Statement regarding the Public Comment Session of Fulton Commission Meeting

At the public comment session at the Fulton County Commission meeting today, I’d like to point out several discrepancies between what the board passed as a motion to amend the public comments session and what occurred in reality. It was my understanding that exact same comments and substantially similar comments would be grouped, the entire comment would be read as submitted and a list of the names would be provided for those who made the statement. Of course some of the comments would be personalized, not the same as others and should be read in full. 

This is not what occurred in the meeting. Residents who submitted comments have reached out to me to indicate that their personalized comment was not read at all, and while it covered a variety of topics on the agenda, only one of those topics was referred to. Others who wrote substantially similar comments have reached out to me to say that the entire comment was not read at all. Comments were very briefly summarized when they should have been read in full. If you would like to be put in touch with these commenters, please reach out to me at maggie@maggie4fulton.com and I will happily connect you.

I understand that there were 175 comments submitted for today’s meeting. I understand many of them were the same. I understand that the board made a decision to adapt the rules to try to create a more orderly process. The process was not followed as it was passed. Words matter, and summarizing or omitting the exact words in a comment conveys a completely different meaning. These residents simply wanted their personalized comments read and the substantially similar ones read in full at least once, as the board directed.