SUPERIOR – In their first meeting of the year, the County Commissioners approved rules for how the county would conduct business in 2014.

One of the first orders of business was to elect the chair and vice chair of the commissioners. It was agreed to keep things as they were and Laurie Johnston, commissioner for the county’s central region, nominated Roman Zylawy as chair with Duane Simons as vice chair. A second from Zylawy, commissioner of the eastern region, put the motion to a vote, which passed unanimously.

With officers appointed, it was time to decide when to have the commissioners meet in 2014. In 2013, meetings were held Thursday to Friday of the first full week of each month, every Friday of the month and the last work day of a month. On meeting days, commissioners had to be available until 5 p.m. It was agreed unanimously to keep the same meeting schedule.

Next came discussions about county office hours. Johnston recalled how many people would come in on a lunch hour to take care of business with the county offices, only to find them closed. She said this was inconvenient to people who worked all day and led to hard feelings.

“I’ve done that and I was ticked off,” said Johnston. “A lot of times, the lunch hour’s the only time you can [go by the courthouse].”

It was felt these offices should remain open throughout the day so people could come in to handle county business. However, in order to keep funds and private files safe, the treasurer’s offices could close for the lunch hour. It was agreed the current system was fine and the hours were passed unanimously.

The commissioners also confirmed the established definitions of county offices. This included what county officers exist, what powers they have and what responsibilities are held by the office holder. Part of this included the appointment of commissioner liaisons to the various county boards.

The commissioner liaisons for 2014 will be:

• Hospital Board – Laurie Johnston

• Area VI Agency on Aging – Duane Simons

• Transportation Board – Laurie Johnston

• Local Emergency Planning Committee – Laurie Johnston

• Resource, Conservation and Development – Roman Zylawy

• Weed Board – Laurie Johnston

• Western Montana Mental Health – Duane Simons

• Child Development Center – Duane Simons

• Human Resources Council – Laurie Johnston

• Juvenile Detention Regional Board – Duane Simons

• BREDD Economic Development Board – Roman Zylawy

• Union Negotiator – Roman Zylawy

• County Employee Drug Testing – Roman Zylawy

• Board of Health – Duane Simons

Also discussed were rules to establish the use of Montana-made wooden materials on road and bridge projects in Mineral County, how to establish fines as well as submit reports to the Department of Administration. There were also discussions about a proposal to make changes to the county’s network.

Garrett Johnson, representative of DIS Technologies, proposed changes to the network technology in the Mineral County Sheriff’s Office. After DIS set up a new network in the library and museum’s building, they were able to improve the courthouse’s network as well.

According to Johnson, DIS ran into a problem here. He explained the sheriff’s office used some sites, such as Facebook, in investigations. These investigations can take a long time because of the rules blocking social media sites.

“People put all kinds of crazy stuff out there, on [Facebook],” said Johnson. “Right now, with the State of Montana providing their Internet access, they can’t go out to a lot of these sites. They have to try to get permission and then they have to provide a bunch of paperwork to do that.”

Johnson proposed a solution, which has worked for other law enforcement agencies in Montana. The sheriff’s office would be separated from the county offices with its own internet connection.

This project would also include the installation of a larger, more powerful firewall to protect the courthouse’s network and use the old firewall to protect the sheriff’s network. The change was proposed because of the number of people in the sheriff’s office on a regular basis. Johnson estimated there were two or three people in the office, plus a dispatcher, at any given time.

“In the long run, I think it’ll actually save the county some money,” said Johnson. “Because, right now, in order to get things exempt to search the internet, they have to go through the state – and that’s a bunch of paperwork and a bunch of waiting to get things done.”

This change would also allow the sheriff to get an upper hand against cyber-crimes. Johnson explained with digital crime came digital evidence, which would require the investigators to explore all corners of the internet to find. This was something the sheriff’s office could not do if every search took a long time to complete.

The commissioners gave DIS their approval to do more research into the separation of the sheriff’s office network technology from the rest of the county.