motion during closed session (no staff present)

[Guest Irene Weinberg]

I* live in a retirement community. A staff member was fired. Some of us wish to have her re-hired. We had a closed meeting (no staff present but residents were present). A motion was made to rehire the fired person and seconded. Our presiding officer said we could not have a motion during a closed session .Is that accurate?
 

[Chris Harrison]

Not as far as RONR is concerned though your rules may say otherwise so you should check them.  While you are checking those rules you should check to see if the residents even have the authority to hire a staff member without staff input/approval.

[jstackpo]

No, not accurate.  Your "closed session" is, I presume, what RONR calls an "executive session"  --  it is simply a normal meeting with the extra requirement that those attending the meeting keep secret (from non-members) the goings on.

[Guest Edgar]

While you are checking those rules you should check to see if the residents even have the authority to hire a staff member without staff input/approval.

 

I'm guessing the residents voted to recommend that the fired staff member be re-hired.

[Transpower]

The members of a retirement community ordinarily would not be the business owners and so would have no authority to hire or fire staff.  All that they could do is, as in the post above, recommend to the owners to rehire the fired staff member.

[Gary Novosielski]

I* live in a retirement community. A staff member was fired. Some of us wish to have her re-hired. We had a closed meeting (no staff present but residents were present). A motion was made to rehire the fired person and seconded. Our presiding officer said we could not have a motion during a closed session .Is that accurate?

 

No, there's no such rule in RONR.

 

But I'm hazy on exactly what organization was meeting here.  Was it in the nature of a mass meeting of residents, or is there a formally organized body of residents with membership requirements?

 

In any case, it's unlikely that such a body, and vanishingly unlikely that any mass meeting, would have the authority to overrule a personnel decision of the company that actually employed the individual in question. 

 

But they could express their wishes that the person be rehired, and they could do so in closed session.