Quorum lost due to recusal

[Guest Gil Szabo]

Our City Council struck a task force to make recommendations regarding opportunities for growth. The task force consisted of 13 members. At the final task force meeting City Staff running the meeting recommended to the task force to make the following recommendation to City Council. "Remove the Spiller Road area as a 'growth area', and change the future land use designation of Spiller Road to 'Rural Residential'". There were 7 members present at the meeting and made several other recommendations previous to this one which were adopted. When it was time to vote on this recommendation, one member recused himself due to a potential conflict, leaving only 6 of the 13 members to vote. Neither the Chair, nor anyone else noticed the lack of Quorum for this vote. Should this vote still stand, or can this recommendation be thrown out? Thank you

[Drake Savory]

Quorum is based on members physically present at the meeting; it has nothing to do with how many people vote.  If you have a quorum then people recusing themselves, voting "present", abstaining, etc. does not affect the quorum.   Therefore it was a proper vote and the result stands.

Edited December 29, 2023 at 03:44 PM by Drake Savory

[Dan Honemann]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:14 AM, Guest Gil Szabo said:

Our City Council struck a task force to make recommendations regarding opportunities for growth. The task force consisted of 13 members. At the final task force meeting City Staff running the meeting recommended to the task force to make the following recommendation to City Council. "Remove the Spiller Road area as a 'growth area', and change the future land use designation of Spiller Road to 'Rural Residential'". There were 7 members present at the meeting and made several other recommendations previous to this one which were adopted. When it was time to vote on this recommendation, one member recused himself due to a potential conflict, leaving only 6 of the 13 members to vote. Neither the Chair, nor anyone else noticed the lack of Quorum for this vote. Should this vote still stand, or can this recommendation be thrown out? Thank you

As far as RONR is concerned, no perceived conflict of interest deprives a member of his right to vote, and his abstaining under such a circumstance has no effect upon the presence of a quorum.

Your Council's rules may provide otherwise.

[Atul Kapur]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:43 AM, Dan Honemann said:

Your Council's rules may provide otherwise.

Emphasizing this point for Guest Gil Szabo: the City Council that created the task force almost certainly has rules regarding recusal and, hopefully, any effect of refusal on quorum. Those rules supersede RONR (which doesn't mention refusal at all because RONR does not require it) and you should look for your answer there.

[Drake Savory]

There might be a possibility that the OP didn't mention.  Perhaps upon recusal the member (for whatever reason) left the meeting temporarily.  Then it would indeed affect quorum. 

[Gary Novosielski]

On 12/29/2023 at 10:14 AM, Guest Gil Szabo said:

Our City Council struck a task force to make recommendations regarding opportunities for growth. The task force consisted of 13 members. At the final task force meeting City Staff running the meeting recommended to the task force to make the following recommendation to City Council. "Remove the Spiller Road area as a 'growth area', and change the future land use designation of Spiller Road to 'Rural Residential'". There were 7 members present at the meeting and made several other recommendations previous to this one which were adopted. When it was time to vote on this recommendation, one member recused himself due to a potential conflict, leaving only 6 of the 13 members to vote. Neither the Chair, nor anyone else noticed the lack of Quorum for this vote. Should this vote still stand, or can this recommendation be thrown out? Thank you

Unless the member who abstained actually packed up and left the room, a quorum was not lost.