Something unusual happened at the Leelanau County board of commissioners meeting last week: Commissioner Melinda Lautner requested that all items be pulled from the board’s consent agenda for further discussion, then voted to approve them all anyway.
According to the Michigan Municipal League (MML), consent agendas contain “routine items that do not need further discussion.” If discussion of an item is desired, the MML says, it can be removed. But the discussions that followed at the Aug. 20 meeting mostly retreaded ground from the previous week.
“Our consent agenda are all those issues that this board unanimously agreed to at our executive committee,” board Chairman Ty Wessell said. “They were noncontroversial. And any commissioner who wishes to have one of the items removed, down for discussion or future action, can do that.”
When asked by her peer Commissioner Kama Ross, Lautner said that commissioners have the right to pull items from the consent agenda without giving any reasons. However, no other board member has pulled every item from the consent agenda over their currently ongoing two-year terms.
During the commissioner comment period at the end of the meeting, Lautner criticized approving multiple items at once under consent agendas. Lautner also noted that separating the items on the consent agenda allows her to cast more “yes” votes.
Whenever this board fails to reach a unanimous decision, Lautner is often the only oppositional vote. Lautner said that she was requesting separations to push back against the perception that she “just votes ‘no’ on everything.”
“There were 12 votes that were all ‘yes’ votes. If they go consent (agenda), that would be one ‘yes’ vote. So, we will split those,” Lautner said at the meeting.
“I feel these items are of extreme importance and should be dealt with individually,” Lautner responded to the newspaper’s request for clarification. “It is very important for people to know I do vote ‘yes’ on the county’s business.”
The exercise extended the meeting by just over 15 minutes. But Lautner was able to cast 13 more “aye” votes that evening than if the board had simply approved all the noncontroversial items in one motion as they usually do.
Before the board approves a consent agenda, they discuss the items at their executive session the week before their regular meeting and distribute meeting agendas that list the items. After the board approves a consent agenda, the individual items are reported in this newspaper.
