Oakland County Board of Commissioners

Last week I was down at the Oakland County Board of Commissioners to hear the budget presentation of the Executive, and noticed a couple things. First, I was lucky I was able to go to one of these meetings- usually they hold these meetings when ordinary citizens can't go to them. Don't know why this is- but most people who have day jobs can't go to them. Next, I noticed that the budgeting process is for some reason totally inaccessible to the public- after listening for an hour, I got nothing on it, other than vague ideas. They didn't even give me any graphs or charts or anything- the various government officials got them, but not me, a lowly citizen. It wouldn't have mattered anyways- the budgeting process is a bunch of crap. The government does a poor job of anticipating anything, and so they always seem to be in crisis mode- even an award winning budgeting process like Oakland County (yes, they won some award). Lastly, what's the point of it anyways- they are not going to cut what they say they are going to cut, and the solution to their budgeting woes was to raid their rainy day fun anyways. Here is the write-up from the Oakland Press on it.