Cascade County commissioners Joe Briggs and Jim Larson refused Monday to certify the recent municipal election results. According to a county attorney, that certification meeting was likely illegal because the public hadn’t been given enough notice under Montana’s open meeting laws.
Commission Chair Rae Grulkowski blamed miscommunication with an office staffer for the meeting’s late scheduling.
“And, if our commission office is not functioning properly, the rest of the county suffers for it, and we’re seeing it now,” Grulkowski said.
Briggs and Larson are trying to pass an ordinance that would allow the commission to vote on their chairperson. The three-person commission currently rotates the chairperson role between the members every two years.
Briggs is displeased with Grulkowski’s performance.
“We’ve got some things we’ve got to fix,” Briggs told MTPR. “And, the first thing is we have to have a chairman that follows the laws and can run the meetings effectively and get work done.”
Grulkowski said she and election administrator Sandra Merchant opted to reschedule the election canvass to Wednesday afternoon (11/22/23) . Commissioners will miss a two-week deadline imposed by the Secretary of State to submit the election canvass.
It’s unclear if the county will face any penalties.
