Opinion : "These meetings are being interrupted too often," Sincerely, The Interrupter

I was planning a non-working day off on Tuesday, bad idea. Bad. It's Supervisor meeting day. I opened one eye, turned on YouTube and up popped the Supervisor meeting. Expecting a dull and boring meeting...I was wrong.

The Supervisor meeting was underway, making it through the usual business, approving the county engineer's presentations, a cigarette permit for Kimm's Mini-Mart, a claim from Historic Preservation was discussed and tabled all without a hitch.

I turned on the rant-show-meeting-drama just as Vinton Today aka I was accused of one-sided reporting. Both eyes are now open and I started the popcorn. I backed it up to the beginning of this show wondering what I did THIS time. Pardon the lengthy rambling article below. But I sure don't want to be accused of being onesided this one. I also apologize that for printing purposes, this one might take three sheets of paper. You'll get these references if you can last to the end of this.

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The meeting sailed smoothly down to item number eight. The item to "Discuss/Approve Hiring HR Assistant" came up. According to the formality of government, you have to get approval to hire, fire, etc. The County Auditor, Hayley Rippel asked if the position had been approved for this fiscal year.

(In government, the budget year runs from July 1 to the following June 30 rather than a calendar year. Everything that happens in a department must be budgeted for ahead of time. So Rippel was asking if there was money to cover the position for the remainder of this year's budget.)

Jill Marlow, former County Auditor asked if she could comment, and permission was given. She said that she had done research on the ISAC website (Iowa State Association of Counties) about human resources. Marlow said that the ISAC did a survey that indicated that in Iowa out of 99 counties, only 31 counties have Human Resources departments. Two of these have HR as part of the Auditor's office, one county combines it with another office and one county outsources the office. Of the remaining 27 counties, few have additional staff added to those offices.

She said according to the survey, Benton County ranks 24th in population, 14th in HR wages, and we have 125 full-time employees. Marion County is the closest in comparison to size for county staff. They rank 21st in population, their HR department ranks 17th, they have one additional staff with 155 full-time employees. After that it jumps to Cerro Gordo with 222 employees. She asked, "When was the job approved? When was the job description approved? If we're going to lower levies next year as you said in the budget hearing, you have to start controlling expenses now." She felt that there should be research done as to if the added position is really needed.

She also felt like the position could be moved under the Auditor's office, where there would be additional resources already and details of the office could be combined eliminating discussions about things like paperwork coming up on the agenda. She encouraged the board to think outside the box. At the end they didn't.

Supervisor Rick Primmer clarified that in the closed session of Sue Wilber's job review, she had been instructed to begin searching for an assistant. (Well, that's one thing that SHOULD have been discussed in an OPEN meeting, but hey...)

Marlow explained that hiring must go to the board for approval, then the potential hire is placed on an agenda to notify the public of proposed actions by the county. Well, in counties that follow the law that is. But as a famous man said, "This is Benton County."

Wilber argued with Marlow on the logistics and Marlow again pointed out that it had not been approved by the board in an open session.

Ignoring the topic, Wilber jumped to an earlier question. She wanted to know if she had money left in her budget for this year, could she use that for wages for the new hire. "If the money is there, is it okay if she started three weeks early?"

Primmer said, "As long as everyone is in agreement with that.

Supervisor Tracy Seeman asked Wilber if she really needed an assistant already.

Wilber answered, "I would definitely say yes. I think there's plenty of things that need to get done.

Rippel asked where the county was on the "Time and Attendance" computer program. Seeman Seeman explained that it was on him for not communicating with Rippel's office. A contract updated needed to happen so they were waiting on legal expertise.

The gloves came off. Wilber interjected that she had responded to that effect to Rippel. Rippel explained that as Auditor and working with the payroll she works for the Supervisors and needed to take her instruction from them.

Kellie VanRee, asked for clarification on the computer program. VanRee asked, "So what happens when all of that is done? Is there an ongoing need for the hire." Wilber explained that there was. All the questions about time saving, and saving the county money, were poopooed because there would still be a need for a second employee.

Lexa Spiedel, Benton County Recorder, added that she has a small office servicing 25-26,000 residents in the county. She said that she ran her office four or five years before adding a part-time employee. She serves residents daily. She pointed out that HR hasn't even been here a year and only serves 125 full-time employees...140 with part-time. Spiedel pointed out that several departments have worked a number of years without a part-time assistant. "I keep my budget as low as possible and have always tried to."

Supervisor Seeman made a motion to table the action for now with a second by Gary Bierschenk.

Interrupting the board before they could even vote, Wilber asked, "So what are our next steps with it?" Seeman said she would need to make sure there was enough in her 2023 budget to cover the cost. Rippel said that she would email the budget to the supervisors.

At this point former Benton County Attorney Dave Thompson entered with a greeting to Tracy Seeman.

(I feel like I'm writing a TV script) This is where it gets tedious and at the same time the meeting really goes off the rails.

Wilber said that the new hire is a student, and she asked if the new hire was willing to donate her time if that would be an option. The board didn't get a chance to respond.

Primmer greeted Thompson.

For the next 16 minutes the former County Attorney Thompson responded by taking over the meeting. Comments are supposed to be three minutes long, but hey.

"I have a public comment on this issue. If I could interject something for the board. I would like to remind folks that when we started the HR process a little over two years ago I believe, we had a hiring committee. Tracy you were on the hiring committee. And it was discussed in that hiring committee and brought to the board, that there was so much work for the HR Director to do that they would probably need an assistant. And we decided and that was presented by the way in the board meeting. And the board was in agreement. But it was decided that we would let Kirsten who was hired, get up to speed and determine what she needs. That now, all of a sudden, seems like it's ancient history."

Ah, this reminded me of an "anonymous" email from the previous director bashing the Auditor. But back to the scene unfolding in the Supervisor's office.

Thompson continued. "So to answer Ms. Marlow's question from earlier, I can't go back and tell you the exact date the position was approved, but it was approved."

Marlow, "Perhaps the board can tell me."

Thompson, "And they don't have to answer a question on a split second that requires research."

Whose the boss? Oh that's right, NOT the Supervisors who apparently can't control the meeting. Wait, is he still representing them? I don't think so officially, but this is weird. I'm now invested and adding butter to the popcorn.

Marlow, "I didn't ask them to answer it."

Thompson, "And we also have a lot of interruptions going on in these meetings, by the way Board. It's kind of embarrassing if you haven't figured that out."

I choked on my popcorn. Did he just say something about interruptions in the meeting? I rewound it just to make sure and sure enough he did. So anyway, Thompson said the meetings are being interrupted WAAAAAY too much.

Stop it people, let's get some decorum around here I say!

Thompson continued. "So Kirsten was hired, and I would also remind the board of the history. This county struggled through COVID. And its COVID struggles were brought on by the open rebellion of two elected officials to any policy that the board tried to adopt. And that has continued to this day."

Oooooo we have rebellion in the county, and I'm all for it. Rebel away my elected officials. How DARE you represent the lowly peasants and not cater to the rules that have now been proven idiotic. Common sense wins.

He continued. "We actually have elected officials making throat-cutting gestures at employees right now, and you guys should be aware of that. Well, you will be soon. Okay."

Now I know a few people, so I called Hank. "Hey, Hank, do you know about this whole throat cutting episode? Are people threatening people?" He just laughed and laughed. "As a little birdie in the room, I ain't saying, but it's ain't Chicago here in town. The motion was made indicatng that action needed to be taken to end certain behaviors in the courthouse. As in finish. End. Stop."

"Oh," I said, "You mean like the moderator did at the Candidate Forum last weekend when she indicated she needed to quit talking and made a motion across her neck which brought a chuckle. Like that?" Hank said, "Exactly like that."

"So was there a millennial around when this happened?" I asked poor Hank who is just shaking his head. "How'd you know?" he asked. "Just a hunch," I said.

The rambler continued.

"Some things are completely uncalled for. And this full court press against this HR director is ridiculous. Oh, we don't like the HR Director because she wants to have some legal compliance.

This is what we discussed. When we formed that hiring committee a long time ago. We were so far behind the curve, that we needed someone to come in and help us dig out. But it seems like in this board meeting those things are forgotten."

I think I need a glass of milk to go with the popcorn at this point. But I am typing this ALL out for a reason.

"Why is that? You were there. You were there on the second one Mr. Primmer. And Megan Hall, former Assistant County Attorney, who left for greener pastures, unfortunately in Linn County, she chaired that committee. She discussed that, and I know that because I've talked to her, and I've talked to a couple of other people, that was discussed and that was the creation of an assistant openly and it was discussed with your candidate. The thought process was once again, let's let this new person get up to speed and figure out what she needs.

Now she's been here, it's not quite a year yet. My understanding from talking to Megan is that she has the two HR professional designations, one Shirm (sp?) I can't think of the other one, things that on the hiring committees plural, things that we really wanted, okay? She has over 20 years of experience, and yet we have folks coming in and second guessing that have never done one days of duty trying to dig out from the mess that is Benton County.

And somehow, some of the stuff I'm reading, and I'm hearing...Hey Gary, good morning to ya."

Okay, now this was completely disrespectful to Supervisor Bierschenck. I have no idea why Thompson said that, but he did. I can't help it now I'M picturing that stop motion. As a matter of fact, I thought that a lot during today's meeting. But alas, that was not to be. MAKE IT STOP!

Back to Thompson's comments. "This person here is the cause of it? That's absolutely ridiculous. We have had issues going back years, and years, and years and so the one person that comes in, professional that was the number one choice of the hiring committee we have to try to attack her, throw her under the bus for saying what?

I think we should follow the law. What a foreign concept in Benton County. What a foreign concept."

There, there. Law? What is that?

"And I don't know what you're going to do, I was listening today so I thought I'd come in and say hello to my friends like Jill Marlow and Lexa Spiedel, good friends. I've heard enough so I came in and I appreciate this opportunity to come in, but I'd also remind you all the mistakes, and all the harassment that started with COVID from two elected officials. And it's continuing until this day.

And that's why you have lawsuits, and that's why you have more lawsuits out there, that are pending, that they haven't disclosed to the public yet." I assume it's the Hank discussion here, and Hank is just sitting here and rolling his eyes.

"You need HR. This county needs HR. But yet we're going to do the exact opposite aren't we, because we're Benton County."

Well, I guess they've been well-trained. I mean who raised 'em?

"Jill Marlow does have a point by the way, the taxes are too high, okay? And that's what's happened in this board room forever and a day because of the value of our farmland, once the best in the state and the value of being a neighboring county to Linn County. We have all these people that commute in to work, and want to live out in Benton."

I really am trying to keep up here, but patience is getting thin.

"You guys get bailed out every year. Every year. I don't know that you've ever had a year in the last 30 in the last 50 where your tax revenue realized was less than the prior year. We get bailed out every year. So when I hear...I wasn't planning on coming in today guys,"

And yet...

"...but when I hear, 'Oh my goodness, have you really done your research?' to someone who's got over 20 years of experience and is putting up with the stuff that she's having to put up with, 'Are you sure you need this?" or for the first time Mr. Seeman, 'I want to fund it for six months to see how it goes?" It's $15, it's an intern, it's a part-time intern. There's nothing that says the person is going to get 20 hours a week or even 10 hours a week. Yet it's the biggest deal in the world."

The point is being completely missed that the county needs to STOP spending our money when it's not required by law to do so. But what do I know?"

"And this budget by the way, the budget that has all kinds of issues, and Ms. Marlow was right on quite a few of them. All of a sudden we're going to balance and fix the budget on the back of some poor gal, I don't even know what her last name was, at $15 an hour part time. Intern salary. What are we paying interns or the part time help out at Conservation these days? Is it over $15?"

Wait a minute. This is on the back of someone we haven't even hired? Look out people, you could be the next unhired person, watch your backs!

Primmer: "I have no clue."

Thompson: "Well, I'm not quite Ms. Marlow, I'm not going to ask you to answer that right this second, okay, but I bet it's more than $15. But yet, this person, good Lord, and I don't know her, but I'm so glad she didn't have to come in for this."

Ya know, I was thinking the SAME thing at this point.

"'Welcome to Benton County, we don't even want to let an HR intern to get some experience." By the way, we have all kinds of other departments that are stoked, filled with more employees than it needs. Full-time people at very good salaries. But an intern that was discussed over two years ago? The process was to let the HR get up to speed. You were there for it man. You were there Rick for a second time. And you were kept in the loop in all of it, Gary."

Keep applying that pressure to the Supervisors I say! Smack these rebels into line!

"But now it's the biggest issue ever. We're only going to give them a six-month leash and then the HR Director has to come back and report if it's working or not? What other department has that type of restriction? And that is a question I would like an answer to.

You hired people Jill, have you ever had that restriction?"

Marlow: No.

Thompson: I never had that restriction and I was here 24 years, people.

Marlow: "But I also had the permission from the board to even create the position."

Hush there, none of this law talk.

Thompson, "Fine, put it on the agenda next week, in the meantime let the person start, part-time without pay. But it's not the biggest issue in the world. All of a sudden it is the biggest issue in the world why is that? What's the ulterior motive?"

Marlow: "I want budget control. I want taxes lowered."

AND there it is folks. Marlow dared to ask some men to stop, and not be moved to make another decision costing the county money. I'm with her, stop spending my money!

Thompson: "Well then you picked on a Monopoly board, the lowest ranking properties. They're not even properties this position. You've got far bigger issues in this budget than the gal that's..."

Marlow: "Well, you've got to start somewhere!"

To those of us that pinch pennies, this makes complete sense to me.

Thompson: "So this is the hill you're gonna die on and sacrifice this Julia Berry? Wow. Seriously? One other thing."

Oh boy, there's another thing????

"Let's go back in time. We had two elected officials stir up all kinds of issues over COVID. And you will remember gentlemen, how you approached COVID. You worked with the sheriff, you worked with Virginia Gay, you worked with Scott Hansen, and you came up with policies and your policies were pretty reasonable. And they were pretty uniform and pretty similar to counties all across the state in what they were doing.

And you had people who openly rebelled. Two elected officials. And one of those elected officials were actually harassing people and had to be told to stop harassing people. And at that time the board shortly after that decided it was time to move HR out of the Auditor's Department okay? So we talk about the County Auditor can do HR, the Auditor's Office can do HR. Yeah, I could probably build a bridge too. It probably wouldn't be worth a damn."

Speaking of bridges I remember one of the Supervisors once saying that people needed to build a bridge and "get over it." COVID was FIVE years ago. Get out that hammer and nails please!

"Think of all the things you guys are learning from your involvement with Heartland attorneys. About claims that carry attorney's fees, if the suing party is successful, okay? State laws, federal laws ever expanding. But this is the time to throw HR back? That's what the ultimate goal here is. Let's put enough pressure on this Sue person here so she quits. Or let's put enough pressure, I think I actually heard a candidate for office, ask for her resignation one day. Seriously? What a joke. Campaigning in the board room? Good luck to you ma'am. Good luck to ya. Wow. But we're going to go ahead and throw this gal under the bus for trying to enforce the law."

Just a shout out to Kellie VanRee who is running for supervisor. This is the crap you get to deal with if you win. Once in a while there are people who act like this in our public meetings, be sure to get that buzzer out!

The speech continued. "Coming to different departments, including yours Ron Tippett, saying we have some issues. What deputy or what other person, have we ever attacked from about their first two or three months on the job?"

"Oh and one other thing. We all know there's this little gossip blog called, Vinton Today with the anonymous comments, someone puts their initials in and they can say whatever, umm. You know that state's improved quite a bit. It has. I remember as a kid, and as a young adult traveling on highways and such traveling east, west, north and south in Iowa. You didn't have all these mega convenience stores. Pretty clean restrooms. I remember going into the old gas stations that had concrete block walls usually, not painted nicely. With all kinds of crappy stuff, not safe at times for the kids to read, okay? Scrawled. Remember that guys? I think everybody old enough remembers that."

I remember that, I'm THAT old.

"Well then we have the Vinton Today where anybody can post whatever they want, and it can be anonymous and we don't have to say what's true, we don't even have to report what's true. So when you listen to this Ms. Valerie Close and get all ya know, worked up, it would be nice if you could actually be accurate and fair in covering a story from both sides."

How am I doing?

"One other thing about the Vinton Today, I got to thinking about this this morning while I was shaving. You used to say about a newspaper, 'Well, it's not even fit to line my birdcage with.' I got to thinking, ol' Vinton Today, you pay twice if you want to line your birdcage with that publication. Because first you have to read it, that's bad enough, then you have to expend the cost of your own paper and printer to print it off to line your birdcage. But let's go ahead and cue the anonymous comments. let's have our mom post comments on our behalf."

Ya know, I told ol' mom to cut it out, but she just won't stop commenting! She's outta control! Here is where I ponder if I should remind him of which office triggered my change to the website...oh wait, it was his office who wanted to track down commenting folks.

"Let's say things that aren't true, because this person here is the worst person in the world and we have to drive her off. A person that's got degrees, a person that has not one but two professional HR certifications similar to a CPA, the person who was I believe from what Megan told me the unanimous choice, of the hiring committee. Unanimous.

And then one other thing."

Again? How many "one other things are there???"

"We've gone through this before. Because we had a very fine HR professional, Kirsten Nelson here. And we had the same thing. We had open obstruction, of her trying to do her job. Documents that she needed, denied. Shunned. Weaponization of the cameras to check to see who is coming and going from the HR's office and other places.

This county is out of control. But yet the answer seems to be, from the folks that show up or a lot of the folks that show up, we don't need professionalism, we don't need no stinkin' law enforcement. Wow, wow, wow, wow. What an embarrassment. How many more lawsuits do you want?

Because you know you have more out there that the public's not aware of. You gonna drive this gal off too? Is that what you're after? Or are you going to say, 'We're the board of Supervisors and we do control these budgets. And if we have elected officials that are blocking our hired employee from doing the job we hired her to do, that's not right. We'll have to take a stronger look at your budget. And one of the things is you haven't appropriated that budget next year, okay, so if you're going to put conditions on an intern that you're only going to approve for six months, why not go to some of these elected officials that are still to this day in open rebellion to what the board is trying to accomplish and say, 'We need to take a second look at your budget, maybe we're only going to appropriate the first six months and then we'll see where we're at. But you won't do that either will ya."

Ah, that bullying tactic. How DARE you rebels take a step back and really consider a move that isn't necessary.

"Because last thing, this is the last thing."

It wasn't he was just teasin'!

"How many meetings did we have with the first HR director that I was present for and you guys were there where we said, and these were exempt meetings of 20.9 of the Iowa code, where we said, 'We've got to take action to stop what's going on against your first HR Director who was just trying to do the job she was hired to do, a fine professional she was by the way, and still is. And you didn't do anything. You didn't do anything and it doesn't look like you're going to do anything today. Or next week either.

That's how it's playing in Peoria, thank you."

16 minutes later, Primmer resumed the meeting. The board had made a motion and a second to table the appointment so they could look at this year's budget. And then...

Thompson: "Rick could I ask a question?"

I told ya that wasn't it.

"I apologize sir. Why not instead rescind the motion and make the motion to put this on the agenda to approve next week the position, we can all come back and do it again, it's been so much fun, and let's get the HR director, the help that she needs, to try to square this county away, before Heartland gives you folks the boot and you're out on the open market trying to pay for insurance. Because that's where this is going to go. If this board and this county doesn't start complying with the law and working together. "

The meeting continued for a total of 2 hours. In this meeting the board rolled over allowing original records to be kept in the HR office, rather than mere copies of the records. leaving the courthouse.

Throughout the meeting comments continued to be made, and the meeting was out of control. It really was a made for TV meeting. As was stated, "this IS Benton County."

Wilber asked if they could have a special meeting tomorrow. A meeting was scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2:00 p.m. to no doubt hire another employee for the HR department.

So hopefully, this gave "both sides of the story to this 16 minute rant. I'd hate to think I "made stuff up" or didn't give both sides to this story.

Here's a link to the commercial free 2 hour long meeting.

(748) 05-28-24 Board of Supervisors Meeting - YouTube