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@Gary Novosielski Even though it explicitly states certain activities for each meeting, you don't view it as restrictive to only those activities?

@Joshua Katz Are you referring to the second reading rule, or just the referral of items in general? In practice, we commit to special committees, or back to a specific committee, when there's additional work that needs to be done on an item. The Second Reading rule applies to certain classes of business that comes before the body - mainly ordinances or changes to our own rules (of which these are two).

@Joshua Katz There's a separate rule regarding that, but essentially, the Moderator directs the Town Clerk as to which committees should be referred an "Item" prior to the meeting at which it will presumably be taken up. 3. Referral of Items to Standing Committees. The Moderator shall direct the Town Clerk, as clerk of the RTM, to refer all items on the call of the meeting to the proper standing committee(s). The Town Clerk shall deliver or mail to the chairmen, vice chairmen, or secretary of such RTM committee(s) as may be designated by the Moderator the application or recommendation, explanatory memoranda, accompanying draft of resolution, and copies of documents delivered to the Town Clerk by the officer or official board or party recommending the action.

My town legislative body (Representative Town Meeting) has a second reading rule in its amalgam of "rules" (as opposed to the Town Charter). Reading it again, it does not seem to allow for motions to commit or postpone, so it may be a "second reading and only two readings rule", but would love some outside opinion on it. Would motions to commit or postpone be in order? At which "reading"? Would it require suspending the rules? Any other thoughts/comments? Is there a better-written version of this type of rule? Maybe one that doesn't go into as much details but simply makes the resolution a general order for the next regular session after the first reading? The Proposed Resolution shall be voted upon by the Representative Town Meeting only when it has been subject to the following procedure: a. The Proposed Resolution, upon presentation to the Town Clerk, will be placed on the Call for the next Representative Town Meeting and referred to the appropriate committee(s) for review, revisions, and/or committee voting. b. The Proposed Resolution shall then be presented at that initial Representative Town Meeting, and committee reports shall be given. Discussion on the item will be appropriate. Motions to amend The Proposed Resolution may be voted upon at that meeting. c. The Moderator will then place the item on the Call of the next regularly scheduled Representative Town Meeting.d. The Proposed Resolution, having been placed on the Call for the next regularly scheduled (subsequent) Representative Town Meeting, shall be referred to the appropriate committees for a “second” reading, revisions and/or committee voting.e. The Proposed Resolution may then be considered, committee reports delivered, discussed, amended as desired and voted upon at that subsequent Representative Town Meeting. f. Following standard voting procedure, The Proposed Resolution may be voted upon without a second reading if such motion is made and duly seconded to suspend this rule and move to vote in the initial meeting when presented.

@Atul Kapur I think the short answer is that the appointments come from (and are moved at meetings by) a separate branch of government (executive), the members of which are ex officio non-voting members of the legislative body. We do not currently do postponements via the Consent Calendar. That is a suggestion in the thread that I am trying to understand. A motion to "suspend the rules to combine for voting purposes" the items to be postponed is made. Each item is read and discussed (very briefly), then a single vote is taken.

Here is the language governing our consent calendar... At the point in the meeting where the consent calendar is proposed, most of the members have only seen the items (actual resolutions) on the Call. Would it be acceptable for the Moderator to include motions to postpone those items on the Consent Calendar, presumably suggested by a Committee or District Chairperson?

Hmmm... "Resolution" to my mind referred to the original item on the Call, which is written as such, as opposed to a motion to Postpone said Resolution.

Assuming they meant "Lay on the Table", which the quote from the General Counsel implies they did ("at a later date", which you could not do if it was Postponed Indefinitely), there is a limitation on how long the motion can actually lay there... I read this to mean that the motion dies at the end of the next regularly scheduled school board meeting following the one at which it was tabled (assuming they are scheduled more frequently than quarterly). If you school board meets as frequently as mine, that could be only a couple of weeks (if not much sooner). I will leave the question of how the word "may", as opposed to "shall", is interpreted in your school board policies, to lawyers, but would note that any of the 4 options in 7(e) would presumably need to be accomplished in a parliamentary fashion through one or more motions.

Thanks for the thoughts on this. We normally handle this by "suspending the rules to combine the items for voting purposes". To fill in some of the blanks... We do not use an agenda. We do not have an order of business specified in our controlling documents. We do have a consent calendar procedure in our controlling documents, but it refers to "resolutions", not motions, so I don't think it'd be appropriate to handle this situation. We have a Call, compiled by the Town Clerk. We go through it in order (generally, as things are sent to that office, they are appended, with unfinished business and general orders/postponements simply listed first). Unless an item is withdrawn, the expectation is that we will take it up in some way. Other than the Consent Calendar and items that are combined, we rarely stray from the order in the Call.

Is there a good way to handle postponing multiple items at once? Example: multiple appointments where the nominees couldn't make interviews and our standard way of handling that is to postpone. Context: We can often have 10 appointments to handle at a meeting and if, say, three of them didn't make all of their interviews, we'd like to simply postpone all three - ideally with a single vote.

Thanks to @Josh Martin (now I don't have to ask @Dan Honemann about why suspending the rules is out of order!) Thanks to all, including @Dan Honemann for the insights. This may prompt a follow-up question, for which I will open another thread...

Is there a way to move an item past the next regularly scheduled business mtg (more frequent than quarterly)? My town legislative body tries to reserve our May mtg for approving the budget. What options are there to “postpone” an item from our April mtg to our June mtg? Refer to a committee and have the committee report in June suspend rules and postpone to the June Mtg anything else? Make a motion that it be a general order for June? If so, would that require 2/3s?

Thank you all very much for your input! This forum provide a tremendous service.

@Atul Kapur Yes, the state of CT open meetings provisions apply, which require an "agenda" published 24hr in advance of any meeting (except for some particular emergencies). The Town Clerk compiles all of the submitted items into the Call, and we generally deal with them in submitted order. Thank you for the confirmation on the second motion to rescind. @Gary Novosielski While I suspect that the motion to rescind is more likely to fail (some folks don't think the electronic voting issues were real + some don't like the idea that "final" votes can be rescinded/amended + those in favor of the original action vs those against the original action + some folks upset about the voting issues), I try to just consider the possibilities, not the likelihoods. Maybe folks vote to rescind and leave the meeting? 🤷‍♂️

My Town had a close vote on a controversial motion in January. There were some irregularities with the vote due to the use of a new electronic voting system. Two motions to rescind the action on that controversial motion appear on the March Call. (Presumably, if the first passes, the second is out of order.) Having gotten wind of the motions to rescind, the original controversial motion is also on the March Call. IF a motion to rescind passes, can the original motion be renewed immediately? Do the proponents need to wait until the next meeting (April) to renew it?

Beware of any applicable laws, too, especially open meetings laws or similar, if subject to them. These often require publication of an agenda in advance and may require a super-majority to take up a non-agenda item.

Historically, did a person from another unit do the seconding or another unit? If the unit, did the seconding unit have an internal vote on whether or not to second?

@Josh Martin You are correct on all assumptions and I greatly appreciate the reply!!

Nothing in the body's rules is clearly persuasive on this, hence the question(s).

bump

@Dan Honemann When is a non-meeting a meeting? 😉

I'm gonna shift off RONR and the example in the OP and add that in some states (CT certainly), any deliberative communication among a quorum of members of a public body can be considered a meeting. If 4 members of a 7-person committee run into each other at a restaurant and discuss a topic related to the committee, it could be construed as a meeting. An email back-and-forth amongst the committee members can be considered a meeting. These scenarios then run afoul of an open meetings requirement for notice.

Does a committee have the inherent right to address assembly-specific issues? If there is another committee which does have authority in the relevant area, but does not take up the issues, does that change anything? If the Labor Contracts Committee motion is ruled out of order at the meeting, but is properly noticed, can someone else simply make the same motion, and if seconded, have it taken up?

We had an electronic voting snafu at our last town legislature meeting. One of the committees took up the issues and wants to make some motions to the full body to correct them along with a motion to rescind a motion which passed by a very narrow vote made questionable by the procedures used at the meeting. Given that this committee has a narrow scope in the body's rules (bylaws), would their motions be in order? Here is the description... Function. The Labor Contracts Committee shall examine and analyze each proposed labor contract which has been imposed by arbitration or tentatively approved by the Town or the Board of Education of the Town and a labor union. For those contracts negotiated by the First Selectman, its scope of review shall be limited by the Municipal Employee Relations Act. It shall advise the assembly as to the desirability of ratifying all labor contracts. Does a committee have the inherent right to address assembly-specific issues? If there is another committee which does have authority in the relevant area, but does not take up the issues, does that change anything? If the Labor Contracts Committee motion is ruled out of order at the meeting, but is properly noticed, can someone else simply make the same motion, and if seconded, have it taken up?

In the original post, I think there's an implied distinction between the mechanistic preparation of the agenda vs the addition of specific items (eg a new resolution coming from the Library Director). Maybe I read too much into the question?