It was another interesting meeting when the Faribault County Board of Commissioners met on April 15.

During the time when the board members presented their committee reports, commissioner Tom Loveall shared he wanted to address a particular issue.

“Friday, I was notified by Susan Hanson (outside legal consultant for Faribault County), through a phone call, that there was an employee complaint against me, nothing more, that there is an employee complaint against me,” Loveall said. “So, just for the record, there is an employee complaint against me. Therefore, I understand, with the chain of command it is in the county attorney’s office. What the county attorney does with it, I don’t know. But, I would suggest and I am all in favor of giving it to an outside source and doing an investigation. I think that’s maybe an answer on a variety of things here. I’m all in favor of that and would like to have it commence as quick as possible. But the process is not in my hands. I’m just saying I think that’s a good way to get a resolution on it and I’m all for that.

“I was also advised at that point that there are certain actions I probably shouldn’t take,” Loveall continued. “So it’s kind of limiting and therefore to a certain degree there are certain arguments that may be touchy. I respect that analysis and I will abide by the action part of that. What I would say to the public, to the board, to the employees and everybody else is that I certainly haven’t given up my quest for transparency and how we do the process here and all the other ancillary issues that go with that. They are not going away, I’m just getting pulled off the team for awhile.”

Following the completion of Loveall’s report, chairman Greg Young reviewed the meeting protocol and rules of decorum which govern the County Board meetings.

In particular, Young highlighted protocol No. 9.

“Anger, rudeness, ridicule, obscene or profane language, and a lack of respect for others and personal attacks are not acceptable behavior,” Young said, reading from the list of protocols. “Demonstrations in support of or in opposition to a speaker or idea are not permitted in the boardroom. The chairperson is responsible for maintaining order. Failure to abide by this requirement may result in the forfeiture of the speaker’s right to speak and being escorted by a deputy off the premises. I thought it was important we review that.”

County Attorney Cameron Davis was also given a chance to speak.

“I will say, and commissioner Loveall brought up the notion that the complaints against him and some other investigations he referenced – that he would prefer they be outsourced to an outside agent. I have also come to that conclusion based on a couple of developments, one of them being the issuance of a complaint against commissioner Loveall that he just made known,” Davis said. “With that and with some of what I understand to be community concerns about my ability to remain impartial and neutral, I do think it is imperative that the outcome of these investigations do not result in adding any distrust from the outcome of the investigation. There are a lot of delicate things that are being balanced and there are going to be people who are not pleased with the outcome because there are competing factors in these investigations.

“Because of that, I think confidence in these investigations is of the utmost importance,” Davis continued. “I did advise the personnel committee during a meeting this morning that it is my intent to turn over this investigation and the other investigations I’ve been working on to an outside investigator to complete to ensure we have confidence in the outcome of those to be neutral and impartial.”