We have a lot of elected government in Cook County. All of us elect members of four county wide boards and four county officials: sheriff, auditor/treasurer, recorder, and county attorney. In addition, some county residents live in one of the four municipalities and elect persons serving on boards and as officials. As a resident of Schroeder township, I get to elect 17 office holders in the various local elections. That is a lot of democracy.
When these positions come up at election time, these questions may come to mind: what offices are up for election, who holds those positions now and are they serving me well? Being an informed citizen-voter and answering any of these questions may be a bit difficult.
This is an overview of the boards governing the county: county board, school district, hospital, soil & water, plus the local governments, the townships: Schroeder, Tofte, and Lutsen, and the city of Grand Marais. All but the soil & water board adopts budgets, sets property tax levies and hires personnel. All hold regular public meetings. Monitoring the actions of these bodies is a varied task. There are varying degrees of transparency in following our governing bodies.
One way is to access the web sites. That can be done by logging in to the Cook County web site, going to the Our Community tab at the top of the page and clicking down to cities & townships, education and medical care lines for direct links to six of the bodies. Further searching on the county site will lead to the county board and soil & water board activities. That starts the search.
All sites list the board members though it may take a bit of searching. None list terms of office. Most list contact information, email addresses and phone numbers, but not always.
These governing groups all hold public meetings. Most of the sites list the date, time and location of the next meeting. Many of the sites post the meeting agenda and some include the board packet of information on issues for the coming meeting. Many of the sites post the minutes of past meetings. A good practice is to post minutes in draft form immediately to inform the public rather than to wait until they are officially approved.
While a main function of our governing boards is to approve an annual budget and set the tax levy, current financial information is rarely present on the sites.
There is some transparency for most of our governing bodies. It may take a bit of searching to see what our elected officials are doing.
One web site could be a model for all the others. Lutsen Township lists a vast amount of information on its home page “Welcome to Lutsen”. That one page lists information on the next meeting, the names and contact information on all five-township officials including their phone numbers and email links, and a schedule of all meetings in 2020. One additional click will take you to a remarkable page listing all the township meetings for the last three years with easy access to the minutes for all of them, including budget and annual township meeting information. Township Clerk Sharon Hexum-Platzer has missed nothing.
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