Commissioners now meeting twice a week

In addition to their weekly meetings on Mondays, the Jackson County Commissioners have decided to also meet on Tuesdays for an additional special meeting at the Jackson County Courthouse, it has been reported.

Jackson County Commissioner Janet Zwonitzer said that Tuesday county commission meetings will be spent as a work and research day for commissioners to review information presented to them during Monday’s regular meeting, as well as review other items like economic development, the neighborhood revitalization program and the county employee wage scale.

“The business of running the county has consumed all of our day on Monday so we are temporarily adding a second day,” Zwonitzer said. “People present us with proposals or ideas and we say that we’ll think about it and then it just gets lost in the shuffle.”

The Tuesday meetings are set to be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the commission’s chamber, which is located on the second floor of the Jackson County Courthouse.

“We don’t plan to take any official action that day unless it’s a time-sensitive issue,” Zwonitzer said.

All meetings of the Jackson County Commission, regular or special, are open to the public. 

This week, the commissioners are also set to meet on Friday, Jan. 15, at the Courthouse to pay county bills. 

Any time two of the three commissioners meet to discuss county business, a quorum is met and the gathering is considered a public meeting of the Jackson County Commission.

The commissioners regularly meet on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with an hour lunch from noon to 1 p.m. 

The commissioners in surrounding counties – Brown, Nemaha, Pottawatomie, Atchison and Jefferson – meet one day a week. Some of those county commissions only meet for half a day.

There are some county commissions, however, that regularly meet twice a week, including Leavenworth, Shawnee, Riley and Butler counties. 

In addition, about 30 counties in the state employ a county administrator or coordinator to handle many day-to-day administrative aspects of county operations.  

Since Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday, the Courthouse will be closed, and the commissioners will not meet that day.