Central Committee Meeting Notes, Nov 2010

Below you’ll find the agenda and my associated notes from the most recent Central Committee Meeting (Utah County Republican Precinct Chairs, Vice-Chairs, Leg Officers, and County Officers are members). I posted my reflections on this meeting and the others I’ve attended on my personal blog.

Agenda and Brief Notes

1. Welcome – Dave Hansen, Chair Pro Tem
   There were motions to have other officials act as chair as both our County Chair and Vice Chair were out of town), these were rebuffed and Dave was nominated and approved as chair
   - Recognition of Elected Officials and VIP Guest
   - Prayer
   - Pledge
   - Adoption of Agenda – adopted
2. Consideration of Caucus envelop complaint
   It was moved and seconded that the complaint be dismissed as the executive committee has put in place measures that will ensure that this does not happen again. The motion passed overwhelmingly after a little discussion.
3. Elections Committee Report – nothing significant
4. Finance Committee Report – the county has a little more money than was budgeted. There was some discussion on whether or not it was legitimate to use party funds to pay an attorney to help with the articles of incorporation. The Steering committee, as per the constitution has the right to move money from one line item to another in the budget but not to spend more money in total than was budgeted. Some people wanted to argue the opposite.
5. Approval of appointments – there were a number of chairs, vice chairs and other officers appointed to fill vacancies.  There was contention regarding one appointment in LD60 so the others were approved and then the LD60 vice chair appointment was discussed. It was motioned that LD60 meet and come with a recommendation before the matter is considered by the full committee. This motion was rejected and a bitter discussion ensued with no resolution (time ran out) and no plan to address it until the next committee meeting. The party secretary reviewed the circumstances around the appointment and showed all applicable items from the by-laws and constitution. The 30 second version is that the chair of LD60, Linda Housekeeper, took a leave of absence to run for county office last year prior to the caucuses. After the caucuses the vice chair resigned and the county chair appointed a vice-chair so that the LD would not lose a vote at county and state conventions. I believe the root of the problem was that the county chair appointed a vice-chair that Linda did not want and so the contention began.
6. Audit Committee Report – the audit committee was asked to look into the envelop issue and make a finding. There finding was that errors were made but nothing rising to the level of misfeasance, malfeasance, … . The committee chastised the group involved but did not find anything worthy of removal from office or criminal. The committee chair, John Booth, noted that someone had leaked the audit report, which he felt was a violation of civil laws, and that he had been under significant pressure to release the info prior to the meeting. His last item of business was to submit his resignation.
7. Constitutional & Bylaws Committee Report – nothing significant
8. Report from elected county officials.
   This was the most interesting part of the meeting. The County Assessor and Clerk each mentioned how lean their departments were and each expressed a willingness to personally answer questions from county residents on issues like property valuations.
   The sheriff pointed out that for a county of our size we have 1/4 of the prison population as would be expected.

As an end note I would like to thank Dave Hansen for taking the time to chair our meeting. He was an effective chair in spite of dozens of people who were also trying to run the meeting.