The Ogemaw County Board of Commissioners is planning to relocate meetings to the annex building. The annex building is located across the street from the Sheriff’s Office on south eighth street in West Branch.

The board’s plan to relocate follows a discussion prompted by a letter from a court employee during a committee of the whole meeting Aug. 24.

Terri Collini, 34th circuit court administrator, wrote to the board regarding building temperature issues. Collini wrote that when the commissioners shut the court facility’s heating and cooling unit fans off, it makes the working conditions “unbearable.” The commissioners shut the unit fans off because it is loud during meetings in the commissioners’ room.

“I am asking that the Ogemaw County Building maintain a comfortable temperature work environment for all employees of the Ogemaw County Court Facility, even during county commissioners’ meetings,” wrote Collini.

The commissioners discussed two possible solutions—relocate the meetings or change the meeting times.

“The easiest thing to do would be to move (all) your meetings to 5:30 p.m.,” said Dolehanty. “Then there’s no interference with any court activity or anything upstairs.”

“The reason we have two different meeting times is transparency,” said Commissioner Craig Scott. “It allows people that cannot attend an evening meeting to be able to attend a day meeting.

“The other thing is our employees,” continued Scott. “We’re going to ask all our employees to make reports to us in the evening if they are on the clock. We could even be talking about overtime in some cases.”

Another option offered was to relocate meetings to the annex building for the morning meetings, which are first two Thursdays of the month at 9 a.m. However, there is no security station in the annex building. That is a concern for commissioners. While it is rare, some topics are heated and draw a crowd.

Chairperson Jenny David had no issue with relocating as long as there are no incidents. “It’s worth a trial,” said David.

To avoid confusion, the commissioners decided all future meetings will be held at the annex building.