Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton says the County Commission needs to take a long look at creating a committee that would advise the sheriff’s office on how it spends dollars from the Mental Health and Public Safety Millage.
The County Commission is considering establishing the committee that would include stakeholders from the community who would make recommendations on millage allocations.
Sheriff Clayton says his concern is that those on the committee will be more focus on their own agendas and not the county as a whole.
“(Are) those eight or nine people actually truly representive of the community? Or are those eight or nine people representative of some small section that the commissioners decide should be part of the community? So, if that’s what they want to do that’s fine. But I’ll argue whether that’s true representation.”
County Commissioner Andy LaBarre, who introduced the committee legislation, says the idea was to give more of the public an opportunity to lend a voice to how the millage dollars are spent. He says, just like the committee that oversees the mental health side of the millage, the final say will always be the County Commission.
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