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The chair for the Chisago County Board in 2024 will be Marlys Dunne, Chisago City.  She got a unanimous vote this week at the annual organizational Board meeting and succeeds Ben Montzka as Chair.

Dunne said her two main goals are to get the county out of the high end of the “per capita” property tax rankings and to work on county employee relations.

Vice Chair is Dan Dahlberg, Rush City.  The tradition for the Board has been to place vice-chair into the chairmanship the following year.

As for committee assignments and citizen appointments— most all actions consisted of re-appointing of existing posts.  Civilian members were all re-named— with vacancies continuing in various slots with no applicants.  These vacant seats are in the at- large water plan policy team, and districts 1, 3 and at large extension committee seats are open.  

The county website has listings and forms to apply or call your county commissioner.

Commissioner Ben Montzka no longer has any township territory in his district, so he suggested he be moved out of planning commission liaison alternate and went to parks as a liaison alternate.

Montzka was the lone no vote of the annual meeting when the Board adopted a new fee schedule.  Fees are paid for assorted services and permits and licenses the county processes.  The debate was about fees for election duties.

County Auditor-Treasurer Brigitte Konrad sees a need to create more consistency under the growing system of absentee balloting and told commissioners there will be multiple elections coming up in 2024 with seperate absentee forms and systems and she said she recommends “pulling some duties back in “ under the county auditor’s staff functions.

The townships and cities will save money not having to train and take on responsibilities, Konrad added.  The county will assess direct actual costs only that the county adds on and the fees will not include items like voting equipment maintenance, which is a different discussion.

Commissioner Montzka argued that the county handles a number of what can be considered individual duties of local units of government and doesn’t charge for those.  If we (the county) are just looking for savings, these need to be considered.  He also had an issue with no specific fee being listed in the schedule matrix and it just says “actual costs.”  This is hard for the affected government units to budget for, he added.

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