Board Wrestles With Allowing Members A Time To Speak

Published 12:00 am Monday, August 13, 2012

By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

Be nice. Work together.
County commissioners were full of advice for each other on Monday night as they wrestled with the idea of allowing each member to speak their minds near the end of regular meetings.
That practice was abandoned by Carl Humphrey when he became chair, and Ken White has been asking for months that it be re-instated.
He made that motion on Monday to add it to the agenda. But there was already a motion and second on the floor to adopt the agenda, said Attorney Ed Vogler, so White’s motion was out of line. The agenda was adopted 3-2, with White and Richard Poindexter voting against it.
White then made a motion to amend the adopted agenda to allow commissioners a time to speak. After discussion, it was adopted unanimously.
“It ought to be a permanent feature of the agenda,” White said. “It should not be up to one person to determine if we speak or not.”
Mark Jones said he respected Humphrey’s decision to disallow …