From my desk

Bob Williams

Over the past year, I have made a concerted effort to personally cover government at the county level. Given the fact our paper’s coverage area includes two towns in different counties, that makes for a regular schedule of at least four meetings per month that last 2-3 hours, added to the usual city council, school board, economic development authority meetings and others.

When I first began covering county government back in 2008, I was strictly covering Otter Tail County in Fergus Falls. They were easy to cover and still are.

The OTC Commissioners livestream their bi-monthly meetings and are an excellent example of how to efficiently and respectfully operate as a governing body. They are not perfect, but I encourage people to watch one of their meetings and then check out the neighbors. 

From the precise adherence to their schedule, to the respect shown to the chair from fellow commissioners and his return level of respect for them and those who come before the board to speak, it’s really a refreshing change for someone who is charged with covering 100 meetings per year.

Over time, my observations shifted more to the process of how these different agencies run their meetings, and thus, their towns, counties, committees etc., combined with the actions of the people elected to run said meetings. Some are a little laid back. Some adhere strictly to procedure and then there are some that are just plain crazy.

I’m willing to talk about these things openly, especially when the people in charge of where you live are not doing what they were charged to do upon being elected or are conducting that business with a distinct and noticeable lack of professionalism or priority.

Upon doing so, I get flooded with everything from like-minded opinions to dirty looks and anonymous phone calls saying the exact opposite is true and I’m the one who is crazy. Which makes it even more interesting when people say, “Thank you for saying something.”

I am not here to be the end-all decider on what’s right or wrong, but I have a platform to say something and I hope it causes others to pay more attention to how their city or county is run.

I received an assortment of feedback on last week’s column about the Frazee City Council.

It ran the gamut of, “Not everyone agrees with you!” to “You’re spot on!”

As these comments were shared in-person in our office, replayed on a voicemail, or read in an email, there was a distinct tone to each one. The column got people a little worked up on both sides. 

Good! Look at you, caring about your local government in the middle of the holiday season. I like it.

For me, the schedule continues on to the next meeting and what I found there made the minor conundrum in Frazee seem quite small and insignificant when compared to this week’s actions of the Becker County Board of Commissioners.

It’s not good when in the meeting the chairman will openly admit that the board is “fractured.”

It got so bad, there were accusations of illegal activity from one commissioner to others. 

Feel free to go to YouTube and look it up or read the summary in this week’s edition of our paper.

The easiest thing to do is ignore it, but the basis of the meeting and how far it went away from that purpose had me on the edge of my seat. 

Sitting through it made me wonder how anything could ever get done in Becker County with these people running the show.

The topic at hand was an annual evaluation of the County Administrator Pat Oman.

Oman seemed like a side-thought during the hour-long discussion that was meant to be a professional assessment of his duties over the past year in comparison to his job description. 

Hanging in the balance was his job.

I want to credit Mr. Oman for somehow sitting through that mess and remaining silent. Perhaps, he was as baffled as I was.

Commissioners accused each other of this and that, some blamed Oman for what they could, others stood up for Oman and his record, the chairman stated Oman was one of the reasons the board was “fractured” and in the end, the commissioners failed at evaluating anything, made no decision at all, tabling it until January.

Mr. Oman is currently sitting on a job offer from Fort Meade, Fla, to be their new city manager. After surviving that commissioner’s meeting last week I would not blame the man for packing his bags immediately and hitting the road to the Sunshine State. 

But first, I would encourage him and others to listen to Joe Turner’s podcast about Fort Meade at www.citymanagerunfiltered.com/

In introducing me to the episode, Mr. Turner described the governing body of the Florida city of 6,000 residents as, “Fort Meade is a toxic dumpster fire.”

I’ve seen some actions and heard some words that have me taken aback, at times, but I can’t imagine using those specific terms to describe any of the governing entities in the towns or counties in our area.

It goes to show that things can always be worse and we can all hope to see improvements in 2024.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!