Macomb County clerk to test live county commission roll call votes and

In addition to promoting transparency, Sabaugh says an advantage will be that county commissioners have the opportunity to see the text of motions as they are made, which can make motions clearer during meetings and reduce administrative time required to reproduce motions.  A motion made by a commissioner and typed by the clerk would be instantly available to all commissioners who wanted to view it on their phones, laptops or other devices.  Sabaugh says another advantage will be the ability of her staff to detect corrections more quickly because “more eyes will be looking.”

Unofficial meeting minutes are normally not published on the Internet until the end of a commission meeting or the next day.  Minutes are not official until adopted by commissioners at a subsequent meeting.

This will be the first time unofficial Macomb County Commission meeting minutes are made available in real time to the public using a Google Doc.  Sabaugh said tomorrow’s agenda is light and no controversy is expected, making the meeting perfect to test a new innovation. Sabaugh directed her staff to find out if it would be helpful to offer this service for other meetings and commissions and to work out a process.

There is no additional cost for this service because it is part of the clerk’s Google Apps for Government suite.  The county has over 400 Google Apps users.  The clerk/register of deeds, court staff and County Executive Office recently renewed Google Apps for Government licenses for their departments.  The county has approximately 1,500 non-Google E-mail accounts and 417 Google licenses.