DIXON – The Lee County Board chairman is forming two subcommittees, and he is making sure that they have five members so that two members may talk to each other on the phone without violating the law.

Rick Ketchum is organizing a subcommittee of the finance committee to formulate the county’s 5-year financial plan. That subcommittee has existed before with three members: Vern Gottel, Dick Binder and Ed Fritts. Their appointments expired Nov. 30 and Fritts no longer is on the board.

Ketchum wants the committee to have five members so that two members may talk on the phone without violating the Open Meetings Act, he said.