT THE RECENT SPECIAL BOARD MEETING...

First, did you even know that there was a Town Board Special Meeting on April 23rd? NOT SO OBVIOUS! Unfortunately, it appears that only some, not all, individuals on the special notification list received their notice of this meeting. It was also reported to NOT be on the Township Calendar on the website. Since the Township is operating without any clerk, this could be a reason.

Did you know that being on this list and being notified of certain topics or special meetings is not a local courtesy, but a state requirement of the Township? The new Board Chair has been apprised of this. Look for improvement in the very near future! How can citizens be up-to-date on meetings' content if they do not even know of all the meetings?



Let's take the most obvious item from the meeting first, which happened to be the third agenda item that evening. For the longest time, the Board has asked Darrel Gilmer, Building Official, to turn in his list of open permits. After many months, that was finally done.

We all owe Supervisor Lu Barfknecht a big THANK YOU as apparently she alone took the initiative to go through all the items on the submitted invoice of $8,758.22. Upon doing so, she noticed quite a few discrepancies and errors. She discussed all these with the Board on the 23rd.



By motion, the Board adjusted the invoice amount from $8,758.22 to $1,869.12!! That's a difference of $6,889.10, Folks.

Supervisor Ceminsky is the primary Building Official contact person for the Board. His comment? "Darrel realizes he made some mistakes."

Now, that DID seem obvious! The primary attorney contact person on the Board reviews the attorney's bills; why doesn't the primary Building Official contact person do the same? It was only after Supervisor Barfknecht alerted the Board to the problem that Ceminsky aided her in examining the bill. (It is of interest that Supervisor Butch Hansen didn't seem to think Barfknecht should even be involved in examining the bill more closely! This, after she did all that work! And no one else seems to have done so! I don't get the logic.)

Of course, ultimately, the entire Board is responsible for approving any expenditures, whether for a light bulb or a litigation. Yet another reason that Barfknecht could and should be involved.


OBVIOUS #2

The Board's second agenda item was to approve a job description for the clerk openings. One of the main challenges that the previous clerks had was in fulfilling the role of Zoning Administrator. 

First, know that under the Ordinances, the Clerk IS the Zoning Administrator. This requires familiarity with planning and zoning and a thorough knowledge of Eureka's Ordinances. This enables the Clerk (and the Deputy Clerk in the Clerk's absence) to answer questions, to be sure all applications are completely filled out and ready for Planning Commission (PC) review, and to refer persons to the appropriate portion of the Ordinances.

Without someone reliably doing those jobs thoroughly, the Planning Commission was left in the position of checking all applications for completeness ahead of its meetings (not its job), which very frequently resulted in having to ask the Clerk to contact applicants to alert them ahead of the PC meeting that something was missing from their applications. Applicants then often had a narrow window (Thursday, PC "packet day" to the meeting day five days later with a weekend in between) to complete the application forms. When an application comes before the Planning Commission, they should not have the unfortunate task of informing the applicant that information is missing and delaying action. This makes the Commission appear obstructive when it certainly is NOT.

So without someone to fulfill the Zoning Administrator (ZA) duties, the Commission's work (especially the Chair's) becomes that much harder than it should be. I also believe that this is not providing citizens with responsible government.



OKAY, SO FAST FORWARD TO TO THE JOB DESCRIPTION. Instead of making absolutely sure this aspect was clear to position applicants before they applied, the job description had NO MENTION of the Zoning Administrator role! I have spoken to this point publicly at meetings and still there was no mention that the Clerk functions as the ZA.

What did Supervisor Hansen say to the Chair about my question? "We'll handle that in the interview." More Captain Obvious. The interview is a LITTLE LATE to inform applicants that the job they have applied for also encompasses this whole other aspect. Ultimately, the Board agreed to add "Zoning Administrator" to the description.


LAST "OBVIOUS" FROM THIS MEETING

One of the items on the agenda for this special meeting was the Building Official contract. If you have been in the loop, you would know that the Board immediately before the current one had already by motion hired MNSpect as the official. However, in what I and other observers considered an OBVIOUS ploy, "certain individuals" dragged their feet and dragged their feet, objecting to this or that and not being ready to approve the contract until the new Board was in place. Because of the delays, the contract had been pretty much finalized, but not actually signed yet. The new Board membership then decided that they wanted to send out a Request For Professional Services (RFP) for Building Officials even though this had already been done. It happens that Scott Qualle of MNSpect was the only one responding to that RFP. Again, it was OBVIOUS to any attendees at meetings from their words and actions that "certain individuals" did not like this situation.

One citizen, a former Commissioner and Supervisor, even stated at a recent meeting that the Board hadn't sent out a "proper" RFP in the first place. OF COURSE it was a "proper" RFP; it just happens that this particular person seems to have an issue with the one responding firm! He has even made public derogatory statements about Mr. Qualle on more than one occasion. There's a whole history to that which has been discussed at Board meetings of late.

The Board is offering a one-year contract that has a thirty-day notice for termination. The intent-at least at ONE meeting- was stated to be to continue with Darrel Gilmer on a short-term, monthly basis until a new Building Official can be interviewed and hired. Supervisor Ceminsky stated that Gilmer "did not want to have to come in and sign a contract every month." Gilmer would presumably be stopping in often with inspections reports anyway, so I don't see the hardship.

I do not think that the RFP has gone out yet; it is possible that Gilmer could be around for another full year. SEE OBVIOUS NUMBER 1!!

Also of note is that it was stated at the special Board meeting that Gilmer wanted to deal with Ceminsky and Hansen only. Supervisor Barfknecht pointed out that Supervisor Palmquist was the secondary Building Official contact person, not Hansen. Again, is it not OBVIOUS that the supervisors that the Building Official would work with are the contact persons for that governmental function? Apparently, not immediately. Eventually Ceminsky and Palmquist were designated (once AGAIN) to be the two Gilmer would work with.

Supervisor Barfknecht raised the interesting question that was in my mind as well-Why would the Township hire a tail to wag the dog in an inspector who says he wants to deal with just two specific supervisors ONLY? The Building Official is ultimately answerable to the entire Board. He doesn't have the role of narrowing with whom he is willing to work, surely.