I have been attending township, city, county and recently Alcona County Commission on Aging meetings for over 10 years. Never in all this time have I experienced the degrading level of combatant behavior of a subgroup as I have with ACCOA in the last five months. This subgroup has always been around submitting their versions of Resolutions to local boards in order to subvert democracy and forward thinking. Thankfully, common sense and a call to duty for all citizens has prevailed until now, especially as witnessed with the overtake, yes I said it, of the ACCOA Board of Directors.

I have seen and heard these new board members, who are supported by the above mentioned subgroup, display childish behavior by over-talking each other during public meetings, shouting discourse to the citizens and whining over simple management issues that should have been discussed between the employees and committee members at the time of discovery. Their By Laws; Article V, section 5, state “Robert’s Rules of Order Shall be used to conduct all meetings and businesses…”, and citizens have reminded them of such, including myself, and yet they persisted to look and conduct themselves in the worst caustic and inept manner. This is irrefutably a cause for setting a completely new ACCOA Board of Directors by citizen vote, not cherry picked by the very people who don’t know what they are doing, who have been violating employment law and basic rules of order. Having an Oversight committee formed either by the Alcona County Board of Commissioners or Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency is paramount and responsible governance, especially when our county’s gift of $12.5 million is in the balance.

I urge calls to these agencies for transparency and corrections immediately:

ACBC — 989-724-9419

NEMSCA — 989-358-4600

MARGARET KUTZERA,

Harrisville