Adding or modifying an existing agenda item

[Guest Robert S.]

A city council board has an item scheduled on its published agenda.  The agenda item is a motion to rescind a decision from a previous council meeting:

A month earlier, the council had made a controversial decision, using zoning as a basis for a clever maneuver to block the installation of a much needed shelter for homeless women and children.  The people of the city came out to protest at the next council meeting and asked the city to reconsider its decision. 

However, before putting the rescind motion up for a vote, the city mayor indicated that he desired to introduce a new motion:  that before considering the original question that was voted on (which would be at a future date), he would like to introduce a new, previously unannounced dependency.  He announced that he would like to see a study performed to look into the future use of a nearby building.  He stated that the upcoming vote on whether or not the women and children's shelter would be allowed in that zoning code should be put off, until all things about the future use of this facility was understood.  He also added another motion that the city manager be assigned the task of meeting with the owners of that facility to talk to them.  This really upset the pubic as it gave the impression that the city was deliberately delaying a vote.  The council did vote to rescind their previous decision - unanimously.  However, we feel that they did so only because certain council people, who are against the shelter, knew about this late maneuver ahead of time.

In the following council meeting, the city manager gave a brief synopsis of his meeting with the owner of the neighboring facility.  Apparently unsatisfied with the results, the mayor announced that he would personally like to meet with said facility owner (again not the building being consider for shelter use but, the one next to it) so he could talk to them.  He then suggested that the council again put off having a vote concerning the suitability of zoning for the shelter until January 15th at the earliest, pending his investigation.

Question:  Was the mayors introduction of that motion, to have a "study" performed legal/within the rules - or was the mayor out of order ?

Thank-you,

Robert

 

[George Mervosh]

I've probably read this too many times but it seems like council adopted main motion X.  Council has since rescinded that adopted motion.  Seems fine.

In the middle of all of that the mayor seems to have made a rather confusing motion to commit this subject to further study (by the city manager) before council adopts any more main motions on this subject.  You don't say if the mayor's motion was adopted or not but apparently the action he proposed was taken.

Frankly I don't see any major problem with it based on these facts.  Council could have shot down that motion and taken further action if they really wanted to (it seems) or raised a point of order that his motion violated some rule.  They didn't, apparently. 

You should also check with your council's attorney to see if some rule outside of the ones in RONR were violated.

Edited January 3, 2018 at 09:10 PM by George Mervosh

[Joshua Katz]

3 hours ago, Guest Robert S. said:

The council did vote to rescind their previous decision - unanimously.  However, we feel that they did so only because certain council people, who are against the shelter, knew about this late maneuver ahead of time.

I thought I understood the story, until I came to this part, which seems not to make sense to me.  To borrow from Mr. Mervosh above, X appears to be blocking the installation under zoning laws.  (I'm not dealing with any legal issues, which may exist.)  Rescinding X, then, seems to be good for the shelter.  But now we're told that the council only rescinded X because people who support X knew about an apparent delaying tactic.  I don't see how that's possible, so I must be misreading something.

Other than that, I agree with Mr. Mervosh.  Whatever happened with the mayor's motions (in theory, the chair shouldn't be making motions unless small board rules are used, but it is still his right if he is a member), it doesn't appear to have impacted anything, since the motion to rescind still was adopted.  The mayor's motions probably should have been in the form of a motion to commit, and it's possible that their adoption should have prevented the council from taking further action, but it is too late to object to that anyway.