Mielke has a tough day of public testimony

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Commissioner Steve Stuart is currently the chair of the board of Clark County commissioners. That means he leads the process of the meetings as best he can. He gets public commenters to wrap it up when they go over time, he tries to get Commissioner David Madore to not talk so much and he listens to Commissioner Tom Mielke tell him to get Madore to not talk so much.

It’s not the easiest job.

But with Stuart out of the office on Tuesday, the role of public meeting task master fell to Mielke, the vice chair.

Things got a little sloppy. Mielke let a few people talk twice, which kind of got problematic. But it wasn’t out of control by any means.

Except, maybe, for this:

Jeff Stanton’s premise seems to start with something to do with elections. It’s a really long premise, though. And it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. (At least Mielke was familiar with Stanton, though, as Stanton showed up at a meeting last year asking about officials’ birth certificates.)

Rather than decipher the “what” or “why” to this, let’s just recap some of his key points:

• The constitution says tolls on bridges are illegal.
• Our elections are void.
• Commissioners can’t pass any laws.
• Commissioners aren’t elected officials.
• The commissioners don’t want people to acquire their citizenship because that way they can do whatever they want.

After Mielke asks him politely to leave many times, he broaches the topic of a forcible exit coming into play.

“I’m willing to go to jail if it’s necessary,” Stanton says as Senior Policy Analyst Axel Swanson asks to speak with him in the hall.

Mielke lamented his reign the next day in the commissioners’ board time meeting. But hey, that was a tough one. And Tom has been out of practice. It’s been a year and a half since he last served as full time chair. Consider this a warm up for when he takes over as chair next year.

And if it doesn’t improve, Mielke has a plan for a fix for when he takes over. Looking at Swanson during the board time meeting, Mielke smiled and said, “new job description: bouncer.”