The Owen County Board of Commissioners will keep Jeff Brothers as president through 2020.
The three-person board voted 2-1 to keep Brothers as president during a meeting Monday morning. Commissioner Steve Williamson was the lone dissenting vote.
Williamson says Brothers’ behavior during previous commissioners’ meetings led him to vote against Brothers’ nomination.
“He [Brothers] does not treat people with respect,” Williamson says.
Brothers, who has had calls for his resignation from the public and a county councilmember, rammed through an unpopular festival ordinance without public comment at the commissioners’ last meeting on Dec. 16. Spencer Pride, the local LGBTQ advocacy group, says Brothers has been targeting it since he proposed the ordinance change this summer.
READ MORE: Owen Co. Councilman Calls For County Commissioner Jeff Brothers To Step Down
The commissioners also ok’d a new agenda request form that prohibits public comment during 9 a.m. meetings and instead confines that opportunity to the commissioners’ evening meetings at 6 p.m. The commissioners meet every two weeks, alternating times.
Brothers said doing so would keep meetings on time and help county employees get back to work earlier for morning meetings.
The Owen County Commissioners will next meet Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 6 p.m.
