Public Participation In City Commission Meetings.

Like my old boss used to say, buying a ticket to a basketball game does not mean  you get to play in the game. The City Charter and laws of the state of Michigan gives City of Bloomfield Hills residents numerous rights in regards meetings that effect them.  Those rights include the right to be notified of meetings, the  right to attend meetings, the right to witness the governing body actually governing  and the right  to access  the meeting's published minutes.  The right to witness means that decisions made by the governing body are to be made in open debate at the meeting. They are not to be made  in advance or in private and simply rubber stamped at the meeting. Aside from showing up and keeping one's mouth shut, there are no rights of public participation provided by either the city charter or The state of Michigan

In the City of Bloomfield Hills, public participation at city commission meetings has been allowed at at the discretion of the Mayor or presiding officer. The rules of procedure included in this post were adopted in by the City Commission  on October 9th of 2007 when Ms. Patricia Hardy was Mayor. .The  City Commission meeting minutes of that date indicate that the rules were adopted by a unanimous vote of  the commission consisting of five individuals who either or were or went on to become Mayor. The extent of  public participation at their meetings varied. Mayor David Kellet was believed to be the least enthusiastic in this regard. Mayor Michael McCready was regarded as the most positive and enabling. Current Mayor Micheal Zambricki is thought to be somewhere in between.  A stack of the Rules of  the Procedure was  put beside  a stack of the City of Bloomfield Hills Tree Initiative  one sheets on a little table in the lobby at the last City Commission meeting.

The rules of procedure  are important to every resident because they provide  privileges (always subject to change) that are not given elsewhere in any document or law.

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Last but not least, fans of our on going series concerning  the City's Master Plan will be happy to know that  despite two digressions (Tree Initiative and Rules of Order)  we are right back where we left off. The Tree Initiative mentions the Master Plan and speaks for it, but it is voluntary and funded privately. Rules  of Procedure was adopted at the October 9th 2007, city commission meeting which coincided more or less with the Master Plan, "Kick off.". The minutes of that meeting are linked above to this post in red. Included  in the minutes under  "Recognition of Citizens in the Audience " are two individuals, Robert Toohey and Walter Cueter, who spoke that night under the same rules that apply to you or I. They both went on to be eventual chairmen of the city's Planning Commission and both played major roles  in the development of the Master Plan.