Board of Commissioners to allow additional public comment

The Oakland County Board of Commissioners are considering changing board rules to designate time during their meetings to allow members of the public to speak about whatever topic they wish.

Right now, the 21-member board allows members of the general public to speak for three minutes each at the beginning of each meeting on any matter that will be voted on during the full board meetings. This allows for people to be heard before agenda items are voted on.

If the resolution is approved by the full board at its Thursday meeting, another public comment period would be added at the end of board meetings for individuals to speak about whatever topic they wish for three minutes each.

Dave Woodward (DRoyal Oak), chair of the board, said there would be no change to the meeting format, other than setting aside time at the end of meetings to allow residents to talk about whatever issue the choose to.

“This rule change is designed and mirrored after a lot of local governments all across Oakland County and across the state,” he said. “Because of the complexity of a lot of the topics that we take up, we ask that department heads and other staff be on hand during order of business.”

He said the public has always been invited to attend board meetings to “express their thoughts on any topic.”

By alloting this additional public comment time, Woodward said the board is trying to be more efficient as it relates to time spent on agenda-related items, enhance the orderly flow of business addressed by the board, and be more mindful of time spent by staff and department heads at meetings.

“We’ve been piloting this the last few meetings and it has been working out pretty well,” he said. “Public comment has been running a little bit longer of late given some of the topics of the day. Staff sitting in a meeting waiting for us to take up an item on the agenda and sitting through things that are unrelated to their topics is not the best use of staff resources and their time.”

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 2, at the board of commissioners’ auditorium, 1200 N. Telegraph Road, Building 12 East, in Pontiac.

A full schedule of full board and board committee meetings can be found at: https://oaklandcomi.civicclerk.com/web/home.aspx. If you can’t attend a meeting in person, board meetings can also be watched online at: https://www.oakgov.com/boc/about/Pages/watch.aspx.

For months, the board facilitated public comment online due to the pandemic, but now, all public comment is being facilitated in person during full board and board committee meetings.