News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena County Commissioners Brenda Fournier, left, Todd Britton, center, and Travis Konarzewski discuss their reasoning for wanting to increase the number of seats on the Alpena County Road Commission Board. The commissioners voted on Tuesday to increase the number of road commissioners from three to five beginning on Jan. 1.

ALPENA — The Alpena County Road Commission Board will jump from the current three-member board to five members on Jan. 1.

The Alpena County Board of Commissioners voted 7-1 on Tuesday to increase members on the board, believing it will allow for more representation countywide, while making it easier for road commissioners to discuss matters outside of a public meeting.

By only having three members on the road commission, if only two of them discuss business, it is a breach of the Open Meetings Act because it would be a quorum.

For months, the county has taken the needed steps to expand the road commission board, including holding a pair of public hearings on the issue. Now, County Administrator Jesse Osmer said, he just needs to file some simple paperwork with the Michigan Road Commission Association and the Michigan Department of Transportation.

After that, the commissioners can begin their search for a pair of new appointments that will begin on the board after the new year begins.

Commissioner Lucille Bray said she has weighed the pros and cons of keeping the road commission board at three members or expanding it to five. She said expanding it to five seats made sense because she believes not allowing road commissioners to communicate with one another outside of a public meeting isn’t efficient. Bray, who was appointed as the commissioner for District No. 3 last fall, said it helped her to be able to ask questions with her fellow commissioners and learn more about issues before important votes. She said had she been handcuffed by the restrictions of the Open Meetings Act, it would have been more challenging for her to settle into her new role.

“Being able to talk among your colleagues is important and with a three-member board you can’t speak to one another outside of official meetings,” she said. “In my limited time on this board, that is important to me. For the decisions I made, I needed to speak with other people because I wouldn’t have been comfortable with some of my decisions if I wasn’t able to speak and learn more from my colleagues.”

Travis Konarzewski, the commissioner for District No. 7, echoed Bray’s opinion and reflected back to when he was a new commissioner and how important it was for him to communicate with more veteran board members. He also added that he had contacted other counties that have transitioned from a three-person road commission board to five and, he said, they all said it worked well for them.

“They told me the positives heavily outweighed the negatives,” he said.

Commissioner Bill LaHaie was the lone commissioner to vote against increasing how many seats are on the road commission board.

He said he attends road commission meetings often and it is clear that communication with road commission staff is strong and the decision-making process between the three current road commissioners is strong.

He added that in Michigan, there are more three-member road commission boards than those with five.

“I think we should leave it alone and the way it is,” LaHaie said. “The way it is working now is working very well and I don’t think we need to mess with it.”

Adding two additional people to the road commission board will have a financial impact on the road commission’s annual budget, but it may be limited, Osmer said. He told The News in March that there may need to be tweaks to the wages and per diems the road commissioners earn.

The allocation from the county to the road commission will be the same.

Osmer said currently, the road commissioners make $300 a meeting, plus a salary of $4,500 annually. They also receive a per diem of $30 for any meeting over four hours long. That equates to a total of about $8,460 a year, he added.

The Alpena County Road Commission is responsible for maintaining about 660 miles of primary and local roads in the county and is responsible for the maintenance of 21 local bridges.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@TheAlpenaNews.com. Follow him on X @ss_alpenanews.com.