I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I do know a couple things about local government

I’m probably about to do something unpopular — defend a politician.

More so, I’m going to defend a local politician — well, perhaps more accurately, I’m going to defend a claim he supposedly made in a recent meeting. I only say supposedly because I don’t know — I wasn’t there. But I do know a couple things about government meetings. 

So, word is that the board chair of the Winneshiek County Supervisors got a bit riled up during Monday’s meeting and told the audience he was in charge of the meeting and would decide which types of comments to allow during a public hearing on a proposed biodigester project near Ridgeway. 

That didn’t sit well with folks. It never does — but that doesn’t mean the chair was wrong. And I can say that because I’ve seen pretty similar situations play out during my time in the other corner of the state.

Honestly, it seemed like something of this nature popped up on an annual basis — a major project submits an application to the local planning and zoning office and is soon under heavy scrutiny and opposition from a fair chunk of the public (well, as fair a section as such things tend to be anyway, I mean, look at our voting rates in this country, they’re sad if not outright abysmal). 

While covering the other corner of the state, I saw people get their dander up over proposed housing developments, a planned sale of a deteriorating middle school, potential RV parks outside of town, possible carbon pipelines and even prospective wind turbine developments — a couple of those examples even made it all the way to court (the public was successful actually in both cases, but the second case went that way because of a technicality in my opinion). 

And, after years of sitting on those stereotypically hard meeting room chairs, I can just about draw up a flow chart of how people will react as a proposed project goes through the various levels of local government.

I’ll spare you the full rabbit hole here. Suffice it to say, it’s all too often that I’ve seen folks claim sole credit for a board or commission’s final vote when really it’s that the system — more often than not — works as intended. 

And I’ve developed a theory on this. 

It’s my belief that part of the issue is that most of us don’t spend much time inside the city council chambers or the board of supervisors meeting space or the school board room until they hear something that gets their hackles up (and I say that as someone who spent eight years sitting largely alone in rooms like that, twiddling my pen between boiler-plate agenda items). And, although most of us took some form of civics or government class in high school, most of us aren’t as familiar with these things as we might think. 

I mean, before moving to Decorah, I literally watched as a woman berated her county board of supervisors one day for not pursuing what she thought was a sure-fire way to help balance the county budget — only to have the county attorney slowly turn his head toward the podium and tell the woman her idea is illegal under state law (she wanted to cut health benefits for county employees over a certain age, in case you’re curious).

Which finally brings me back to this week’s hubbub. Though I’m not a lawyer, it’s my experience that the chair is indeed in charge of the board meetings — the chair opens public hearings, closes public hearings and, yes, in certain instances places limits on comments during those public hearings.

Chairs can legally place limits on how long each member of the public is allowed to speak at the microphone. Chairs can tell the public to stick to new information only in order to keep a hearing moving. Chairs can admonish speakers that their comments are to be directed at the board members and not an applicant or developer — seriously, I think they got so fed up with people asking about this stuff back in my old coverage area that the P&Z commission there finally just had the chair read off the legal-speak about what they could and couldn’t do ahead of every single meeting (gives me flashbacks just thinking about it). 

Now, from what rumors have reached my ears, there may have been some tonal issues between some folks in the Winneshiek County Courthouse Annex on the Monday morning in question, but that’s a bit of another manner. 

Argue all you want about civility. Argue all you want about handling a topic with decorum. Argue all you want about the heavy mantle of representative government — that’s your right. But when it comes to who is in charge of a public hearing, I think Mr. chairman got it right. You don’t have to like it, but that’s how it is in my experience.  

That said, you don’t have to take my word for it.

After all, I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t there. I just know a couple things about local government after cramming into those kinds of meetings for the last eight years. 

Agree with Seth? Think he’s got it completely backwards or he’s missed the point entirely? Let your voice be heard. Letters to the editor may be emailed to editor@decorahleader.com or dropped off at 110 Washington St. Suite 4 in Decorah.