The Planning Commission at Mackinaw City made a final round of changes to its proposed bylaws Thursday, March 26, and plans to approve them at a future meeting, leaving room for any subsequent revisions.

"We're way ahead of schedule on bylaws," said Rob Most, who chairs the commission. "We're not rushed to finish these. It's my thinking at this juncture that once we get through the main body and we've made changes, then we can let this sit a bit" before voting to approve.

The state is requiring planning commissions to adopt bylaws by 2011 to outline meeting procedure, policy, and action.

Regarding the order of business during meetings, the commission will allow only comments on non-agenda items during the public comment period. The rationale behind this edit is to keep the meetings as streamlined as possible by keeping comments on certain issues together.

"I would rather not have them standing up and addressing an item on the agenda during public comment, and then when we get to it, talk about it again. It's better to talk about it at the time our minds are on the topic," Mr. Most said.

The commission also discussed adding a three-minute time limit to public comments, but decided that would be too restrictive.

Commissioner Edward Whipkey spoke in favor of a time limit.

"If you know in advance, I think people can say what they want in 60 seconds . . . three minutes is a long time," he said.

Mr. Most said he would try to limit public comments at meetings with a large attendance to keep the meeting progressing.

Minor punctuation and clarity changes were also made to the commission bylaws at the meeting.

The proposed commission bylaws are an abbreviated sixpage version derived from a larger 23-page version produced through Michigan State University Extension under the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act.