Commission Rules Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the commission rules committee meeting for Tuesday, 02/25/2025. Madam clerk, please take the role.

Mister chairman, there are four members present.

Thank you, madam clerk. I'll declare a quorum to be present. We'll move on to item a, setting of the agenda. Chair will stand to set the agenda as stand for a motion to set the agenda as published. I have a motion to set the agenda from commissioner Carver, second by commissioner French. If you're in favor of setting the agenda, vote yes. If you're not in favor, vote no.

No.

Thank you, sir.

Mister chairman, there are four yes votes.

Four yes votes. Motion carries. The agenda is set. Item b approved of minutes. These are minutes from the commission rules meeting 02/13/2025. Chair will stand for a motion to approve the minutes. Motion from commissioner Carver, second by commissioner Giles. Any discussion? Seeing none if you're in favor of adopting the minutes from that meeting, vote yes. If you're not in favor, vote no.

Mister chairman, there are four yes votes.

Four yes votes. Motion carries. The minutes are approved. Item c, public input and items on the agenda. Any public input and items on the agenda? Seeing none, we'll move on to item d, unfinished business. There is none. Item e, new business. Item e one, discussion and possible action regarding the board of commissioner rules. Alright.

Commissioners, I have prepared some of the starting proposed language, from our discussion last time, and I thought we could, if there's no objection or any any other direction anybody wants to take with it, maybe just go through each one, and we can have discussion on each and some feedback. So starting with the first one, speaking time for members. This one will affect rule four c, and you can see the it's on page one. The underlying languages that would be the new language. Right now, Robert's rule says ten minutes promotion except for some certain things, and you can speak twice.

So what I've got here, we can change it to whatever the committee feels they wanna recommend, is two times for a period of five minutes each time with two exceptions. And so I put down one exception would be if there is a motion to postpone either to next month or indefinitely, which effectively kills it, then it's limited to a period of two minutes for a single time. And then the other one is if there's an appeal from the decision of the chair, there's some language in Robert's rules that is very specific about I think each member gets to speak one time, but then the chair gets to speak at the beginning and I think at the end. And so rather than try to pull that language into our rules, I just referenced that and said, for appeals from the decision of the chair, that's just gonna be whatever Roberts really says it is.

I I motion to move the forward full commission for approval.

Alright. Commissioner French moves to to forward this for approval, and commissioner Giles, Any discussion? Okay. Everybody good with these time limits and

So so, essentially, it's cut it down from

Push your microphone, please.

Thank you, mister chairman. So, essentially, it's cut us down from a thirty minute conversation per individual to twelve.

Twenty minutes per per motion per speaker in total.

Yes. Okay. To

to two five minute periods, for for a given motion. So if it's a main motion, you can speak twice. Gotcha. One each time for five minutes. If there's another like, any amendment, you get ten minutes total. Gotcha.

That's I thought.

Commissioner Carver? So is that going to what about the question and answer time? If, say, the the the speaker of the motion has his time and then we have questions to ask

Mhmm.

How much time do we have on that?

This doesn't directly deal with the questions. Okay. The way we've been treating it right now is

Two times.

It's two times five it's two times ten minutes. And when you ask a question, when they answer, that counts as your time. And I think that's I don't see any other fair way to do it. And I think every commissioner just needs to be made aware that if they ask a question and maybe the person doesn't entirely agree with them and they're getting off on a tangent or not answering their question anymore, it's their time that that person's using, and they need to chime in and say, thank you. That answered my question.

Okay.

And then the chair would cut them off.

Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Ready to vote. Y'all ready to vote on it?

I am. Alright.

Alright. If you're in favor of forwarding this with a favorable recommendation to the commission for consideration, vote yes. If you're not in favor, vote no.

Mister chairman, there are four yes votes.

Four yes votes. That will be forwarded. We'll drop a resolution to accompany that. Alright. The next page, this goes oh, I'm sorry.

Quick question. Are you gonna discuss this one and then this one, or is this all one?

I think we'll we'll see what the committee wants to do, but I was gonna do them both together.

Okay. Alright.

Go over them together.

Just so I'm gonna have to caption

the And then probably do everything on the second half separately.

Okay. Alright.

Well, together. Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. So this next one is meeting start time. So what we had discussed was the potential of starting the workshop and the county commission meetings at 6PM instead of 06:30. So in order to do that for both of them, rule rule one deals with the the main meeting. Rule 12 deals with, the commission workshop meetings. So you can see the the number has changed on rule one in this proposal. There's a new sentence in rule 12. And I didn't realize before I I reread this that it just says the commission workshop doesn't have a set day or time. It's just at least one week before, the main meeting.

So I didn't change the date, and you'll see why in a minute. I just said commission workshop meeting shall begin shall shall be held at 6PM to match what's up in rule one. Now jumping ahead a little bit, and this is a little bit of a different topic, and I'll open up for discussion after this. But the bottom part of that page, I put down some alternative ideas. And as we think about our timeline for the month and our deadlines and when we have these meetings, something I wanted to propose that we at least consider is going to a Thursday, Thursday, Thursday set up for our calendar.

So perhaps we have we keep the third Thursday of the month for our board of commissioners meetings. We push back the budget and workshop and just say, instead of it being the Tuesday prior, simplify the calendar and say, it's the second Thursday. So we've got a third Thursday for the main meeting, have the commission workshop and the budget committee on the second Thursday, have our agenda items deadline be the first Thursday. And that way, everybody can put it in their calendar very simply. They've got those three events on their calendar. First Thursday is this. Second Thursday is workshop and budget. Third Thursday is the workshop. That way they always know there's it's a Thursday, and they can just count without looking to see, well, this month, where did it fall? Where did the agenda items deadline fall?

Well, they always they can just look at the calendar and say, oh, it's the first Thursday that's coming up, or, oh, I've missed it. So at this time, I'll open it up for discussions.

Mister Giles? Thank you, mister chairman. Is that as I read through the verbiage here, so, essentially, for rule one and rule 12, the only things we're really changing are the start times for those particular meetings.

That's correct.

For the alternate dates that you have in the third, paragraph, if you will, it's essentially changing the, workshop from the second Tuesday to second Thursday of the month.

Well and that's part of the confusion is it's not always the second Tuesday. Mhmm. There are some months where it's the first Tuesday. And so that Thursday

right. It has to be we need that week gap and depending on like, we did it last I think it was last month. The third Thursday, but we went the first Monday. Right. Does that make and the first Tuesday.

And so I think as people when people put it in their calendar, that's one of those things that they have to manually change to say, okay. Is this a month where the first of the month is a Wednesday or Thursday?

Okay.

Because there's no way to put in the calendar, all the auto the calendar apps. It's it's the Tuesday before the third Thursday. That just doesn't work. So this would say Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. It's always the the first Thursday is always gonna be the item's deadline. Second Thursday is always the first the commission workshop and budget. Third Thursday is always the meeting. Like it.

Thank you for the clarification.

Commissioner French.

Thank you, mister German. The only thing I would do in rule 12 is a commission workshop meeting shall be held at least one week prior to commission meetings. I would say add commission in there because nobody will be confused then.

Okay. If there's no objection, we'll add in the word commission before meetings.

Yep.

Alright. Commissioner Giles, are you are you wanting to just do the meeting start time, or did you want us to forward this the alternative ideas also for recommendation.

Thank you for the question, mister chairman. I would like to forward rule one, rule 12, and the alternate idea around. So it'd be all all three main topics on this particular sheet, sir.

Okay. Second that. Yeah.

Okay. Any further discussion? Everyone got a motion with commissioner from commissioner Giles, a second from commissioner French. Did you give them this too, or is this just for me?

Laurie just made it for you. Okay.

I I will will have one question before we vote, please. Chairman? Go ahead. Will that cause any undue hardship on our and I'm asking madam clerk here or our secretary in terms of minutes or notes or anything like that.

No. We she and I discussed that this morning because I thought, is that gonna be enough turnaround time for us? So it will it will be fine.

Okay. So it's not an issue? Mm-mm. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for thinking.

And, commissioner, the one thing that I I do still wanna check on, and I don't think it will be an issue, is the that first Thursday, you'll see it also says it says agenda items due in school board meetings. Right now, we're all that's already kind of sometimes it's falling on the same Yes. Day, so I don't anticipate that will be an issue. I think if they see that there's something that's gonna come to us Mhmm. I think they usually get that information to us even though the school board may not have officially approved it in preparation for the school board will probably approve it, and we need to go ahead and have the information. Thank you. K. Alright. And if there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote. If you're in favor of forwarding us with a favorable recommendation to the commission and the workshop, vote yes.

If you're not in favor, vote no. Four yeses, the motion passes. That one will be forwarded with a favorable recommendation. Alright. The next one on page three, you'll see it's a little bit more complicated.

This is the consent calendar for budget items. And so this is changing rule eight b, which right now just says our consent calendar. So what I've done on the draft is change cons our normal consent calendar will be called the general consent calendar. That's where the things that we have such as the minutes or notary, bonds, oaths, those kinds of things, honorary honorary proclamations. Those will stay on there.

But then we're gonna add a budget consent calendar, to this, which would be a separate consent calendar. And I've nestled it in the same rule to say, budget appropriations, decreases, and grant applications may be bundled under the budget consent calendar on the agenda provided that they do not approve an expenditure of public funds in excess of 250,000. Any such budget item may not be included on the budget consent calendar unless all members of the budget committee who are present during an item's consideration at the budget committee meeting voted for a favorable recommendation of the item and did not abstain. So if you've got five budget committee members at that meeting, they all have to vote yes. If anybody doesn't vote yes for whatever reason, maybe they abstained, maybe they voted no, And this also captures if they just didn't do anything.

Right. If they were present off the consent. It drops off the consent count because there's an issue there. We don't wanna it's it's non con it's no longer assuming it's gonna it's gonna gain a a unanimous approval. We're gonna just pull it off and consider it separately Right. Unless everybody there said yes. Yeah. That in

your in your

Go ahead, question.

Just for clarification, can you use the word in the lower paragraph, and you also said it here? It says the committee will all members of the budget committee who were present during the items consideration of the budget committee meeting voted for a favorable recommendation of the item. I really like the word unanimous. But I don't know how you I don't know how you interject that into there, but it's and it just says the same thing. But, because, like, a five four o or a five o means it can go on to the consent calendar unless somebody has an objection to it. Correct? Mhmm. Okay. That's fine. I was just thinking about using the word unanimous. You use it down below, and that that's sufficient. Thank you.

Yeah. We could if you wanted, we could add unanimously after the word voted. So we could say voted unanimously for a favorable recommendation just to beef up the language a little bit.

I like it. I like it.

So if there's no objection, we'll add that to it. Okay. And then I changed the next sentence to say items shall be removed from either consent calendar on the request of any one member. And I also put us a timeline in there that said at any time prior to the beginning of voting. So as long as we haven't started voting on that consent calendar, they can ask to pull it.

Yeah.

And then any items can't be returned to a consent calendar. So I put this sentence in here to say, you know, if if someone pulls it at the workshop from either consent calendar, it can't go back on the next consent calendar at the main meeting unless everybody unanimously agrees. If it's off, it's off.

It's off. So when so when it rolls to commission?

If it's removed from the consent calendar at the workshop, then it it voted on and goes forward to the full commission meeting. It still can't be added to the consent calendar if I'm reading that correctly.

Right. Unless everybody unless unanimously says, yeah. We're okay with it going back on.

K.

And then there's language in there that says each consent calendar is gonna be considered separately. And so that chain that would change eight b to add that language. And then correspondingly, under rule three, our order of business, I added I changed the name of consent calendar to general consent calendar. And then I added approval of the budget consent calendar, and I added it after public input on items on the agenda. So our normal consent calendar, we have honorary decrees and those kinds of things.

Those are normally considered before public input. But I I think for budget items, we would want that to be after public input in case someone from the public says, hey. There's an issue here that you all didn't catch, and I wanna bring it to your attention. Well, at this point, we haven't voted on it yet, so let's pull it and and talk about

Like, good job. Well done.

I added welcoming and recognizing special guests. I don't know what you all think about that. That's just something I since we're doing rule free anyway, I added it there in case there's something that we want to someone wanna recognize and honor.

Yeah. That's general we do that, but you're right. It hasn't been on our our set agenda, so I like identifying what we should be doing. Doc you're documenting what our process is. Very well done. Thank you.

Alright. Open up for discussion or a motion at the committee's pleasure. Motion to forward from commissioner French with a favorable recommendation. Second from commissioner Carver. Any further discussion?

Alright. Commissioners, if you're in favor of forwarding with a favorable recommendation, vote yes. If you're not in favor, vote no.

Is your term there for yes votes?

Alright.

Our next one on page four, this is something commissioner Michael's brought up, but he's not present. And this is reevaluation of needed sponsors for resolutions. So I believe this was something that I don't think the rules committee has ever talked about it. I think what this was a the the resolution was brought to add this as a requirement at the beginning of last term in 2018, and it was to say if it's gonna be considered by the workshop or the commission, it needs to have at least two sponsors. So the language for our discussion purposes is it'd be striking that and changing it to say at least one sponsor's name must be on the heading or signature.

It's keeping the requirement for at least one sponsor to be present. So that's what this one does. Commissioner French, recognized.

Thank you, mister chairman. This rule was put in for a reason. The we don't need to we don't need to hear any resolutions that are fleeting and just are insane. Therefore, I'm not gonna move I'm not gonna vote to move this forward. However, we are like the budget committee.

It will move forward, no with what our vote is. In other words, if we vote two to one, it'll move forward with a two two to one favorable vote. If we vote one to two, it it seems like a budget committee moving forward. I I just wanna make that clear. But I'm not in favor of this. This was put in. If the clerks don't have the time to write these resolutions up anyway, they probably won't be writing something in aim like that anyway.

Well, I tend to agree with you, commissioner. And and I'll, you know, if anyone wants to make a motion, of course, we're gonna we'll vote on it. But my thought would be if commissioner Michaels is the one who wanted this to to happen, I I think we should probably

I agree.

I think

he needs to move forward.

Well, I was gonna say we should probably so that we can make an informed decision as a rules committee, probably postpone this one until he's present and can make the case for.

That's that's a good idea. I think he did not. I'll make that motion.

And I'll second it.

Okay. So we'll push this one to the next committee meeting if there's no objection. Alright. Hearing no objection, we'll we'll push this one to the next rules committee meeting.

Okay. Let me go.

Excuse me. The next one is page five. This is clarification of deadline for agenda items. And this one, we may need to well, I think this is in line with what our recommendation was before on the Thursday Thursday Thursday idea. So I'll just go through this.

The first change on there is that a clarification that, the person who is going to be reducing the resolution to writing is going to be the sponsor. I think we need to make sure that it's clear that the sponsor's responsibility is to be the one to reduce it to writing, not necessarily, staff or the clerk's office. So that's what that first change does. Moving on down to, one third of the way down. Resolutions conforming to the above form shall be submitted by email or by paper copy to the clerk or the clerk's designated deputy clerk on or before the date that is one calendar week prior to the date of the meeting.

And then I added an a parenthetical to say, for example, for a Tuesday meeting's agenda, the resolution must be submitted before the close of business on the Tuesday one week prior. So to match what we had said on the Thursday idea, if the workshop and the budget is on that Thursday, second Thursday, this is saying the deadline is the close of business the Thursday before that, which would be the first Thursday. Moving on, if there is a specific sorry. If there's a legitimate reason that a resolution cannot be submitted to the clerk by the specified deadline, the chairman by written notice, and then I added or the membership by a two thirds vote in the affirmative may allow the introduction of the resolution. So that's keeping with our current practice.

Normally, we suspend the rules to allow it, but this is saying this is a not a suspension of the rules. This is saying the rule allows you to do that if it's two thirds. But then I've added in either of those cases whether the chairman does it by written notice or the membership by a two thirds vote, the sponsor of the resolution has to submit a written statement to the chair explaining the legitimate reason for missing the deadline and requesting its inclusion on the agenda. So if I'm a sponsor and I'm bringing a resolution and I miss that Thursday deadline, if that rule change gets adopted, I've gotta come to the clerk, come to the chair, and say, I missed the deadline. Here is why I missed the deadline, and I'm putting that in writing so it can be put in the packet.

And that way, everybody can judge was there really a legitimate reason, or did we just miss the deadline. And then the last change on there is a I just changed it to say the board of commissioners, to clarify that that's what the board that we're talking about is at the last part of it. Commissioner French.

Thank you, mister chairman. Is this, this is this conform to state statute, or we run into issues with that? I believe state statute states five working days of it. I teach I'm just curious if we're gonna run into problems with that.

Yeah. I don't think it will because I this is not a chain it's a change in the wording to be more clear, but five working days would be the same as a week.

Okay. Unless wanna make sure it's understood by by most of us. That that's what that means. Yeah. I understand what you're saying.

So I suppose the only the only question would be if there was a holiday that fell in there. And so, you know, July 4, for example, we might wanna say

Wait. You think that need I think that might need to be addressed, isn't it? Yeah.

We might wanna say we might wanna say somewhere in here that if if that day falls on a holiday, it'll be the preceding working day.

That's that's yeah. Or about yeah. Or if well, that that would take care of that. The seven days takes care of it no matter by saying work taking working days out of it. It takes care of the holiday in itself there. But if it's I see that.

So if I add after that parenthetical where it says on the Tuesday one week prior, add a new sentence that says, that date falls on a legal holiday, then the deadline shall be the preceding working day.

She that ain't right. So

if that date talking about the deadline date, if that date falls on a legal holiday the one week prior, then the deadline shall be the preceding working day.

Yeah. Good. That'll make it clear for when you before the board meeting. Yeah.

And I think the brought that up to me earlier today. So let's see here. So this year, July 4 is on a Friday, so it wouldn't affect the deadline would still be that Thursday.

Right.

Right. Okay.

But it but But it

it that'll change.

That'll change. And on the years that it falls on the fourth, we would push it back to the Wednesday Mhmm. Before that.

I'm ready to make a motion.

Alright. Any motion? Motion to forward?

Student that needs sponsors. Verification is the deadline.

Commissioner Giles moves to forward with a favorable recommendation. Commissioner French seconds. Any further discussion? Alright. If you're in favor of forwarding this amendment with the amendment we talked about, vote yes. If you're not in favor, vote no.

Mister Chairman, there are four yes votes.

Four yes votes. Motion passes. That item will be forwarded with a favorable recommendation. Alright. The next one is item six. I don't think this one is quite ready to be forwarded. I wanted to put it in here for a starting point for discussion, and I wanna have a discussion with our county attorney about this, which I haven't done yet. Okay. So, maybe this would be one that we would just talk about maybe at our next committee meeting after those things have been done, come back and and Use some

time to digest. Digest. Great.

But just to go over it, these are some of the things that that I had been thinking about and some things that we have in practice done that I mentioned last time I wanted to be codified and and put out there so the public knows what to expect. So in that first paragraph, I've included that the, you know, residents may address the board one at a time from the podium provided on issues within the commission's jurisdiction the following provisions. So I've included in number one that they're gonna direct their remarks to the chair or the commission as a body and refrain from directing comments to individual commissioners or calling the names of commissioners. What what commissioner?

Received. Okay.

Number two, I've got a list of things that are it's nonexhaustive, but just some things that are viewpoint neutral that I feel like we should have a rule to point to. Mhmm. So commercial advertisements, I don't think we need to allow someone to come up and say, come on down to, you know, Jared's Crab Shack or whatever. And

What about stumping for political office? That you know what? No. Understand that if someone is interested in filling a vacancy, that's different. But we've had some and a few cases that I can remember, somebody coming up here and stumping for state rep or state senator or or whatever. I'm not sure that's appropriate in this this setting.

Well, I tend to think that that's more useful than, like, a commercial advertisement just because I feel like if they are seeking office, they should introduce themselves to us. And it is that's more of a public interest thing than maybe the commercial solicitation, but I'm I'm open to certainly open to discussing that and figuring that out. Commissioner Giles?

And and I realize we're gonna talk about this the next meeting after we digest this, but I have a question. Thank you, mister chairman. Miss Hasty and I had a conversation here a couple of weeks ago. I was at another public at the driver's license bureau, and the there were some individuals in there that were wearing very distasteful clothes, profanity on clothes. What is our position, or what should our position be for someone who addresses this committee that walks up to that podium and they've got and they realize we have we have we have freedom of speech.

But if somebody walks up there and says something that says, the god of f plastered on their t shirt, that to me is very inappropriate. And I'm I'm not sure we have any legal recourse, or do we?

Well, I think that depends. So I've got on four or I'm sorry. On two d, you'll see that I've got we've got personal attacks, obscene language, demarcate derogatory remarks. Those are those are verbal things that I've got.

You know? Yes.

I don't know I don't know the legality of if someone's wearing something offensive, you know, what is our enforcement mechanism? And I think it comes down to disruptive. It looks like all of the state law and state statutes governing conduct at meetings. Our key thing is is it disruptive or And so I wanna have a a discussion about does clothing you know, saying something is one thing. That's a little more disruptive if it's derogatory or obscene language than maybe just wearing it, and I wanna know where that line is before we really tackle that one.

I

respect your decision and your opinion there, but it just based on my observation, it was very offensive, especially to the females and to young young people that were in there. I shouldn't say it. That's not fair. Probably anybody that any any value system would be very offense be offended by what I saw. At the driver's license bureau, they chose to not do anything about it and probably for good reason.

But this isn't a public driver's license forum. This is a professional commission meeting where it would be again, I'm all for free speech and so forth, but just some of the things that we see nowadays are just totally out of line. I'm just wondering if we could nip that in the bud. It sounds like problem.

I agree. I agree. And I'm not saying I I don't think we can. I think if somebody came up and depending on what they were wearing and what it said and and how how prominent it was, you know, I think that might fall under the general duties of the chair to enforce decorum and order. Okay. That could be very disruptive. Okay.

You know, a

certain line. I just wanna make sure that whoever's sitting in this chair at any of the meetings, they know where that line is, and they can say, okay. You need to you need to find someone else that has a jacket on and cover that up before you address this. Right. Yeah. You can speak, but you need

to change your attire or cover it up or something along those lines. Okay. Like you said, we'll we'll digest this and discuss this more.

Right? Mhmm.

Thank you. So I

do have and and a little bit on that point, I've got placards, signs and displays in two b. Two c, they need to address the board, not the audience. Although I do think and this is something I'd I'd want the committee's opinions on at some point, except that a citizen speaking may ask members of the audience present who are part of their group to identify themselves by raising their hands. I do think that's useful if someone brings a contingent down from, some part of the county and says we're all here. We're property owners concerned about this rezoning. They don't all have to get up and speak about it. Maybe one of them that's leading it can say, if if members of our group would raise their hand in support of this issue, I think they can raise their hand to identify themselves. They don't have to come up and speak. That'll save all of us some time and save them from having to come up and speak. Okay.

Three is a point about we're facilitating free speech rights, but preserving order, and we're not going to consider their viewpoint or opinions. We're just you know, First Amendment's very important to us, and we're not going to say this is being enforced due to the what they're saying, the content of their speech. We're just trying to preserve order and have a just a disruptionless meeting as far as we can. Four reiterates our current practice. Members of the board shall not respond directly, but the chair can offer brief information of a general nature such as the time and place of an upcoming meeting.

So if someone's coming out to speak about a certain thing, the chair can say, there's a public hearing on that item at this date and time, and that's kind of it. And then I added a sentence that says members shall reserve their statements for the announcements and statements portion of the order of business. So that's our time to speak and respond during that time. Bob is saying we've had some some people oh, commissioner, go ahead.

Thank you, mister chairman. I don't believe this happened this happened since I've been on the board, but I do have a recollection, might have been before I was elected, of watching a commissioner in the horseshoe get up, excuse himself, and go to the podium to is that, for lack of a better is that kosher?

Yeah. I think we don't give up our right to be members of the public when we're on the board. Right. That's unusual for sure. But I've

only seen it once.

Yeah. If a if a commissioner feels the need to, no. I I I know when that that one happened recent not recently, but it happened last term, and it was a little unusual. And from my perspective, you get three minutes if you're at the podium. You get ten minutes or, I guess, five minutes if you're doing announcements and statements. Right. So which one's more effective? I think that's just a judgment call that each commissioner's gonna have to make

Okay.

And depending on the issue.

I was just if if I'm being totally candid. I was just confused because I've never I've only seen it once, never seen it since then, and I've not been able to find any place that says, yes. That's that's that's what we're able to do. But since you were talking about this and addressing public speaking, that's what that individual did. Essentially, went down and spoke from the public speaking forum perspective versus as a commissioner is the way I interpret that.

So and it could be. I mean, I suppose you could interpret this rule to say members shall reserve their statements that they can't do that.

That's that's why I'm asking.

That's not necessarily what my intent was. That's just that's one way you could you could look at them.

Thank you, mister Jeremy. That brings up a good point because in the past, the commissioners have excused themselves and said, I I wanna speak as a member of the public instead of as member of the commission. They they they have done that in the past, and and I I don't know that we can stop them. However, it also brings up another point. What if I speak five minutes and five minutes and then I decide I wanna speak from a public standpoint, I get three more minutes. You know? I'm

just Just don't take

the opposite devil's advocate here, but it's gonna happen. Believe me.

Yeah. Just don't take the opposite position when you're down there that you took up here. Mister Carver?

Back in the past, mister Williams, Richard Williams, he would stand up at his seat, and he spoke. And and he but he was very proper in his what he was saying. He wasn't attacking, but he'd stand up and make his statements. Is that something that we can still do?

Think absolutely. There's no rule against it. And, the only concern is if you're, you know, I wouldn't have any problem, but taller commissioners may not the microphone may not catch what they're gonna say.

So Yeah. But that might be something that the commissioners don't realize that they can do if they wanna make a massive statement. But he just did it because that was his style.

Yeah. And I think, you know, you'll see some references in here about sitting down or or standing up, and we've all normally just sit our seats to get the microphone. But, yeah, it's perfectly fine to stand up, I think. Alright. Number five, I put written oh, go ahead, commissioner Johnson. Thank you,

mister chairman. I have a very important engagement I have to be at. Well, I what does that do to this meeting if I step out?

We're almost done. So if you wanted to I mean, we can the other one that we've got, the language for, we may wanna digest too. Okay. So are you leaving, like, imminently, or do you have

I've got about three minutes before I have it.

Well, let me let me just go through this one, and then we'll Okay. See how far we can get. Thank you. So number five is written public comments. It can be submitted to the clerk for distribution via email or other means in the chair of clerk's discretion. However, no materials or written comments will be distributed during the meeting to the board. On occasion, we've had people come and want to give us handouts, and this is this is formalizing the rule that says it's not gonna be dispersed. They they need to give it to the clerk to email out or the chair.

They can leave them if we choke them.

Leave them, something like that, or the clerk wants to handle it. And then six is just saying apart from the foregoing, the chair this is a catch all. The chair has a general duty right and power to enforce decorum and order such as the board supervision and direction and consistent with the rights to free speech. So if there's no objection, we'll postpone this one until the next meeting? Yes, sir. Alright. Hearing none, that'll be postponed. Page seven, technology upgrades. I just put some question marks. I think we're gonna wanna figure out if we need to do a resolution.

I don't know that we do, but it's on here just in case we wanted to plug something in. So you'll skip that one if there's no objection. And then the last one is professional meeting protocols. So this is adding a new rule 19, and it's saying during meetings, members shall give their full attention to the current speaker and the business of the government of the citizens of Blount County at hand. And then it's got three things that members should generally, either refrain from doing or try to do.

So refrain from use of devices other than for the purposes of county business, refrain from side discussions that would be distracting from the current speaker, and they should try to arrive early enough before the meeting's start time so they can be counted in the initial roll call. So those these are just guidelines from kinda what we talked about last time. Yes, sir. And I would say, let's let's talk about this one next at the next meeting. And if you've got something you wanna add to it or change about it, then let's let's talk about it.

Thank you, mister chairman. I would like to put something in there about attendance. I don't know what that looks like at this point. Attendance. Oh. But if you if you take had the opportunity to digest any of the information that was forward to us, I think we have an issue that I'm not sure we can resolve, but I would like to have further discussion on at some point.

Okay. Thank you.

Commission. Anyone else on this one? Commissioner, you're you hit your button again? Okay. Alright. If there's no objections, we'll forward this one on to the next meeting as well. And that's all I had for for our proposal so far. Very welcome. Go ahead, commissioner.

I'd I'd like to say, Jared, you have put a lot of time and followed into these things. I I really appreciate that. I really I mean, they're excellent with what we talked about last time, and I appreciate what you've done. I mean, it it I don't think it could have been done any better.

Well, thank you, commissioner. I was just taking what this committee had had put a lot of thought into before and tried to make it, informed of what we got. Commissioner Giles?

And to echo what commissioner French just said, actually, pleasantly surprised with all of the all the work that has gone into this. And when I first read it, I'm like, ah. But the more I read it and digest some of the logic around it and so forth, Our goal is to be as good as we possibly can be. I'll speak for myself. My goal is to be a member of this commission and for us to be as thorough, professional, and as effective as we possibly can be. And the things that I've seen in this, just as commissioner French said, you put a lot of time and effort into this, and everything that I've seen just helps get get us to that. I applaud you, and I appreciate your leadership there. As usual, I do.

Well, thank you, commissioner, and thank thank you to all of you for all the hard work you're putting into this. Alright. Setting in the next meeting. Do we have

a proposed thing? Shit. No.

You just tell me I'll be there.

Okay.

I need I need to run.

So I'll talk to the clerk, and we'll get a proposed thing, and we'll pull the the committee and see what we wanna do on that.

Thank you.

If there's no objections, we will adjourn.

Thank you. Alright. With that

objection, we're adjourned.