Resolution 2025-7 passed 3-0.

Under it, public comment is limited to agenda items and must come before the board takes final action, with additional comment held until the end of the agenda. Speakers must appear in person. Comment is capped at three minutes, and continuing past that requires the presiding commissioner’s permission.

If the presiding commissioner determines someone is being disruptive, the resolution sets out a sequence: a warning, then a second warning, then an order to leave. If the person does not leave, the presiding commissioner — or a majority of the board — may direct the sheriff or a designee to remove them for the rest of the meeting.

The resolution’s examples of potentially disruptive conduct include remarks it describes as disorderly, contemptuous, slanderous, profane or abusive toward a board member, county staff or another member of the public; boisterous or threatening conduct; and disobeying a lawful order of the presiding commissioner, including an order to be seated or to stop speaking.

Where the rules came from

Commissioner Chris Switzer presented the resolution. The written minutes record only that he believed it would create a safer environment for board meetings and that he would encourage the county council to consider something similar.

The video of the meeting has more. About three minutes in, Switzer says he reviewed 11 different counties with his Indiana county commissioners association group, and that they are all basically establishing the same rules. He adds that most of it came from Johnson County.

I have not independently confirmed that other counties adopted the same rules, or which eleven Switzer reviewed. Those are his statements, made in a public meeting. I’ve written to him asking for the list and will report what he provides.

Update — August 4, 2026

Switzer, responding to questions submitted after publication, said the Indiana County Commissioners Association did not circulate a model policy and that no association is pushing the rules. He said the policy has not been invoked since adoption — no one has received a warning or been asked to leave — and the county council has not adopted a version of its own. He said he did not have the list of counties with him.

Indiana Code 5-14-1.5-3.3 authorizes public bodies to adopt policies governing public comment. Nothing in Resolution 2025-7 appears to exceed that authority. The question isn’t whether counties may set such rules — they may — but how far a group of them chose to go, and together.

Sources: Vigo County Board of Commissioners minutes, September 16, 2025. Video of the meeting: