Survey: Investors want smaller board, no ex-officios

 RED OAK — Organization structure was the focal point of Tuesday’s Red Oak Chamber and Industry Association board meeting.

On behalf of the bylaw review committee, board member Larry Brandstetter proposed eliminating the eight ex-officio members and reducing the board to nine members. The matter will likely be voted on at the October meeting.

Currently, the ex-officio members consist of past president Allen Pohren, City of Red Oak representative Brad Wright, Board of Supervisors’ representative Karen Blue, school district representative Terry Schmidt and representatives from the city of Stanton, Villisca, Elliott and Grant.

“Having them as ex-officio members of the board does not equate to necessarily having great discussions with those people. Those can be had as needed or even outside the board meeting, but we want those relationships to continue to be a positive force,” Brandstetter said, adding those individuals are still welcome to attend meetings.

While eliminating the representatives from Stanton, Villisca, Elliott and Grant would not be a concern because they do not attend meetings, President Kristie Konz said she is concerned about removing the city, county and school district ex-officio members because they may not continue to attend meetings.

Ex-officio member Karen Blue of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors said she attends meetings now because it is her assignment through the board of supervisors. If no longer a member, though, she said it would be unlikely that she attend as frequently.

Blue suggested having Association board members assigned to city council, school board and board of supervisor meetings instead of the opposite.

Also on Brandstetter’s proposal was reducing the votingmembers by one, from a 10-member to a nine-member board.

Despite a survey to the Association membership that indicated most were in favor of a five or seven member board, Brandstetter said nine would be best because of the number required for a quorum.

If the board were five or seven members, only three or four persons would be required for a quorum.

“That means that three people could determine the future of the organization and we felt a quorum of three was really not sufficient to make policy decisions moving forward,” Brandstetter said.

With nine members, though, he said it would show the membership that they are working to decrease the board size, and the quorum would be five, which is the same as it is now with a 10-member board.

Nine members, according to Brandstetter, would also allow representation from multiple different sectors of the community.

In other business, the executive director search committee has received six applications, and committee member Jim Sifford said he is pleased with the types of applicants so far. There is no deadline as of now for submitting applications.

Also, board member Connie Mellott, on behalf of the committee structure committee, said they are interested in possibly combining some of the Association’s eight committees. 

“It’s so hard to find volunteers anyways,” Mellott said, “and we hire a person at the office to do a job so we need to let them do the job.”

The next Association meeting is Oct. 8 at 11:30 a.m. in the Montgomery County Memorial Hospital Pioneer/Heritage Room.