May 15, BOC Meeting, More Exciting Than Expected
In this report I highlight some of the items from the May 15, 2019 Board of Commissioner Meeting. A video of the meeting is available at
and the official minutes are available at
There were several excellent points made by the public, but none is more important than this one by Dave Petrove: The public comments are not recorded in the minutes. If this continues, I will offer to publish a blog called “What the board won’t publish”. I welcome your input on this proposal.
I note that the public comment included:
Suggestions were given for the county priorities by Sylvia McCllough and Linda Pepper
Comments on the misinformation on the airport clear cutting were given by Carol Shuckra and Ann Rogers.
Comments were made in favor of the free funding for the Michigan Harm Reduction the program which is structured to reduce the spread of Hepatitis C and Aids by Ann Rogers and Allen McCllough.(This funding was rejected by the previous board meeting).
Mary Marois and supporters Marilyn Fitzgerald and Herb McCullough requested the board to reverse the position of the mental health subcommittee discontinuing her service on the mental health board.
Later in the meeting there was extensive discussion of the Mental Health board and Mary Marois will remain. It appears that the Mental Health subcommittee of the BOC failed to consider the charter with respect to the distribution of skills on the Mental Health board and also mistakenly considered Dan Lathrop to be a Mental Health professional; Commissioner Coffia pointed out that Lathrop is a podiatrist.
Another item of interest was the proposal to accept the Tribal Council Allocation of “2% Fund Grant Applications.” This failed because of objections, led by Commissioner Wheelock, that an agreed process was not followed. The agreement with the tribe was in conjunction video gaming at the Casino involved the tribe making contributions through the local governments. Commissioner Wheelock felt that the tribe was trying to exert more control over how the money was spent than was agreed. Commissioners Coffia, Hundley, and LaPointe voted to accept the money as proposed by the tribe but did not prevail.
Over half the meeting was spend on a discussion of priorities. This was facilitated by John Amrhein, MSU Extension. I posted a copy of the list at:
The list was not available to either the commission nor the public prior to the meeting and is quite lengthy. The items on the list range from strategic initiatives down to specific tactical work items.
Although the discussion took over half the meeting the only decision was that the administration would compile the results of the discussion and report back. We look forward to the possibility of a discussion with a more tractable set of questions to address. Several suggestions were made in public comment, we look forward to seeing if any of them find their way to the report.
