Chairman: Consensus not easy on Door board Zipperer defends the process of planning a new justice center By Joe Knaapen For The News-Chronicle STURGEON BAY - Any observer who thinks of the Door County Board as a gang of like-minded good old boys on a quest to build a Taj Mahal justice center is mistaken, according to the board chairman. Leo Zipperer has been a town of Sevastopol representative on the board since 1994 and previously served as a city of Sturgeon Bay representative from 1978 to 1982. During both stints in county government, he was selected by his fellow supervisors to serve as their chairman for a combined total of 10 years. That leadership role, in Zipperer's view, gave him the responsibility to keep the board on task - working its way toward a majority - until the project or service at hand was completed. He uses the old "lead a horse to water but can't make him drink" analogy when talking about the difficulties of forming consensus - and especially with the lengthy, stop-and-go, convoluted road that led county supervisors to decide that a new county jail and expanded office space are needed. The saying also applied to choosing a particular location from among dozens examined and determining that the time was right to invest major taxpayer dollars. "We didn't get to this justice center overnight," Zipperer said in a recent interview. According to Zipperer, the jail's shortcomings became evident about five years ago when inmate populations pushed toward the 44-bed maximum more days than not. Since then, numerous small decisions have been made, leading to plans to build a Door County justice center on the west side of Sturgeon Bay. A building plan suggests the design will be complete by March, bids solicited in April, construction started in May and the job completed in 2003. Along the way, the board changed its collective mind a number of times. So when Zipperer counted votes, he knew he was not dealing with a monolithic, in-unison group of people. Every two years from 1996 to the present, all 20 members of the board stood for re-election. Sometimes an incumbent didn't run or was beaten, and another person took office. More than 30 different people have held seats on the 20-member board since 1996. "Everybody who was elected should get credit for becoming knowledgeable about where we were and determining if the building was needed," Zipperer said. At various times, the board has been comprised of a changing mix of men and women, each representing about 1,000 to 1,300 people. Some supervisors have earned master's or doctoral degrees, while some never finished high school. Many served in the military; some did not. Some members can trace their Door County roots back four or five generations to the peninsula's first settlers - typically Norwegian or Belgian - of the late 1700s or early 1800s. Other supervisors are newly transplanted enough not to know for sure the names of familiar landmarks or families at the opposite end of the peninsula. Some of the supervisors sit quietly through meetings and simply vote their consciences with a "yea" or "nay." Others feel the need to speak out on every issue, sometimes at length. Sorting through those differences and developing a consensus for the "good of the county of Door" is the job of the chairman, Zipperer said. FYI A recall election is scheduled Tuesday in 15 of the 20 Door County Board districts. Polling places will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. except in the towns of Baileys Harbor, Gardner and Sevastopol, which are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the town of Liberty Grove, which will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.