Lengthy meetings catches officials’ attention

Twice a month people gather inside the Macon-Bibb County Commission’s small meeting room waiting to speak and hear officials talk about specific agenda items.

Starting at 9 a.m., officials follow a schedule for committees such as Public Safety, Economic and Community Development and Operations and Finance. But without being able to determine how long each discussion will last, sometimes people are waiting for long periods of time before the items they came for come up.

This dilemma is catching the attention of some commissioners.

At Tuesday’s committee meetings, the Committee of the Whole was first on the schedule. That committee agenda included two presentations, a discussion on garbage fees plus an executive session, and lasted well over two hours.

“It seems like these presentations can come later and the folks that came in here to talk about the business we’re going to pass locally, we should consider that,” Commissioner Al Tillman said.

The commission should look at rearranging the committee meeting schedule, Commissioner Elaine Lucas said.

“I think we need to go back there and stick with this schedule we started out with because it’s not working for a lot of people,” she said. “They’re having to leave because they didn’t anticipate these lengthy presentations.”

This story was originally published March 3, 2017 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Lengthy meetings catches officials’ attention."