Official Policy Commitment

Meeting & Agenda Integrity

Every consequential vote will be listed on the published agenda by name. No more burying significant decisions under generic headings like “Security Discussion.”

• All materials posted. Every document, exhibit, presentation, legal memorandum, financial figure, and piece of correspondence referenced or relied on in a meeting will be posted with the agenda packet whenever timing allows, and in every case with the minutes when they are published.
• Stream every meeting. The Board of County Commissioners and the Planning & Zoning Commission will be streamed live, with video and audio archived permanently. Draft minutes within five business days; final minutes adopted within two meetings.
• Public comment before votes. Public comment will be opened before any vote on a policy that affects rights, fees, or access to county facilities — not after the decision is made.
• Evening meeting per month. Following Twin Falls County's example, Jerome County will hold at least one evening commission meeting per month so working residents can attend.

In-Person Meeting Accessibility

Public meetings only matter if the public can actually participate. Simple, inexpensive improvements will make the room work for everyone.

• Audio improvements. Upgrade in-room microphones for every commissioner, the clerk, the attorney, and the public-comment podium. Add ceiling or wall speakers as needed. Most rooms can be brought to standard for under a few thousand dollars using off-the-shelf equipment.
• ADA compliance. Provide assistive listening devices (loop systems or simple FM/IR receivers) at the door. Reserve and maintain unobstructed wheelchair-accessible seating. On request, provide large-print agendas and accessible presentation slides.
• Visual support. Presentation screens large enough and positioned so the audience in any seat can see exhibits, maps, and slides. Speaker queues and timers visible to the public.

Minutes & Records Integrity

• Verbatim written statements. When a citizen, department head, or elected official submits a written statement at a meeting, it goes into the minutes verbatim. Verbal statements will be recorded and archived with the video stream. 
• Written legal opinions. Every legal opinion the board relies on for a vote will be in writing, attached to the meeting record, and made public.  There will be no room for misinterpretation and no excuses such as when the county illegally banned weapons in the administrative offices.  
• Records retention. County email, text messages, and official correspondence related to county business retained for the full statutory period, with a published records request process and clear response timelines.
• BOCC review of records requests. The Board will regularly review every public records request and every departmental response . A monthly summary of requests received, response times, and any denials with rationale will be published in the meeting minutes and to a "Jerome County Transparency Website:. 
• Annual training. All personnel handling public records will complete annual Idaho Public Records Act training. Deptartment heads will contain transparency metrics and goals as part of their annual evaluation. 

Constitutional & Legal Review

Any proposed ordinance or policy that touches a constitutional right — speech, assembly, firearms, due process, search and seizure — will require a written legal memorandum from county counsel before the vote, addressing both state and federal constitutional questions. The memo will be published with the agenda packet.

• Second opinion for high-stakes questions. A second opinion will be requested from outside counsel or the Idaho Attorney General's office. Cheap insurance against the kind of overreach that produced the 2025 weapons ban.
• Community comments on the record. Comments on constitutional matters will be collected, attached to the record, and republished in a consolidated monthly posting.

Conflict of Interest — Decoupled

Conflicts of interest will be addressed at the root, not papered over. The standard will be clear, public, and enforced.

• Public disclosure. Every commissioner's outside business interests, employers, board memberships, and material financial relationships disclosed publicly, updated annually and whenever a new conflict arises. Recusal required, in writing, on any vote where a conflict exists.  This information will be maintained on a "Jerome County Transparency Website".    

• Public lobbying log. Any contact from a vendor, developer, advocacy group, or outside official about pending county business will be logged and posted monthly.  Logs will be reviewed and posted to a "Jerome County Transparency Website".  There should be no expectation of privacy while conducting business that affects the community.
• Planning & Zoning communications log. Every individual who meets, calls, or otherwise communicates with the P&Z department about pending or potential applications, projects, or land-use decisions will be logged. The log will be entered into the commission minutes once per month. "Jerome County Transparency Website".  There should be no expectation of privacy while conducting business that affects the community.

Property Rights & Public Notification

• Direct mailed notice. Written notice — by mail, not just legal newspaper — sent to every adjacent landowner before any zoning change, variance, or conditional use permit affecting their property.  This is the minimum required.
• Justified, compensated takings. Takings, easement demands, restrictions, conversions, and re-zoning on agricultural land require a clear public-interest justification, written findings, and full compensation where applicable.    
• Landowner Rights and Community Impact. Landowners are partners, not obstacles. At the same time, landowners have never been able to do anything with their property without restrictions. Landowner rights exist up to the point that their use of the property impacts their neighbors and the community.  This must become a core understanding in county  governement.

Countywide Public Notification System (Core Project

I will push to create a countywide notification system that goes well beyond the legal minimum. The system will include:

• A central notifications page on the county website listing every upcoming special meeting, public hearing, ordinance proposal, zoning change, variance, conditional use permit, and significant policy item.
• An opt-in email and text-message subscription so any resident can receive automatic alerts the moment a notice is posted.
• Optional filters by topic — land-use, budget, fiscal items, or all of it.
• An RSS feed for residents and watchdog groups who prefer that format.

This is inexpensive to implement — most county notification platforms (GovDelivery, Granicus, CivicPlus, and similar services) cost a small fraction of what counties already spend on legal notices. Legal-newspaper notices were designed for a 1950s information environment. Today, residents expect — and deserve — direct notice in the channels they actually use.

Comprehensive Plan, Energy & Data Center Ordinances

Jerome County is at an inflection point on land use and energy infrastructure. I commit to pushing the following to completion:

• A final, adopted Comprehensive Plan. The county's long-range land-use document must be updated, debated in public, and finalized — not left in draft limbo where developers and the county both operate under uncertainty.
• A clear Energy Siting Ordinance and tool. Setbacks, decommissioning bonds, road impacts, agricultural land protection, glare, noise, and viewshed standards set in advance — not negotiated project by project. Gooding County's requirement of decommissioning surety equal to 125% of estimated cost is one strong reference point.
• A Data Center Ordinance. Required water study (modeled on Linn County, Iowa), electrical-load study, noise standards from cooling systems, property tax and PILOT structure, decommissioning, and land-use compatibility. We do not have the luxury of writing the rules after the buildings are up.
• Metrics and Impact.  Every energy siting ordinance, comprehensive plan, and conditional or special use permit must include a defined impact assessment process with measurable criteria. At minimum, those criteria must address agricultural land conversion, visual character, groundwater, neighboring property values, infrastructure impacts, decommissioning, and verifiable community benefit.

Each will move through full public process: published draft, hearings before P&Z and the Board, written legal review, community comment posted to the record, and a final vote in open session.  

Fiscal Discipline

* Partly Based on Audit Findings.

• Open-session debate on every budget line over a defined threshold — not buried in a consent agenda.
• Quarterly spending dashboard showing actual versus budgeted at the department level. Part of the Jerome County Transparency Website.
• No foregone in surplus years. The County took $94,621 of foregone tax for FY2024–25 in the same year it closed with a $3.43M surplus, $14.30M in unrestricted reserves (about seven months of operating budget against a GFOA-recommended minimum of two), and $813,802 in investment income. Foregone is a permanent levy increase. It should not be taken when the County is already over-collecting.
• Revenue Allocation Area scrutiny.  in FY2025, JCURA is on track to capture roughly $473,624 in property tax — about five times what it captured in the previous three years — with no disclosure found in the County’s annual §544 audit. New or expanded urban renewal districts get an independent but-for and fiscal-impact review before any vote.  Commissioners with family assets managed or to be managed by JCRUA must not participate in discussions or votes.       
• Adopt a written investment policy. Every Jerome County §544 audit from FY2021 through FY2024 states, in identical language, that the County has no formal investment policy, no concentration limit, and no custodial credit risk policy. A written policy aligned with GFOA best practice — covering maturities, concentration, collateralization above the FDIC limit, and authorized issuers — goes on the County website.
• Quarterly investment report — in dollars. Holdings, weighted-average yield, weighted-average maturity, counterparty exposure, year-over-year change. Investment income gets its own line on the public-facing L-2 Budget summary and posted on the "Jerome County Transparency Website".
• Address standing audit findings.
• Standard procurement. Competitive bids over a set threshold, posted publicly. Bid tabulations made public after award.
• No-bid justifications. Sole-source and no-bid purchases require written justification published before the vote.

Transparency Performance Standards for Department Heads

Open-meeting compliance and transparency will be a formal component of every department head's regular evaluation. Specific, measurable standards:

• Records request response time. Median below the statutory ceiling, with no request exceeding it without a documented legal basis.
• Records request fulfillment rate. Percent fulfilled in full, with denials and redactions tracked and published monthly.
• Agenda packet completeness. Percent of meetings where all referenced materials were posted with the agenda or, if not feasible, with the minutes.
• Posted minutes timeliness. Drafts within five business days; final minutes adopted within two meetings.
• Stream uptime & archive integrity. Live streams operational and archives retrievable for every BOCC and P&Z meeting.
• Contact-log compliance. Lobbying and P&Z contact logs submitted complete and on time each month.
• Citizen feedback. A short, published annual citizen transparency survey, with results factoring into evaluations.
• Training compliance. All staff handling public records complete annual Idaho Public Records Act training.

Each metric will have a target, a measured actual, and a public quarterly report and posted on the Jerome County Transparency Website.

Best of the Best — Practices Adopted from Other Counties

This commitment draws from established practices and frameworks recognized across Idaho and the country. We will not invent what already works.

• Idaho's Transparent and Ethical Government Act (Title 74) — the legal floor that Jerome County will exceed, not skirt.
• Idahoans for Openness in Government (IDOG) guidance on proactive disclosure and open-meeting compliance.
• Idaho Association of Counties open-meeting training resources for commissioners and staff.
• Twin Falls County's evening meeting rotation, making attendance possible for working residents.
• Idaho Falls' Transparency & Open Government portal, centralizing financial, meeting, and records information in one citizen-facing location.
• Gooding County's Energy Project Ordinance with a 125% decommissioning surety requirement.
• Linn County, Iowa's data center water-study requirement and utility-scale solar siting ordinance.
• Loudoun County, Virginia's reclaimed-water service for data centers, protecting potable supply.
• Cochise County, Arizona's data center standards for water use, infrastructure, and long-term management.
• National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Award practices for innovation and transparency.
• Flagler County, Florida's public-facing transparency dashboard.
• Granicus / govDelivery and CivicPlus opt-in notification platforms used by counties and cities nationwide.
• ADA.gov and Section 508 guidance for assistive listening, captioning, and accessible meeting practices.

Monthly Publication Calendar

Every Meeting (Often Multiple Times Per Month)

• Full agenda packets, including all documents, exhibits, presentations, financial figures, and correspondence to be referenced or relied on at the meeting.
• Written legal memoranda for any vote touching a constitutional right.
• Live video and audio streams, archived permanently after the meeting.
• Draft minutes within five business days.
• Final approved minutes once adopted, with all referenced materials attached.

At Least Once Per Month, Consolidated

• Public records request log: every request received, response time, status, and rationale for any denial or redaction.
• Lobbying contact log: every commissioner contact from vendors, developers, advocacy groups, or outside officials regarding pending county business.
• Planning and Zoning communications log.
• Community comments on constitutional review and other significant policy questions.
• Updates and corrections to any previously published material.

Quarterly

• “What We Did and Why” letter from the BOCC summarizing major decisions, the reasoning, the cost, and any dissents, in plain language.
• Spending dashboard showing actual versus budgeted at the department level.
• Transparency performance report against the metrics in Commitment 10.

Annually or as Triggered

• Commissioner conflict-of-interest disclosures, updated annually and immediately whenever a new conflict arises.
• Written recusal statements for any vote where a conflict exists.
• Procurement notices, competitive bid tabulations, and written justifications for no-bid and sole-source contracts, posted as those events occur.
• Annual citizen transparency survey results.