While the most recent meeting of the Fayette County Board of Commissioners was not nearly as contentious as the previous one, commissioners reiterated their concerns about the need to address how the meetings are typically conducted.
Steve Brown spoke very briefly about it, echoing the sentiments of Charles Rousseau at the Aug. 25 meeting about having a serious discussion regarding guidelines for submitting agenda items and presenting them. Brown submitted a half-dozen items at the Aug. 25 meeting, which stretched beyond four hours in public session amid complaints from colleagues about Brown bypassing county staff and making the process more difficult.
Randy Ognio discussed specifics with regard to the meeting routine, which he said is inconsistent.
“It seems strange that a department head can present an agenda item without a motion and a second, but a commissioner can’t do that,” said Ognio. “There is just no consistency here, and it gives the appearance that some commissioners are being treated differently than others.”
While not naming names, Ognio said he overheard one commissioner state that he would vote against anything a certain other commissioner brought up.
“I would hope that every vote is done on the merits of that particular issue and not just because of someone’s dislike for someone else,” he said. “That’s not how this should work.”
Ognio noted that it is important for any commissioner who puts an item on the agenda take extra effort to vet that item as thoroughly as possible in advance of the meeting.
Charles Oddo, the board’s chairman, said meetings would go easier “if we all followed the same process,” adding that all commissioners should go through county staff when putting items on a meeting agenda.
Oddo also took aim at recent tendencies for board members to focus negatively on one another.
“It would help if, instead of looking for moments of failure, we all helped each other get through the meeting the same way each time,” he said. “It is unbecoming the way we act sometimes; we are human, and we have to live with it. It has been difficult at times to manage meetings with commissioners speaking over each other.”
Oddo suggested that major changes in the process of conducting meetings are not necessary.
“Look at what we already have in place before we try to make a something new,” he said. “We have something in place.”
Oddo rejected Brown’s suggestion that the chairman recuse himself from involvement in the annexation arbitration involving Fayetteville. Brown asked Oddo to “give serious consideration” to such a move, saying that the chairman owns property in the affected area. Oddo said that is not the case, but he owns property in Fayette County and many people across the county would be affected by this outcome, so he would not shy away from participating in that process.
