COUNTY COMMMISSION UPDATE

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent

ST. JOSEPH – Road construction was a main topic at last week’s Berrien County Board of Commissioners meeting along with a question about what to do about virtual meetings in light of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to open up the state this week rather than July 1.

The county board has been meeting virtually since late March, 2020 when the pandemic started due to gathering size and other restrictions. Their authority to do so came initially from Whitmer’s orders and later from legislation signed by the governor late last year that temporarily suspended Open Meetings Act rules.

When the authority from the state to hold remote meetings ended in late March, county commissioners declared a state of emergency in the county to allow them and other local boards to meet virtually through the end of June.

County commissioners voted earlier this month that they would let the state of emergency expire on June 30 and last week said they didn’t see any reason to make any changes even with Whitmer’s decision to end state orders on gathering sizes, masking and other restrictions.

“The administration committee discussed this earlier today and agreed to stick with the return to normal on July 1,” County Administrator Brian Dissette said at last week’s county board meeting. “The news release we put out earlier this month is up on the county website and it makes sense to continue with that plan.”

“The bulk of the reasoning is that local boards are still running with the assumption that they will still be allowed to use virtual technology for their meetings until the end of the month,” he added.

Commissioners appeared to be in favor of keeping everything in place when it comes to lifting county restrictions until July 1. County Board Chairman Mac Elliott noted that he could lift the state of emergency at the direction of the rest of the board but neither he nor any other commissioner expressed any interest in him doing so.

In a related matter, commissioners recommitted to livestreaming county board meetings on the county’s YouTube channel after meetings return to being in-person.

Dissette noted that the audio/visual upgrades have been made to the county board’s conference room in the County Administration Center which will help in livestreaming the meetings. “We will keep an eye on the total number of views to see if it continues to make sense to livestream the meetings,” he said.

He and Elliott said only the county board meetings will be livestreamed. Not only are committee meetings not considered meetings under the Open Meetings Act, livestreaming them would be problematic since the only technology is in the boardroom.

While Commissioner Ezra Scott questioned whether streaming the meetings would put an undue burden on staff, Elliott said he didn’t think that would be the case since staff won’t have to monitor public comments on the livestream. “If anyone wants to make a comment once we return to in-person, they will have to be in the boardroom to do it,” he said.

Dissette also reported on legislation currently pending in Lansing. The county board had come out against legislation limiting local control over short term rentals earlier in June and he reported that he had contacted the area’s state legislators about the board’s concerns.

County commissioners had said earlier that they believe such decisions should be made at the local level. The issue has been a contentious one in lakefront communities over the years where people rent out residences to tourists for short periods of time and communities attempt to put controls and regulations on those efforts.

Dissette said last week that another bill has also started to work its way through the legislature. “The new house bill that is supported by the Michigan Municipal League would do the opposite and provide local governments with greater authority,” he said. “It’s very much a counter to the other.”

He reported that he’s been told that there doesn’t appear to a lot of momentum to adopt either bill and that it’s unlikely that either bill will make it out of committee. 78^th District State Rep. Brad Paquette had been one of the co-sponsors of the first bill that would limit local authority over short term rentals.

Relative to road work, commissioners approved a number of projects for roads and bridges that are being paid for primarily by state and federal funding. Projects approved included road work on Washington Avenue near St. Joseph, Portage Road between Niles and Buchanan and a section of Red Arrow Highway.

Bridge work was also approved, for Napier Avenue Bridge over the St. Joseph River in the Twin Cities and the Walton Road bridge in Buchanan. The Walton Road bridge project is set for next year while the Napier work will be done this year. Cost estimates for both projects total over $2.9 million.

The $2.6 million Red Arrow Highway work to change part of the roadway from four to three lanes was the only project that proved controversial. Scott, who represents Harbor Country on the county board, said he had problems with the project in terms of how it came about in the first place without input from the county board.

Scott noted that some of the highway has already been converted from four to three lanes and now another section is being done. “I think it is ill thought out to go back and forth from four to three lanes,” he said. “I’d like to see more conversations … We need to sit back and take another look at it before we approve the state contract to do this.”

Other commissioners sympathized with Scott’s concerns, but only Don Meeks voted with him to not approve the state contract. Those who voted yes were in large part concerned about losing the state funding for the project if they delayed or denied approval of the project.

“It seems to me more a matter of manners and protocol and not following the process and not whether it’s three or four lanes,” Mamie Yarbrough said. “I ask to not have how it was done interfere with if it’s a good thing to do.”

Also last week, commissioners approved a resolution in support of efforts of those pushing to change county board terms from two years to four years. County board terms were initially for four years, but were changed to two years in 1968.

Michigan is one of only five states to have two year terms for county board positions and county commissioners are the only county or township officials to have two rather than four year terms.