Mine's a little shaky from time to time, and not because of caffeine...
On May 10, 2017, the Roundtable Meeting between the Board and the Commission took place. This is an opportunity for both bodies to air concerns and issues and to re-establish/clarify certain policies such as the attorney engagement policy and others. It is the one time that the two bodies meet for this purpose during the year.
As Chair of the Planning Commission, I was asked by the Clerk what topics the Commission would like to be addressed on the agenda; I submitted them to her.
We had the meeting. I spoke at various points on the agenda as well as toward the end when the agenda was dedicated to the Commission items placed there.
What I said was spoken very deliberately and to specific points I wanted made. I stated I was saying things "for the record." (You should know that both the Board and the Planning Commission have approval over the minutes. Each body can decide what it wants in its minutes beyond motions and votes. This is standard practice statewide. The Eureka Town Board typically waits until the Commission approves its portion of the Roundtable meeting minutes before approving the Board's portion of the minutes.)
Unfortunately, when I first read the draft minutes none of the comments I made earlier in the meeting were reported and the whole section from the Planning Commission was reduced to "Nancy Sauber discussed various issues," or something equally non-informative.
I am not going to suggest any possible motivation for this. I just let it stand for what it was.
The Planning Commission asked for more detail. There were delays in even getting this back to the Commission in a timely manner.
Eventually, the revised draft minutes came before us. Rather than include my comments from earlier in the meeting or a detailed, item-by-item addressing of the Commission portion of the agenda (the way the rest of the minutes were written), all that was stated this time was "Nancy Sauber spoke about" with a list of very brief, (highly edited) issues. None of the detail was given.
The Planning Commission asked again for specific information from the recording of the meeting.
This was not forthcoming. One Supervisor implied at a Board meeting that the Planning Commission was being very picky, and how long was this supposed to go on? The fact that we didn't get what we asked for seemed to be irrelevant to him-in my opinion. The rest of the Board did not express concern with what the Commission was asking.
As a former Supervisor was so fond of saying, "make a long story short," due to a lack of cooperation otherwise, I volunteered hours of my time listening to the recording and writing the missing content for the minutes. The Planning Commission unanimously approved these additions and the Board approved the minutes at its next meeting.
Then, and only then, were the approved minutes posted on the Township website.
You might find those minutes of interest. Those portions attributed to me and the last whole section are what I added. You may draw your own conclusions as to why someone might not want these comments in the minutes!
Approved May 10, 2017 minutes
