Thomson Township officials need to sit out

Thomson Township held another Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Nov. 12.

The “commission” is board-appointed and consists of eight “citizen” members plus board member and resident Ruth Janke as board liaison; township clerk and resident Rhonda Peleski; nonresident township zoning officer Dan Stangle; and nonresident attorney David Pritchett, totaling 12 members.

At the previous October meeting, four other Thomson Town Board members (minus member Jason Paulson) were present and participated at the table. The same scenario happened at the Nov. 12 meeting meeting, when three “citizen” members (including chair Jim Gottschald) were not in attendance and thus had no say.

In my opinion, there are several things wrong with the scenarios found at the last two meetings: Firstly, three of the four “participating” board members have no business participating at the table and being involved as other than as nonparticipating observers along with those of us in the audience.

For the board and other non-commission folks to actively participate during this phase of the commission meetings is totally inappropriate. The time for the whole board to be involved is when the commission’s recommendations are turned over to the board for the board’s action, and not before. Otherwise, the board is now “running the show,” with the commission only serving as a centerpiece.

Secondly, at the last meeting, with the exception of the hired firm MSA, all “participants” around the table did some “voting” about several issues, including prioritization of main concerns: Only the appointed commission members should have participated, certainly not the three non-commission board members. The “votes” were skewed by two things: participation of nonmembers, and three of the citizen members not present. That’s four citizen votes vs. seven staff and board representatives. Does this sound like “citizen” participation to you?

My particular “pet,” broadband internet access for the whole township, was discussed. Attorney Pritchett minimized that some “pockets” of the township have no service, still not recognizing that more than half of the citizenry has no broadband availability; but, again, the discussion was limited to how the township can “leverage” money and the service from others such as the county and state of Minnesota. There was no discussion of the town board being able to “relax” its existing tower ordinance just enough to allow for WiFi-type distribution via “small” towers; that service would be economically feasible for potential providers with just some relatively minor ordinance changes. This is something the board can do to directly and positively impact this situation without any “outside” government involvement or money.

John Bergman,

Thomson Township