I think we all have sympathy for somebody who might have a mental or physical disability and want them to participate. I wanted a change that there has to be some documentation of some kind if you have a mental disability. That claim could be made and now some of the most important entities in the state of Michigan could have someone who is going to be voting on a tax increase like an ISD, could put a tax millage on and the people would like to answer some questions personally, and would not have the ability to do that.
The whole purpose of the Open Meetings Act is that the people have the right to confront the people who are going to be making these major decisions and there should be a lot of real constraints to make sure we’re having an individual who is meeting a very strict criteria and not something as open-ended as thew ay this bill has been written. I think it’s doing a great disservice to the people who are unable to face-to-face ask questions of individuals who are making these tremendous decisions on their behalf.
Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
Mr. President, as you and many other members here know, I’ve been working on this issue for a significant amount of time. As technology has improved, as our society has changed, there have been ongoing pressures on us to utilize various technologies for those who are serving in public bodies. Whether they need to be absent for a personal matter, traveling, or due to illness or disease that are in the community, we’ve seen a lot of pressure on this situation and most of us can speak with experience as to what the outcome of that has been because during the COVID time, we had mandates on this state that public bodies meet virtually. What went as something that prior to COVID was basically unregulated and could be seen being used by several of our boards on an occasional basis became the norm. What I saw happen prior to COVID in several instances where virtual technology was utilized was an incredible abuse of the public trust, where members were simply called on just in time for a vote on a particular issue and participated in none of the public discussion. I witnessed meetings where the technology failed numerous times and communication between the public or between members of the board was lost on numerous occasions, therefore not fully informing the people who were voting online what was going on.
Then we came to COVID and suddenly it was mandatory on all of us to utilize these means. At first, during the early emergence, I think it was utilized with some care and caution, but over time, and many of us experienced this within this body ourselves, where we were doing so many calls by Zoom or by Teams or other methods. We saw members of boards and councils who were attending the meeting while at the McDonald’s drive-thru or while in their home drinking a beer or while in the bathroom. These are simply not excusable uses. Until we address those very important issues, we should not delve into granting more use of virtual technology for our public bodies. We don’t have any rules here for what it means if the call drops. Does the whole meeting stop? Is the meeting over? What happens? Does business go on or not? When that person comes back on the call and the meeting has continued on because a quorum was there but they’ve missed all that public testimony, are we really going to allow them to participate in the meeting in that way? Is that fair to our public? While I understand the generous nature that underlies this bill, that drives this bill forward, and the care and compassion being felt for those with a disability who might not easily be able to get to the chamber that the meeting is at, ultimately we have to write laws that govern open meetings to the defense of the public. That is the paramount virtue of the Open Meetings Act: the defense of the public’s access to the business of their government, of their elected leaders.
I’ve introduced legislation—Senate Bill No. 641—to try and help us modernize the Open Meetings Act because we definitely need to do something about this. We need to recognize that with 10,000 public bodies in this state of all different levels and job descriptions, we can and must modernize this, but this bill alone, while it’s driven by compassion and kindness, is not at all addressing numerous necessary needs about the technology, about the defense of the public’s ability to confront its elected leaders. Do we want to chance our elected leaders sitting at home drinking while participating or even potentially having someone in the room manipulating them before they can make a decision? If people can’t attend meetings, we ought to be understanding of that. We ought to give them the flexibility. I’m not criticizing any person in this chamber or on any of our other public bodies who has to miss an occasional meeting, whether it’s for a disability or for a personal reason or a professional reason. Life happens—we all know that in these jobs—but our primary understanding of a public body and its work has to first and foremost sit on the top of the heap, the rights of the public to confront its elected representatives, the rights of the public to participate and to observe and to know what its public officials are doing.
I encourage us to put this bill back in committee, get some more opportunity to merge these issues together, work this out, so we don’t go forward and pass a law that’s going to create more problems and really leave our public without its access and without its rights defend to the strongest degree. I encourage a “no” vote.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 872, entitled
A bill to amend 1994 PA 203, entitled “Foster care and adoption services act,” (MCL 722.951 to 722.960) by adding section 8f.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: