New members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors were sworn in at an administrative meeting Tuesday night.
In the board official elections, current County Board Chair Scott McDonell, District 1, won reelection in a 24-13 vote against Supervisor Dave Ripp, District 29.
Other elected officers included Supervisor John Hendrick, District 6, as the board’s vice chair, and Supervisor Robin Schmidt, District 24, as the second vice chair.
Supervisors also addressed matters of administrative business, including a proposed amendment by Hendrick to move 10-minute special presentations from the beginning of board meetings to the end.
Many supervisors said they were disappointed many outside organizations not associated with official county business had taken away from other important items on the board’s agenda. Other supervisors said they believed moving the presentations to the end of meetings would make short county board meetings misleadingly long.
Hendrick cited a past presentation about honeybees that exceeded the board’s 10-minute special presentation limit as an example of the problem. In a discussion that lasted more than 20 minutes, supervisors said they sometimes felt presentations exceeding their 10-minute limits were unnecessarily long.
The board ultimately decided in a 31-6 vote to postpone indefinitely a decision on Hendrick’s amendment.
This meeting was the first of many for UW senior and newly sworn-in Supervisor Analiese Eicher, District 5, who beat out opponent Michael Johnson for the seat earlier this month.
She said she plans to begin holding hours at the Memorial Union soon, in addition to directing her social media and online presence away from its campaign format and toward accessibility for her constituents.
Eicher added she plans to focus on environmental policy in the early days of her tenure as supervisor. She said she hopes McDonell will appoint her to serve on the county’s Environment, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.
“I’m really committed to cleaning up any of our lakes,” Eicher said. “[The Environment, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee] is where most of the work is done on that front.”
The board will next meet Thursday, May 6 to return to regular, non-administrative business.
